Empire State: Building with Smart Grid Grants, Hold the Security

There was a release today from Governor Patterson's office in Albany about the creation of a new Smart Grid Consortium in New York. Feel free to read the release, as it exhibits strong exothermic properties. Within it, however, is a reference to the new NY State Smart Grid Consortium Smart Grid Vision and and Technical Plan Report (Draft).

I would encourage you to use it as a resource, there are some nice charts, and it is truly a tutorial on merging real energy thinking with real politicking around grant dollars. Jobs, dollars, energy, etc., like political Prego, "It's in there."

As all of us in the Smart Grid community know, there is a double-edged sword in the hands of government these days, and it is called the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, and we have written of it here before. A real boon, for all of the incentive it provides, and a recipe for long-term disaster as it drives substantial investment long before the community has matured in its understanding of need and security.

Most unfortunate in this report is its complete lack of focus on security, except for sprinkling the word into the document, hoping perhaps to ward off any real requirement of substantiated activity. I urge the NYS Consortium to remember that there are few areas of the country where blackouts have caused such chaos, and where potential blackouts would have such a devastating effect on the enormous financial, media, and technical communities that populate it. This graph, from page 44, says it all:


Someone in a New York utility has got to be doing something...