Obama's stimulus nets Naperville $11 million for smarter electric system

WASHINGTON - Naperville will be awarded $10.9 million to upgrade the city's electric service as part of a $3.4 billion renewable energy program President Barack Obama announced Tuesday.

The Naperville project is one of 100 nationally aimed at modernizing the nation's power grid and supporting renewable energy.

"We are very pleased," said Allan Poole, the city's public utilities director.

The grant will allow the city to deploy more than 57,000 smart meters and install the needed infrastructure. The meters will allow consumers to follow in real-time the cost of electricity consumption, therefore getting them involved in lowering their costs by shifting their use of power.

As Poole explained, it is "cheaper to use power at night than during the peak time." The higher the demand, the higher the costs.

"If we lower our demand we can lower our costs of electricity and pass these economies along to customers," he said.

Poole said the city filed an application in August after having worked on smart grids for years. Naperville's project represents the only award in Illinois.

According to an analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute, the implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030. That would mean a saving of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country.

Obama said a modern grid could give consumers better control over their electricity usage and costs, and spur development of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

"There's something big happening in America in terms of creating a clean-energy economy," the president said during his announcement in west-central Florida, where he was touring a field of solar energy panels Tuesday.

The $3.4 billion in grants from the government's January economic stimulus program will be matched by $4.7 billion in private investments. The smallest grant will be $400,000 and the largest $200 million.

The money will be distributed over the next two months and the work is expected to be done over the next one to three years, said Matt Rogers, an federal Energy Department official involved in the program.

Poole estimated that meters in Naperville will be extended over a three-year period.

Daily Herald news services contributed to this report.