Pepco seeks $254M in stimulus money - Washington Business Journal:

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the mid-Atlantic and New Jersey. The grants, if approved, woulfd come from the Department of Energy undefr the American Recovery and Revitalization Act Smart Grid InvestmenyGrant Program. Pepco is seeking the largest funding for smartfgrid technology, $142 million, to help pay for advancef metering, distribution automation and direct load equipmentr in the District and Maryland. Pepco’s Delmarvaz Power, which has customerse in Maryland and isseeking $93 million in smartf grid grants for similar upgrades. Pepco’es Atlantic City Electric, with customerse in Southern New Jersey, will apply for $19 million.
“Everyy dollar we obtain from the federal governmenf offsets the cost customers would otherwise pay to make thesse important improvements tothe system,” said Pepco Regiob president Thomas Graham in a statement. The amountss requested would pay for half of the totak costof upgrades, the maximum possible under the grant program, Pepco said. Pepcp (NYSE: POM) follows Baltimore Gas Electric, which is applying for $200 million in smart grid stimuluws funds. Dominion Power is also seekingt $200 million in stimulus grants to install smarft meters in each ofits territory’ws 2.
3 million homes and businesses by 2012, two years earlier than originallyg planned when the Virginia utilityh first announced its $600 million smart grid plan last year. In a separate electric utility studuy whose results werereleased Thursday, Pepco had the highesg jump of any utility nationwide in customerd satisfaction from last year to this year, going from an 11th placr ranking to fourth place amontg 17 large utilites in the eastern which covers Maryland and D.C.
In that same BG&E ranked as the 15th Though, Pepco scored one pointy shy of the national average in customerreviews -- which througjh online interviews, rated the utilitiesd on power quality, grid reliability, price, billing, corporate citizenship, communicationd and customer service. Still, the local utility scored well abovr the easternregional average. Dominion Virginia Power ranked nintbh this year among 13largse utilites, earning one more point than the nationa l average, but scoring below the high regional averagre in the southern region, which includesw Virginia.