Tantalus, a leading provider of Smart Grid technology, today announced with Zpryme a smart grid survey of 81 U.S. municipal utilities. The executive survey found that cost poses the most significant challenge for smart grid initiatives. Despite challenges with cost, many municipal utilities are embracing smart grid technologies, particularly AMI meters and data analytics.

“Now more than ever, public power utilities are increasingly focused on quantifying the benefits of leveraging access to real-time data to power smart grid applications,” remarked Tammy Zucco, Chief Marketing Office for Tantalus. “It is clear that the long-term benefits of smart grid extend beyond basic metering to all utility stakeholders.”

Key Takeaways

  • Nearly all municipal utilities have some sort of smart grid effort. Many are at the planning and investigation phase (30%), while others are taking it to the next level. Up from 14% last year, 22% are taking on large-scale deployments.
  • More than 50% of municipal utilities see a positive impact from smart grid programs. Those seeing no noticeable effect is largely due to programs just getting started, the negative effects are often due to consumer backlash.
  • The most significant challenge for a smarter grid is budget limitations (42%), followed by concerns around technology maturity and availability (15%).
  • Despite challenges, there is smart grid spending at municipal utilities. In the next 12 months many companies are spending up to $1M on smart grid technologies; the next 36 months will bring some spending closer to $5M or more.

About Tantalus

Tantalus provides a two-way, multi-purpose platform that enables access to data to power advanced Smart Grid applications for monitoring and control of electric, water and gas municipal and cooperative utilities. TUNet® – the Tantalus Utility Network – is an award winning end-to-end WAN/FAN/LAN/Grid Edge communications system that utilizes IP-based networks including Fiber, WiMAX and cellular as well as 220 & 900 MHz wireless RF. TUNet is purpose built for the Smart Grid and unites utility applications through distributed computing capability embedded at every endpoint. The result is enhanced value across all utility departments through solutions such as automated metering, outage management, power quality monitoring, load management, and distribution automation that are both cost-effective and practical to deploy throughout urban and rural service areas. For more information, please visit tantalus.com.