smart-grid

For grid-aware appliances to deliver on the promises of the smart grid, electricity rates needs to be overhauled, according to appliance makers.

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) on Monday released a white paper (click for PDF) outlining what it called the requirements for smart grid acceptance. The release of the paper was timed for the same week that international climate negotiations are going on in Copenhagen.

Smart grid technology, including so-called smart appliances, have the ability to help consumers cut their electricity use and shave their utility bills--but only if three pieces fall into place, according to AHAM. … Read more

SmartSynch announced Wednesday night that it has a plan for allowing universal communications between appliances, smart grids, and utilities, regardless of which communication protocol is used.

In May 2008, the Jackson, Miss.-company garnered $20 million in a funding round led by Credit Suisse to develop its communications devices and software for smart meters.

What has emerged is the GridRouter, an Internet Protocol-based universal router with an open platform that can communicate with public and private networks whether they be using WiMax, municipal Wi-Fi, or a proprietary network system.

The GridRouter device could become a darling of utilities by enabling … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--U.S. energy objectives are closely intertwined with--and in many cases, rely upon--the country's broadband infrastructure, government officials and smart-grid company executives say.

The Federal Communications Commission on Monday held a "field hearing" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the role of communications in energy and environment. It was an information-gathering session designed to help set a national broadband strategy.

The entire notion of the smart grid supposes connectivity at different points along the grid. Adding digital technologies to the existing system will allow energy to be used more efficiently, increase reliability, and let … Read more

If you need more evidence that energy storage is much more than lithium ion batteries, take a look at the latest smart-grid utility storage projects.

The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced that $620 million in stimulus funding is going to 32 smart-grid programs, which will be coupled with another $1 billion in private money. A total of $770 million from government and industry sources in the next few years will go to energy storage, giving a number of storage technologies a dose of real-world experience. (See this PDF for details.)

Notable in the list is the prominence of compressed-air … Read more

The Department of Energy on Tuesday awarded $620 million in smart grid projects, the second major wave of government-led funding to modernize the electricity grid.

The money will come from the stimulus package and be matched by commercial companies, making the total spending $1.6 billion spread across 32 demonstration projects in 21 states. A total of $8.1 billion in smart-grid spending from public and private sources was announced late last month.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the awards at Ohio-based utility AEP, whose GridSmart program is considered one of the more technically advanced.

The bulk of the DOE … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The first crack at vital smart-grid technical standards are due next year and some companies are already gumming up the works by pushing their own networking technology, according to the government official shepherding the process.

The need to hammer out interoperability standards is urgent and the task is extremely complex, said George Arnold, the national coordinator for smart-grid interoperability at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) who gave a presentation at a seminar organized by the IEEE here on Saturday. There will eventually be hundreds of standards covering many areas, from cybersecurity to how meters talk … Read more

Dozens of home energy monitors are coming to market, but nobody knows whether only hybrid Prius owners will use them.

Whole home energy monitors, or displays, are designed to help consumers conserve energy by providing far more detailed information than a monthly bill. These types of devices are already available, but millions more are poised to enter U.S. homes in the next two years, largely through utility-run smart grid programs.

The gadgets themselves vary, but the common thread among them is the ability to capture a stream of energy information from a meter at a given moment. Simply by … Read more

SAN MATEO, Calif.--Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore hopes that America's next-generation power grid will be a lot like the Internet. Or at least that's the plan.

How close we get to that goal depends on what happens in the next five years, Gore said in a speech here on Thursday evening at blog VentureBeat's GreenBeat conference, where he outlined many of the challenges the United States faces in upgrading its power grid. Along the way, he made comparisons to how the advent of the so-called smart grid will enable the kind of solutions and business innovation that the Internet brought during the 1990s.

"The analogy to the Internet is quite an exact one. Not completely exact, but it's very relevant for lots of reasons. We are moving inexorably toward a widely distributed energy generation and storage model. We are still locked into the old centralized energy generation model," Gore said. "The rapid development of new generations of new smart storage systems are going to make a tremendous difference in connection with the smart grids." Those systems are designed to enable easier storage of unused electricity for peak times, when supplying it to large groups of customers can be difficult and more expensive.

Gore also foresees an entirely new set of devices and instruments to help utilities and consumers control and monitor usage--technology and business models that may not yet have been imagined. "(It's) much the same way the Internet made it possible to see this generation of Internet-ready devices that did not even exist before the Internet began to build out," Gore said.… Read more

Correction at 2:33 a.m. PDT November 12: This story incorrectly stated the name of the wireless communications technology used by AlertMe. The system uses ZigBee.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has formed a task group to determine what standards need to be modified to ensure Wi-Fi is the tool of choice for smart-grid applications.

The nonprofit industry association that approves devices for the Wi-Fi Certified seal released a report Wednesday called "Wi-Fi for the Smart Grid: Mature, Interoperable, Security-Protected Technology for Advanced Utility Management Communications." The report expounds on all the possibilities for Wi-Fi as a communication tool … Read more