Partnerships to Enable Smart Cities And Support Resiliency

Electric utilities across the world are investing in smart city technology, from microgrids to electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure to increase grid resilience and move toward beneficial electrification. Investing in the technology, however, is not enough to ensure the widescale replication and adoption of smart city technologies necessary to achieve decarbonization goals. Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), the electric utility serving over 4 million customers in northern Illinois, including Chicago, is building strategic partnerships in academia to measure the impact of resilience efforts. This paper will explore partnerships ComEd has developed with the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at the Earth Institute of Columbia University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to study the impacts of emerging energy technology for widescale replication worldwide. Electric utilities must go beyond investment in smart grid technology. Studying, sharing, and modelling best practices through strategic partnerships is a necessary part of investment in emerging energy technologies to benefit rate payers and stakeholders.