Dozens of people came out Wednesday to hear the CEO of the electric company OG&E speak about wind energy and the future of electric power.
OG&E CEO Peter Delaney was in Fort Smith Wednesday to speak to the Rotary Club about the future of wind energy. Currently they have 170,000 mega watts of wind energy, and they hope to add more than 100,000 more by the end of the month.
But wind energy is not enough Delaney says. They are trying to reduce their carbon footprint while finding innovative ways to provide energy. Delaney says OG&E has devised a plan to not build any fossil fuel plants for the next 12 years in an effort to slow global warming.
"Our 2020 plan talked about not building any new fossil fuel generations until after 2020. We hope we have some advances in technology and some clarity on legislation out of Washington about where we need to make our investments," said Delaney.
Delaney says one of the changes consumers may be seeing are smart grids, which would alert OG& E immediately to any outages in the area and allow consumers to track and monitor their energy usage at home."
OG&E applied for $130 million in stimulus funds to start a smart grid system. The system would allow the company to be able to pinpoint electricity outages from the moment they happen. There would also be in home monitors for consumers to track their usage and make changes to help reduce their bill.
"The bills would read automatically instead of having to read your meter. If you're out of power, you would know about it very quickly, where today you still have to call it in," said Delaney.
Delaney says they hope to have the smart grid in place within the next three years.
OG&E CEO Peter Delaney was in Fort Smith Wednesday to speak to the Rotary Club about the future of wind energy. Currently they have 170,000 mega watts of wind energy, and they hope to add more than 100,000 more by the end of the month.
But wind energy is not enough Delaney says. They are trying to reduce their carbon footprint while finding innovative ways to provide energy. Delaney says OG&E has devised a plan to not build any fossil fuel plants for the next 12 years in an effort to slow global warming.
"Our 2020 plan talked about not building any new fossil fuel generations until after 2020. We hope we have some advances in technology and some clarity on legislation out of Washington about where we need to make our investments," said Delaney.
Delaney says one of the changes consumers may be seeing are smart grids, which would alert OG& E immediately to any outages in the area and allow consumers to track and monitor their energy usage at home."
OG&E applied for $130 million in stimulus funds to start a smart grid system. The system would allow the company to be able to pinpoint electricity outages from the moment they happen. There would also be in home monitors for consumers to track their usage and make changes to help reduce their bill.
"The bills would read automatically instead of having to read your meter. If you're out of power, you would know about it very quickly, where today you still have to call it in," said Delaney.
Delaney says they hope to have the smart grid in place within the next three years.
