New Book Offers ‘Perfect’ Solution to Growing Energy Crisis

To: NATIONAL EDITORS

Contact: Crystal Borde, +1-202-331-4323, cborde@vancomm.com, for Galvin Electricity Initiative

Former Motorola CEO joins energy expert to explain reforms needed for ailing electricity system in Perfect Power

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — According to former Motorola CEO Robert Galvin, Americans need to face the simple truth about our electricity system.

Galvin states in his new book, “Perfect Power: How the Microgrid Revolution Will Unleash Cleaner, Greener, More Abundant Energy” (McGraw-Hill. 200 pages. $24.95), co-authored with former Electric Power Research Institute CEO Kurt Yeager, if the United States wants sustainable progress in energy security, self-sufficiency or environmental protection, we must commit to transform our 19th century legacy electricity supply system and equally outmoded state- regulated monopoly business model into a system that meets the challenges of 21st century consumers.

“If America wants to secure its energy future, we must remove the policy and technical barriers to grid modernization and start investing in innovative distributed smart microgrid systems in a free, competitive marketplace for electricity service,” said Galvin, founder of the Galvin Electricity Initiative. “Consumers are reliant on an outdated, failing power system to provide energy to power our economy and lives. They deserve Perfect Power — a power system that meets their rising energy quality demands, provides more energy controls and uses cleaner energy sources through smart microgrid technology.”

“Perfect Power” chronicles Galvin’s journey to improve the quality and reliability of America’s electricity. Based on his pioneering “Six-Sigma Quality” concept, which revolutionized the telecommunications industry while leading Motorola, Galvin presents electricity consumers with the solution to this costly and growing electricity crisis — Perfect Power.

In a Perfect Power System, according to Galvin and Yeager, smart microgrids are the quickest and most cost-effective method for maximizing the consumer benefits from electrical grid modernization. These entrepreneurially developed and implemented smart, local distributed power networks can be designed to optimally serve a single building, a neighborhood or an entire community with maximum reliability, efficiency and security.

Smart microgrids enable all consumers — large and small, commercial and residential — to take control of their energy destiny. The savings associated with a smart microgrid can amount to several times the cost of installation for a residential customer, and even more for a commercial customer. These savings will arrive as lower monthly electricity bills and in reduced costs for essentially everything else consumers buy. In addition, microgrids provide potential for almost unlimited economic benefit growth, such as the ability of consumers to sell clean, renewable energy to the utility grid; to maximize the cost savings from electric vehicles; and to take full advantage of emerging markets for carbon emission reductions.

Galvin and Yeager assert that there are no technical or real financial barriers to grid modernization, only outmoded monopoly regulatory policies that stand in the way of entrepreneurial, free- market electricity innovation. Electric cars and renewable energy are only the tip of the progress pyramid that is unachievable within the unreliable, inefficient and terribly vulnerable electricity infrastructure with which we are saddled today.

“Investing in grid modernization will open new green business sectors around the country, proving that quality always saves,” said Yeager, co-author and executive director of the Galvin Electricity Initiative. “Given the opportunity in an open competitive market, entrepreneurial innovators with both ready technology and capital can quickly implement smart microgrids and produce major savings for consumers, communities and utilities alike. When consumers understand what they are really paying in cold, hard cash for today’s antiquated power systems and realize the benefits they will receive from smart microgrids, they will demand Perfect Power.”

Approximately two-thirds of our electricity is lost during generation and delivery over power lines before it even reaches consumers, forcing consumers to pay far too much for wasted electricity. Consumers want to lower energy costs, and business owners and entrepreneurs are looking for new business opportunities in a struggling global economy. “Perfect Power” proposes that investments in smart microgrid technology and its integration into the current power system will open new economic markets for investors, innovators and entrepreneurs.

“Perfect Power” is a wake-up call for the entire energy industry, federal and state policy leaders and electricity consumers. If we want to lower energy costs, achieve energy independence and successfully address climate change, Galvin and Yeager argue that the power system must be reinvented following the distributed model that Thomas Edison pioneered more than a century ago. For more information and an excerpt from the book, visit www.galvinpower.org.

The Galvin Electricity Initiative was launched by former Motorola chief Robert W. Galvin in response to the Northeast blackout of 2003 that affected 40 million people in eight states. The Initiative is leading a campaign to transform our Nation’s obsolete electric power system into one that can truly meet consumers’ needs in this new century. Galvin’s vision — a Perfect Power System that cannot fail the end-user — includes a major technological update as well as the entrepreneurial development of smart microgrids that benefit consumers and suppliers alike.

SOURCE Galvin Electricity Initiative

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