photo by Claire Henley Miller
The Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) recognized Chattanooga’s Smart Grid with the Performance Excellence in Electricity Renewal (PEER) certificate on Tuesday.
PEER defines, assesses, and verifies the overall sustainable performance of an electricity delivery system design and operations.
Operated by EPB, Smart Grid became the first major power distribution system to earn the PEER certificate.
“Overall, GBCI’s assessment identifies Chattanooga as a showcase example of a sustainable electric distribution system and a power industry leader,” officials said.
“This is a great moment,” said Mayor Andy Berke during the presentation held at Green Spaces on E. Main Street. “If it’s going to be the first, it’s going to be in Chattanooga.”
Mayor Berke discussed how Chattanooga, as a community, understands that energy is a form of currency, and that the cost and reliability of that energy is critical.
He honed in on the people who work at Southtree as an example. Every day they upload huge amounts of data from videotapes and old home movies so that the films can be viewed on computers. The reason Chattanooga is such a great fit for businesses like this is because of EPB’s reliable Smart Grid and fiber optic system, Mayor Berke said.
Speaking on behalf of Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger, Mike Dunne stated the importance of Smart Grid is that it is reliable and speedy. And energy and operations efficiency are good when a city is trying to support growth.
Mr. Dunn said thanks to Smart Grid, EPB has done a fantastic job finding breaks in power lines and getting the electricity back on. “It’s changed the way we use technology.”
The backbone to Smart Grid’s success is EPB’s fiber optics, which has the ability to communicate between tens of thousands of devices, said David Wade, chief operating officer at EPB.
Mr. Wade went into EPB’s self-healing network that has specialized computers and automated switches to pinpoint breaks and reroute power.
It took over a year to assess EBP in light of the PEER certificate. The assessment consisted of a thorough review of 69 criteria in four major groups: operational effectiveness, customer contribution, reliability and resiliency, and energy efficiency and environment.
“Surpassing the 240 points required for PEER certification, Chattanooga’s power grid scored 294.3 points, nearly 23 percent higher than the designation’s base condition. Chattanooga earned a perfect score in 18 of the 69 specific criteria including Reliability and Power Quality, Energy Efficiency Savings and Operations/Maintenance Efficiency,” the press release said.
According to Mr. Wade, it is always good to have a third party like GBCI come in and validate what EPB is doing.
“We constantly strive to enhance the value of the electric service we deliver to our customers,” Mr. Wade said. “We want every home and business that we serve to have high quality, reliable energy that keeps people comfortable in their homes while helping businesses grow our local economy.”
EPB customers are reportedly seeing 55-60 percent less outages than before. One reason for this is because EPB has been giving customers more tools to better manage energy consumption.
“This system was really built to be a platform for the future,” Mr. Wade said.
He believes EPB is one of many organizations that constantly thinks on how it can make things better for the community.
“The future is extremely bright,” he said.