WPPI Energy (formerly Wisconsin Public Power Inc.) is a Joint Action Agency serving 51 customer-owned electric utilities in three Midwestern states with annual revenues close to $1/2 billion. WPPI Energy leverages collective buying power for energy purchases and has increasingly started to use its central organizational role for joint actions that obtain synergies and offset costs on behalf of its members.

Recently, WPPI Energy established a task-force to examine what impacts developments in smart grid technologies and strategies should have on its operations, as well as on its members. WPPI Energy is in the process of developing a cross-organizational smart grid strategy and roadmap, including impact on its flexible rate plans, billing, customer information systems (CIS), automated metering infrastructure (AMI), and the role that distribution automation (DA) should play, as well as business case considerations for investments in these areas. Due to WPPI Energy’s regional nature, interoperability and information security are very important considerations at a number of levels within the future smart grid strategy.

This paper reviews some activities undertaken to develop the roadmap, including assessment of the current situation, looking at best practices for similar organizations, assessing potential technology areas, identifying areas of most potential investment value, and developing a roadmap to guide the path forward.

While the needs of the individual distribution utilities were similar to those of individual utilities across the country, the expected needs of WPPI Energy were:

• To enable more flexible and dynamic rate programs;
• To create better peak load shifting and shaving capabilities; and
• To capture, analyze, and utilize the impending new data that will be available via individual distribution utility technology implementations.