From funds made available by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the DOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) has issued this competitive Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for Smart Grid Demonstrations.

Smart Grid projects will include regionally unique

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demonstrations to verify smart grid technology viability, quantify smart grid costs and benefits, and validate new smart grid business models, at a scale that can be readily adapted and replicated around the country.The goal of this FOA is to demonstrate technologies in regions across the States, Districts, and Territories of the United States of America that embody essential and salient characteristics of each region and present a suite of use cases for national implementation and replication.

From these use cases, the goal is to collect and provide the optimal amount of information necessary for customers, distributors, and generators to change their behavior in a way that reduces system demands and costs, increases energy efficiency, optimally allocates and matches demand and resources to meet that demand, and increases the reliability of the grid.

The social benefits of a smart grid are reduced emissions, lower costs, increased reliability, greater security and flexibility to accommodate new energy technologies, including renewable, intermittent and distributed sources.