Vermont Electric Coop Wins POWER Magazine Smart Grid Award
Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) was recognized as the winner of the inaugural POWER Smart Grid Award. Among other smart grid technologies, VEC has implemented bidirectional meters, a new GPS-enabled outage management system, substation upgrades, and online access to electricity usage information. These efforts have cut outages in the VEC territory in half. They have also reduced outage time and improved customers’ understanding of their monthly bills. This article describes VEC’s efforts in more detail.