Adoption of Smart Grid Technologies: Results of a Survey of U.S. Electric Utilities

Smart grid technologies have great potential benefits, yet their adoption is uneven. We surveyed 198 U.S. utilities regarding their deployment and integration of smart grid technologies, motivations for and obstacles to deployment, and organizational impacts. The most widely adopted grid-side technologies are two-way SCADA, outage management systems (OMS) and meter data management systems (MDMS). Among customers, only web portals are widely adopted. The main motivations for adoption are reliability, efficiency and cost reduction. The main obstacles are perceived immaturity of new technologies, lack of funds, and lack of expertise. Smart grid adoption requires system integration, breaking down organizational siloes, changing existing processes and acquiring new knowledge. Organizational…