Between the Poles

Autodesk Map 3D Enterprise and Milsoft Windmil EA interoperability certified by MultiSpeak

AutoCAD Map 3D Enterprise 2012 has been certified as a MultiSpeak 3.0 Interoperable Product, specifically with Milsoft EA as a target application.  Multispeak certification is the result of a joint initiative of Autodesk, which is a certified MultiSpeak Software Developer, and Brockwell IT.

Multispeak is an interoperability initiative initiated by NRECA and software vendors.  Interest in the MultiSpeak initiative is growing including among investor owned utilities. For example the Southern Company has recently joined the initiative.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which has developed a Smart Grid Conceptual Reference Model as part of its Smart Grid Standards Framework and Roadmap, has chosen Multispeak as a standard for the NIST smart grid reference model.

Making substation design more efficient and more fun

I have blogged previously about how Duke Energy and Nashville Electrical Service have used model-based design to make substation design more efficient.  

Next week, on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 from 2 – 3:30 p.m. (Eastern Time), Terri Humel,  Principal Associate Engineer on the substation design team at Nashville Electric Service (NES), in Nashville, Tennesse, will describe on a American Public Power Association (APPA) webcast how her team is using model-based design ( also known as BIM ) to double design productivity, improve design quality, and communicate more effectivily with non-technical stakeholders.  They are also finding that the new technology is a lot more fun than traditional CAD-based substation design.

Many utilities are incorporating 3D design tools into their processes, but Nashville Electric Service (NES) is going even further.  NES is creating intelligent digital models of their 60 existing substations, which can then be used to design rehabilitation and upgrades.  This allows many of the formerly time-consuming aspects of the design process to be automated.  NES has found that with this approach the design process has been cut in half, human error reduced, and design quality increased. NES expects its enhanced design process to help it meet a number of challenges including a workforce nearing retirement and the need to use resources more efficiently in the smart grid era.

Speakers:Terri Humel, Principal Associate Engineer, Nashville Electric Service, Tenn.
Geoff Zeiss, Industry Program Director, Utilities, Autodesk

This webinar is worth .2 CEU/1.5 PDH credits.

You can register here

ACE11 50% water reuse in Singapore

Another fascinating session at this year's American Water Works Assn (AWWA) annual conference and exposition (ACE11) was the H₂Open Forum - Envisioning the Future where several people who are on the leading edge of the new water industry were invited to talk about what they see as the future of the industry.  Khoo Teng Chye, of Singapore's Public Utilities Board (PUB) and a member of the Singapore Centre for Liveable Cities, talked about some of the remarkable achievments that Singapore has accomplished to become more self-sufficient in water.

Water supply

Singapore avereages 2.4 meters of rain annually, but with the second highest population density in the world, this is still insufficient to satisify Singapore's water requirements.  Singapore has to buy a significant porportion of its water from Malaysia. 

To reduce its dependence on imported water, Singapore has focussed on finding alternative sources of supply including harvesting rainwater, recycling water, and desalination.  Impervious surfaces in Singapore have been exploited for rainwater harvesting to the point where two thirds of Singapore's area is now being used for water catchment.  Singapore is building its second desalination plant.  But the really unique and remarkable achievement is that 50% of Singapore's water is recycled.  To accomplish this required public education and new terminology.  Recycled water is called new water in Singapore, there has been a public education program to explain to the public the technology used to reclaim water, and the Prime Minister and other public officials have publically drunk new water to demonstrate its safety,

Demand

The other part of the Singapore water program is reducing demand through a conservation program involving pricing and both voluntary and mandatory public participation.  The PUB has developed water conservation programs like the 10% Challenge to encourage households and industries to reduce their comsumption by 10% and the 10-Litre Challenge to encourage households to reduce their consumption by 10 liters of water a day. The aim of the conservation program is to lower per capita domestic consumption from the current 156 litres to 147 litres per day by 2020.

Turning a resource into an asset

The thrid area that the PUB has focussed on is to make water an asset - by turning water facilities such as drains, canals, catchments and revervoirs into something more attractive than the traditional concrete found in most citiies and an environmental asset.

The second part of this involves what Singapore has become the world model for, turning something done out of necessity into a business advantage, by creating a world recognized water industry in Singapore.  Singapore's experiences in water has built capabilities in water management which are recognized as valuable in other water jurisdictions.  To further encourage this industry S$330 million has been allocated by the Singapore government to make Singapore into a global hydrohub for water technology and research.

ACE11 Issues facing the water industry in North America

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) held its annual Annual Conference & Exposition (ACE11) last week in Washington, D.C.  It was an amazing experience.  There were over 500 exhibitors and on-site attendance was expected to be over 11,000 this year and a number of the talks and presentations were available virtually.  This is a North American event with Mexicans and Canadians in attendance in addition to US participants.

Trends in the Water Industry

To me the key sessions were a series on the important trends facing the water industry.  One of the most important sources of information about trends in the North American Water Industry is the annual AWWA State of the Industry (SOTI) report.  This year's report will be coming out in the fall, but preliminary results from the annual survey of water professionals were presented last week.

The most important issue over the next year or two identified by the survey by a wide margin is business factors.

• business factors (over 50%)
• regulatory (~27%)
• source water (~16%)

Respondents were also asked to look ahead and identify what they saw as the important issues in the next three to five years.  Again about 50% identified business factors as the most important issue.

Business factor #1

The water industry is unique in the utility sector for a number of reasons.  But the most important is that safe drinking water is critical for public health. 

Secondly the water distribution network is perceived to be our most important infrastructure network.  I know people who after the last ice storm in Ontario didn't have electric power for a week, some for a month, but it is inconceivable for most of us to go without water for more than a few hours at most.

Thirdly, for most North Americans access to clean water is considered to be a basic right.  Americans accept cutting electric power and telephone for non-payment of bills, but cutting water is equivalent to eviction.  As a result 90% of US water utilities are government owned and the concept of wholesale privatization of the water industry is not popular.  The result is that a significant proportion of North American water is not metered, Chicago is an example, and where it is metered people strongly object to paying for water what they are paying for their cell phone or cable TV.  Speaker after speaker reiterated the importance of communications, of making the public aware of how much is involved in providing safe drinking water, as the fundamental problem facing the industry, because until this is solved it will be difficult to find funding to address the challenges facing the industry.  Several speakers said federal and state funds can not be expected to address the funding shortfall.  In fact there is a serious risk that funding from the federal government could decrease in the future.

Other business factors

Increasing costs

Water infrastructure is capital intensive.  In the drinking water industry you need to invest $7 to get a dollar in revenue.  Wastewater is even worse, $8 of investment to get a dollar.  By comparison in the electric power industry between $1.60 and a $1.70 will get a dollar in revenue.  And capital costs in the water industry are going up at twice the rate of inflation.

Aging infrastructure

Secondly It is estimated that 30% of US water infrastructure is old, meaning beyond its rated lifetime.  Maintaining old infrastructure is expensive.  There are about 700 water main breaks per day in the US costing about $2.6 billion annually to repair.  42 billion gallons of drinking water are produced and delivered every day in the US, of which 7 billion gallons, or 18% is lost through leakage.  In addition US water systems consume 56 billion kWh of electric power annually, primarily for pumping, and the annual electric power bill of the water industry is $4 billion.  Over 10% of this, 5-10 billion kWh is spent to produce water that is not paid for.

Rate structures

Thirdly, per capita consumption is declining in much of North America, which means that a simple volumetric rate structure is not going to lead to increased revenue for water utilities.  A number of alternative rate structures are being tried.  As an example, an increasing block rate, which means that the rate per liter or per gallon increases with the more water you use, is used by an increasing number of municipal water systems, because it encourages conservation and provides a mechanism for increasing revenue to the water utility.  I've blogged about what Atlanta and Houston have been doing to increase water revenue.

Aging workforce

Another serious challenge is the aging workforce.  Of the water workforce in the US 37% of water utility workers and 31% of wastewater utility workers will be eligible to retire by 2018.  It is projected that employment in the water supply and sanitation sector needs to  grow at a rate of 45% in coming years, but the pool of available, technically skilled workers is shrinking.  Several talks at the conference addressed the issue of knowledge capture and transfer. 

Technology and innovation

The aging workforce, increasing costs and funding challenges are driving an increased focus on efficiency in the water industry, which in turn is driving water utilities to increasingly turn to technology.  A related theme that I heard in a number of sessions is the need for the water industry to increase the pace of innovation - this from an industry that has not traditionally placed a lot of emphasis on innovation.

Increasing regulation

 Regulation of the water industry in the US is primarily a local and a federal (EPA) responsibility. In only four states does the state regulate the water industry.  There were a number of presentation on the issue of increased regulation, including from senior members of the EPA. 

I have blogged about the EPA study currently underway to assess the impact of the shale gas industry, especially fracking, on water quality in the US.

The next major area of increased regulation is volatile organic compounds (VOC), which includes solvents.  An area of major concern to the EPA and as a result to the water industry is pharmaceuticals in the water supply, in particular what are referred to as endocrine-altering compounds.

Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) continue to get a lot of attention in the industry not only because of the magnitude of the consent decrees that the EPA has imposed on a number of municipalities, but also because of increasing public awareness of a problem about which Teddy Roosevelt was quoted as saying, "Civilized people should be able to dispose of sewage in an better way than by putting it in the drinking water."

Sustainability

If there was one topic that seemed to recur more than any other, with the exception of funding, it was sustainability.  A common thread was the discussion on how water utilities can best adapt to climate change.  The AWWA has a Climate Change and Sustainability Technical Advisory Workgroup (TAW) that is investigating developing a sustainability rating tool, dubbed WITAF 660, to measure sustainability in the drinking water industry.

Smart Grid in Germany: The context

In 2005 the European Commission set up the SmartGrids European Technology Platform for Electricity Networks of the Future with the aim of creating a vision for the development of Europe’s electricity networks for 2020 and beyond. The drivers for the new European grid included renewal of the aging European grid, security of supply, market liberalization, interoperability of European electricity networks, distributed generation and renewable energy, environmental issues, demand response and demand side management, harmonisation of policies and regulatory frameworks across the European Union (EU) context, and the changing demand of an ageing society.

In 2010 the European Commission launched its smart grid initiative.  The European Electricity Grid Initiative (EEGI) proposed a nine year European research, development and demonstration program to be initiated by electricity transmission and distribution network operators to develop a next generation smart grid electricity network for Europe to be deployed between 2010 to 2030.  Its objectives are

• Integration of renewable and distributed sources of electricity
• Integration of national networks into a single European electricity market
• Improved reliability of electricity supply
• Customer participation
• Support for electric vehicles
• Efficiency
• Business opportunities

In April 2011 the European Commission adopted Smart Grids: from innovation to deployment, which sets policy directions for the deployment of future European electricity networks. Smart grids will empower consumers,  integrate renewable energy,  reduce CO₂ emissions in the EU by 9% and annual household energy consumption by 10%, enable the EU-wide electricity market, and ensure the security and reliability of the EU electric power grid.

Masterplan for Energy Supply in Germany

German electricity generation has been about one half coal and one fifth nuclear.  In 2010 17% of Germany's electricity was produced from renewable energy sources (mostly wind and biomass).  In September 2010 the German Government released a 40 year masterplan for revolutionizing the German energy supply.  It outlines a plan for increasing renewable energy, expanding the electric power grid geographically and functionally, rapidly developing energy storage and aggressive energy conservation.

Increase renewable energy

• increase offshore wind power generation to 25 gigawatts by 2030 costing about €75 billion
• expand biomass production including importing bio fuels
• increase solar power capacity to 51 gigawatts by 2020
• continue to use coal for power generation
• test carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology by building two test plants with long-term CO₂ storage in Germany by 2020

Expand the power grid (to be defined by "Target Grid 2050" in 2011)

• construct north-south transmission lines bringing power from wind farms in the north to the main conurbations in the west and south of the country
• integrate with a European supergrid to allow surplus German power to be stored in hydroelectric plants in Norway or in the Alps, and draw on solar power from Spain and elsewhere
• develop a smart grid to enable distributed generation

Expand electricity storage technologies

• exploit German capacity for pumped storage hydroelectric plants
• increase the usage of foreign pumped storage plants, mainly in Norway and the Alps.
• use biomass to offset fluctuations in wind and sun.
• develop storage technologies such as compressed air energy storage, hydrogen storage and batteries for electric vehicles.

Energy conservation

• introduce new insulation standards.  The government's intention is for all buildings in Germany to be refurbished in line with new insulation standards by 2050.
• cut the national heating requirement by 20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050. Buildings currently account for 40 percent of power consumption and a third of CO₂ emissions.
• provide allow tax relief on energy taxes beginning in 2013 to companies contributing to energy savings.  It is estimated that energy efficiency could save €10 billion per year.

Electrification of transportation and heating

• Targets 1 million electric vehicles on German roads by 2020, 5 million by 2030, and 80% market share for electric and hybrid by 2040
• Introduce new vehicle registration rules in 2011 to encourage people who drive electric cars
• Reduce CO2 emissions from 160 grams per kilometer to 35 grams by 2040
• Increase the share of renewable energies for heating

Since the energy master plan was released, the Fukushima disaster has happened.  At the end of May of this year the German Government announced that all German nuclear power plants will be required to go off-line by 2022.  The implications of this announcement are being assessed, but it clearly means the accelerated development of renewable and non-emitting energy and the accelerated development of a smart grid that is able to integrate distributed generation on a massive scale.

 

 

Smart Grid to Enable the Low Carbon Economy in the UK: Piloting the Smart Grid

In an earlier blog I outlined the motivation for, the important elements of, expected benefits of, and the strategy for developing the UK smart grid. 

Regulation

The Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) regulates the electricity and gas markets in the UK and is a prime mover in implementing the UK smart grid.  Ofgem is governed by an Authority whose powers are provided for under the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989, the Utilities Act 2000, the Competition Act 1998 and the Enterprise Act 2002.  Its priority is protecting consumers.  The interests of gas and electricity consumers include the reduction of greenhouse gases and security of the supply of gas and electricity.  To do this it promotes competitive gas and electricity markets and regulates the monopoly companies which operate the gas and electricity networks to ensure adequate investment in the networks.  Ofgem is funded by the licensed companies it regulates who are obliged to pay an annual licence fee which is set to cover Ofgem’s costs.

Electricity Distribution in the UK

In the UK electricity distribution networks carry electricity from the transmission systems and local generators to consumers.  There are 14 licensed distribution network operators (DNOs) which are owned by seven different groups. There are also four independent network operators (IDNOs) which run smaller networks embedded in the DNO networks.  Consumers buy their electricity from suppliers who pay the DNOs for use of their networks to transport electricity. Ofgem is responsible for price controls for the 14 companies that run the regional electricity networks, four companies that operate the energy transmission networks and the four companies that own the local gas distribution networks.   Price controls set the maximum amount of revenue which energy network owners can charge consumers to cover their costs and earn a return on their investment.

Smart Grid and the Low Carbon Networks Fund

As part of its electricity distribution price control arrangements for 2010 to 2015, Ofgem established the Low Carbon Networks (LCN) Fund, which provides for up to £500 million to the distribution network operators (DNOs) to understand what they need to do to develop a smart grid and assist in the creation of a low carbon economy.

The LCN Fund provides two tiers of funding. The First Tier is designed to enable DNOs to recover a proportion of expenditure incurred on small scale projects.  The Second Tier provides for up to £64million annually awarded competitively for a small number of flagship projects.

In the first year (2010), four projects were awarded Second Tier funding
•    Customer-led Network Revolution (CE Electric UK)
•    Low Carbon London (UK Power Networks)
•    Low Carbon Hub (Central Networks)
•    LV Network Templates for a low carbon future (Western Power Distribution)
These include trials to assess the impact on the networks of electric vehicles and wind and solar generation; how best to provide timely and efficient connection to renewable generation; the role that demand side response can play in future network operation and the extent to which time of use tariffs [and smart meters] are successful in changing consumption patterns.

Customer-led Network Revolution

The largest Second Tier award in 2010 was £27 million for a £54 million project developed by CE Electric UK and its partners, British Gas, Durham University and EA Technology.  The project plans to involve 14,000 homes and businesses in the north of England and is aimed at reducing both energy costs and carbon emissions.

Over a three-year period, CE Electric and its partners plan to pilot smart grid solutions on the higher voltage networks within the electricity grid as well as creating clusters of smart-enabled homes.  The project will roll out smart meters to 14,000 customers in the North East and Yorkshire.  In addition, 2,500 customers will be installing solar PV panels, heat pumps or charging stations for electric vehicles.  The results are intended to help the DNOs ensure that the electric power networks can handle the mass introduction of distributed generation (solar panels), electric cars and other green technology.  It brings together Britian’s largest regional wires-only distributor (CE Electric) and largest national unaffiliated energy retailer (British Gas) to test a range of customer-side innovations (tariffs and load control incentives) alone and in combination with network-side technology including voltage control, real time thermal rating and storage.  The project is designed to produce five learning outcomes: (1) customer characteristics, (2) customer flexibility, (3) network flexibility, (4) optimum solution to resolve network constraints, (5) effective means to deliver optimal solutions.

Smart Grid to Enable the Low Carbon Economy in the UK: The Vision

All of the world's major economies have committed to transitioning their electric power grids to smart grids.  I have blogged about smart grid programs in the US, Canada, Korea, Japan, China, India, Australia, and the European Union.  In each country, and in reality in each utility, the motivation for moving to a smart grid and the priorities of the different elements that make up a smart grid are rarely the same.

At the end of 2009 the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) prepared a vision document called Smarter Grids: The Opportunity which outlined the motivation for and the important elements of the smart grid from a UK perspective.

Low Carbon Economy

The UK has a legally binding committment (Low Carbon Transition Plan 2009) to reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.  Since about 80% of electric power generation in the UK is derived from fossil fuels, mostly coal but increasingly natural gas, this requires a major investment in renewables and other non-emitting fuel types. It means transitioning from a small number of large electricity generating plants to many small, local generating facilities.  It also means increasing the usage of electric power for heating and transportation which will increase the demand for electricity.  In the short term the UK Government has signed up to the EU Renewable Energy Directive, which includes a UK target of 15 percent of energy from renewables by 2020.

Smarter Grid

The current grid in the UK is relatively simple.  A small number of large carbon intensive power plants generate electricity that is carried over high voltage transmission lines to electric distribution networks where through a series of substations the voltage is reduced and delivered at 230 V to consumers.  Balancing demand, which fluctuates through out the day as well as seasonally, and generation is done manually.

Balancing increasing electric power demand with many small intermittent energy sources requires a smarter grid which automates many of the functions that are done manually with the current electric power grid.  The advantages of a smart grid from DECC's perspective are more reliability, lower operating and maintenance costs, lower investment in capital infrastructure per kilowatt, and less environmental impact.

The key elements of a UK smart grid that have been identified by DECC include

• Applying information and communications technologies (ICTs) to the grid - making the grid inetlligent by automating the grid with bidirectional communications networks, automated substations, smart devices, and software for managing it all
• Smart metering - to provide new services to consumers and allowing greater flexibility in managing load. The Government has committed to the roll out of smart meters for both electricity and gas in all homes and most small businesses by the end of 2020.
• Time-of-use pricing - to reduce costs and carbon emissions by reducing peak demand
• Clean energy - wind, wave, tidal, nuclear power and fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage (CCS)
• Undersea transmission lines - to interconnect with other countries' grids
• Expansion and refurbishment of the UK transmission grid - estimated to require an investment of £4.7 billion by 2020
• Electrical energy storage - to balance out intermittent power generation
• Distributed generation - consumers are becoming producers, power flows bidirectional
• Electrification of transportation and heating - to reduce carbon emissions in these two sectors
• Creating a UK smart grid industry - to contribute to Britain’s wider productivity and competitiveness in the international smart grid industry, estimated at €30 billion over the next five years

Smartgrid Routemap

Based on the vision statement the Electricity Networks Strategy Group (ENSG) was tasked with developing a roadmap for the transition of the UK electricity grid to a low carbon economy.  ENSG has outlined the key elements of the desired smart grid end state.

To illustrate the type of projects required to achieve this end state, ENSG has outlined a process involving trial projects at different levels from individual technologies through to island wide end to end integration.  

Individual technology

• Dynamic line ratings (allow assets to be used at greater loads by continuously sensing and rating their capacities)
• Smart grid communications

Multiple integrated technologies

• Network benefit realization from domestic and SME smart meters
• Network monitoring, control and optimization

Customer and technology integration

• Demand response and network optimization
• Distributed generation and electric vehicles

End to end integration

• Intelligent conurbation (smart grid city, intelligent city, rural smart grid, island smart grid)
• End to end optimized integration of multiple renewable technologies

ENSG says that the Smart Grid Routemap outlines an evolutionary process to make the smart grid vision a reality, given the uncertainty about how to design and build a smart grid - no country has yet built a smart grid.

Addressing Canada's Infrastructure Deficit

In 2007 I blogged about a report by the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association that found that crumbling underground pipes in some areas of Ontario were causing leakage rates as high as 30 per cent.  It also estimated that leakage is costing ratepayers more than $160 million a year across the province. 

Last year I blogged about a wastewater example here in Ottawa, the nation's capital, where the Chairman of the City Council's Planning and Environment Committee was quoted as saying "We can't continue to pump sewage into the Ottawa River, that's not acceptable to residents."  In spite of that the City continues to this day to dump untreated sewage and storm water into the Ottawa River.

Canada's Infrastructure Deficit

In 2007 the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) commissioned McGill University to survey Canadian municipal governments to determine their infrastructure needs.  The study distinquishes between maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure and new infrastructure require to meet the changing demographics of communities.  Works undertaken to replace existing assets or restore/repair existing infrastructure capacity is considered to be an existing infrastructure need.  Based on the responses to the survey, FCM estimated that the municipal infrastructure deficit in Canada in 2007 was C$123 billion.  The FCM broke this down by key infrastructure categories,

• water and waste water systems - $31 billion
• transportation - $21.7 billion
• transit - $22.8 billion
• waste management - $7.7 billion
• community, recreational, cultural and social infrastructure - $40.2 billion

New Infrastructure Needs

The FCM McGill University survey also attempted to estimate new infrastructure needs, defined as all infrastructure that needs to be expanded or built to meet the changing needs of a community for demographic, socio-economic, environmental and other related reasons. Capital investments required to provide an enhanced level of service or meet new regulations would also be included.  The FCM estimated the cost of new infrastructure to be C$115 billion.

Wastewater in Ottawa

The primary wastewater problem in older cities such as Ottawa is combined sewer overflows (CSOs).  Ottawa has about 120 km of combined sewers.  It is reported that in 2010, 443,000 m³ of combined sewage and rainwater overflowed into river, compared to almost 1.1 million m³ in 2006.  In 2011 to date, it is estimated that 215,000 m³ of combined sewage and rainwater has been released into the Ottawa River - it has been a wet spring. 

Since 2006 $100 million has been invested in the wastewater system through the Ottawa River Action Plan.   The next major step is the construction of underground holding tanks (three-metre-wide tunnels six kilometres in length and running from LeBreton Flats to New Edinburgh) at a cost of $140 million to contain the combined sewage and storm water until treatment capacity is available.  But this project won't start until funding is agreed to by federal, provincial and municipal governments.  The latest federal budget which proposes to legislate a permanent annual investment of $2 billion in municipal infrastructure through the Gas Tax Fund should help fund this type of project.

Canada's 2011 Budget: Big on infrastructure

The Government of Canada has released the 2011 federal budget.  Although the primary objective is deficit reduction, several areas have been singled out for increased spending, one of which is infrastructure.  The Government says that it recognizes the importance of investment in public infrastructure, for economic development in general, but also for short term employment growth.

In 2007, the Government launched the Building Canada plan, supported by $33 billion in federal funding over seven years. The Building Canada plan consists of a suite of programs to meet infrastructure needs across the country, including:

• Gas Tax Fund and full rebate of the Goods and Services Tax paid by municipalities, which provide predictable long-term funding for municipalities.
• Provincial/Territorial Base Funding Initiative, which provides $25 million per year for each province and territory.
• Building Canada Fund, which supports infrastructure projects across Canada
• Gateways and Border Crossings Fund and the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative to strengthen trade-related infrastructure.
• Public-Private Partnerships (P3) Fund, the first Canadian infrastructure fund dedicated to P3s

In response to the recession, the Government introduced stimulus initiatives under the Economic Action Plan to increase infrastructure spending during the 2009 and 2010 construction seasons. These projects are expected to be completed by the end of October 2011.  It claims to have spent $7.7 billion on almost 8000 projects across the country.

The 2011 Budget makes important investments in public infrastructure and supports the use of public-private partnerships in delivering infrastructure programs and projects.

$2 billion annual investment in municipal infrastructure

To provide greater certainty to provinces, territories and municipalities, the 2011 Budget proposes to legislate a permanent annual investment of $2 billion in municipal infrastructure through the Gas Tax Fund.

Public-private partnerships

The Government believes that Public-private partnerships (P3s) have demonstrated their ability to produce value for taxpayers in the delivery of public infrastructure and plans for Canada to be a leader in P3s. In 2008, the Government established PPP Canada Inc. to increase the effective use of P3s in Canada.  From now on, all federal infrastructure projects creating an asset with a lifespan of at least 20 years and having capital costs of $100 million or more, will be subjected to a P3 screen to determine whether a P3 is a suitable procurement option. Federal departments will also be encouraged to consider a P3 approach for other types of project and service procurements.

Increased federal funding for infrastructure

As a result of these investments, the Government claims that the amount of federal funding available to provinces, territories and municipalities for infrastructure projects will be close to $11 billion in 2010–11, a significant increase over previous years' spending.

Battle over Free and Open Access to County Geospatial Data Continues

I blogged previously about a court case involving Santa Clara County in California that was decided in favour of free and open access to county GIS data under California's Public Records Acts (PRA). 

May 31 a different California appelate court decided in favour of  Orange County which charges $375,000 for their parcel database. After trying to obtain Orange County's parcel file at the cost of reproduction, in 2009 the Sierra Club initiated a lawsuit against Orange County under the PRA.  In 2010, the Superior Court decided that the PRA exempts GIS databases from public record disclosure because the court concluded that they are "computer software developed by a state or local agency".  A California appellate court agreed with the Orange County Superiro Court that a GIS database is covered by the PRA software exclusion because it concluded that "computer mapping systems" as defined by the PRA includes software and data. 

Since this decision conflicts with the another California appellate court's decision in the case of Santa Clara County, it may take a California Supreme Court decision to resolve the issue.

Thanks to Bruce Joffe for pointing me to this.