Aperture Center at Mesa Del Sol Selected To Be a Smart Grid Test Site

Albuquerque, NM – July 25, 2010 The Aperture Center at Mesa del Sol will be one of two New Mexico sites for testing smart grid technologies as part of the U.S.-Japan Smart Grid Collaborative Demonstration Project over the next four years.

"We are committed to energy solutions, and this project seeks to put Mesa del Sol at the forefront of creating a workable smart grid in the near future using renewable energy forms," Michael Daly, president of Mesa del Sol, said in a statement.

The statewide project is being carried out by NEDO — the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization — along with the state of New Mexico, Los Alamos County, PNM, Mesa del Sol, and Sandia and Los Alamos national labs.

Smart grids, organizers said, are new-generation electrical networks that efficiently control and balance supply and demand of power with digital information. The challenge is to integrate small and large-scale energy sources including renewables.

"This NEDO-New Mexico project can be a major resource for future introduction of wind, solar and other renewable forms of energy into our main grid," Thomas Bowles, science advisor to Gov. Bill Richardson, said in a statement.

NEDO picked the Aperture Center — already a LEED silver certified building designed by Antoine Predock — as a test site for a commercial microgrid, to aid in the introduction of renewable technologies into the power supply.

Los Alamos County has been selected for the residential component of the NEDO smart grid project. There, the project will implement and demonstrate three basic components: smart meters, utility scale photo voltaic and a smart feeder.

The overall objective of the projects and research is to produce significant innovations in the field of smart grid technology. Nineteen Japanese industry vendors including Toshiba, Kyocera, Sharp, Itochu and Shimizu are participating in the program.