The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has awarded a contract to assess distributed generation and its impact on costs and improvement of electricity service and reliability for Long Beach Island.
EDISON, New Jersey, US, 2001-05-07 <SolarAccess.com> Electrotek Concepts and Conectiv Power Delivery have been awarded a contract that is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to promote energy efficiency, advance new technologies, and reduce the environmental impact of energy use. The strategy is designed to estimate the cost of increasing and maintaining electricity reliability to LBI, a popular New Jersey summertime resort. DG will be investigated as an alternative to traditional expansion of transmission and distribution systems, and the project will create a “real-world laboratory” for demonstrating the technical, economic and environmental impacts of DG as a power supply strategy. “Distributed generation offers a solution to the struggle faced by the entire power industry in meeting unprecedented electricity supply and quality demands,” says Joseph Rivas, president and CEO of WPT. The project provides opportunities not only for LBI, but for the entire electricity industry and its understanding of distributed generation. The project will be conducted in three phases in collaboration with Conectiv Power Delivery and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Division of Energy. The first phase will use the modeling tool Distco Suite that was developed by Electrotek and Energy & Environmental Economics, to analyze the current distribution systems on the Island to determine “if, when and where” advanced DG technologies would be appropriate to improve system reliability and decrease system cost. The second phase will purchase fuel cells and microturbines, and install them in target locations to meet peak demand requirements and improve system reliability. The final phase will centre on field-testing selected DG technologies. “This project has the potential to increase the supply and use of clean energy, while helping to reduce the need for reinforcing and expanding distribution and transmission networks,” says Electrotek president Charles Smith. Electrotek is an electric power consulting firm that specializes in utility power systems and renewable energy. It is a division of WPT Inc. of Edison, New Jersey.
