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Current News
Aclara to Offer Usage Data to Eight Million Utility Customers
January 27, 2012
In April, Aclara plans to turn on support for the Green Button initiative at 21 major utilities in 22 states. Green Button is a voluntary effort by utilities across the country, promoted by the U.S. Department of Energy and the White House, to provide energy use data to customers in a standard format.
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IBM and VELCO to Build Vermont Smart Grid
January 26, 2012
Spanning more than 1000 miles, the advanced fiber communications network will be designed to connect transmission substations to Vermont's distribution utilities, delivering reliable electric service and the capabilities required for the state's future smart grid.
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Report: Smartphone Applications A Major Threat to In-Home Displays
January 26, 2012
According to a new report from GlobalData, smartphones with applications for energy management are more economical than in-home displays, are widely available in the market, and avoid the need to install a separate device to keep track of electricity consumption data. These factors, along with the preference for smartphone applications, are acting as major barriers for the penetration of IHDs globally and are likely to hamper the market for IHDs.
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Customer Interaction With Utilities Via Social Media Rising Swiftly
January 26, 2012
According to a new white paper from Pike Research, approximately 57 million customers worldwide used social media to engage utilities in 2011 and that number is expected to rise to 624 million customers by the end of 2017.
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Strong Growth Seen for Lithium Battery Electrode Materials
January 26, 2012
The current performance of lithium ion batteries limits its addressable markets especially in automotive and smart grid applications, according to a new report from NanoMarkets. Better electrodes seem the main way to address this limitation and the success of lithium manganese oxide (LMO) as the novel cathode material that allowed the lithium ion battery to break into the power tools business has paved the way for this strategy.
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ITU Approves G3-PLC as a New Smart Grid Standard
January 26, 2012
In partnership with Electricite Reseau Distribution France (ERDF) and Sagemcom, Maxim developed the G3-PLC specification to promote open-endedness and interoperability among smart grid implementations. Currently, the G3-PLC is the only NB-PLC standard that supports the IPv6 internet protocol to allow new internet-based energy management systems.
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OG&E Second Year Results Confirm Smart Technology's Effectiveness
January 25, 2012
Customer groups that included a Programmable Communicating Thermostat (PCT) and a Variable Peak Price (VPP) rate plan yielded the highest average demand reduction during the on-peak period of the study. Customers with a smart thermostat achieved a maximum demand reduction of 48 percent during the peak period when compared to a control group.
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ANSI Accreditation to Support Smart Grid Testing and Certification Framework
January 25, 2012
The Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) -- a joint effort between NIST and the private sector -- released today version 2.0 of the testing and certification framework for the North American electric power industry. Developed with input from ANSI, the framework lays out a plan to enhance the quality of secure and interoperable smart grid products and significantly reduce their installation cost in the smart grid.
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Smart City San Diego Reports on Status
January 25, 2012
The Smart City Sand Diego collaborative is made up of City of San Diego, GE, UC San Diego, CleanTECH San Diego and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). It formed to leverage each entity's strengths in order to create and implement initiatives to improve the region's energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and assert San Diego as a clean energy and smart grid leader.
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Dominion and Lockheed Martin Announce Grid Side Energy Efficiency Solution and Development Alliance
January 25, 2012
Under the terms of the agreement, Dominion and Lockheed Martin will provide EDGE integration, software support and maintenance services to smart grid solutions partners, as well as end user utility customers. In addition to working with Lockheed Martin, Dominion will also partner with BRIDGE Energy Group, Elster, Landis+Gyr, and Silver Spring Networks to bring these solutions to market.
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S&C Introduces New Solutions to Improve Smart Grid Performance
January 25, 2012
The expanded solution sets are designed to use intelligent devices embedded throughout the grid to improve reliability, capacity, and efficiency, a priority for electric utilities.
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Ambient Corporation Enhances Smart Grid Cellular Network Choices for Utilities
January 25, 2012
Ambient's smart grid communications nodes now include Qualcomm's mobile broadband solution, the MDM6600 chipset.
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Smart Grid Implementation Rises 25 Percent in the Past Year
January 24, 2012
The survey by Microsoft and OSIsoft shows that 28 percent of companies surveyed are in the smart grid planning phase, but 24 percent still have not started adopting any smart grid technology. However, 63 percent of participants expect their budgets for these technologies to increase over the next two or three years.
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Silver Spring Networks Introduces Gen4 Technology
January 24, 2012
The industry's first "micromesh" technology is designed to triple the network's performance, enabling utilities to have more options by which to cover all of their territory from sparse to dense and to support multiple smart grid applications on a centrally managed IP network.
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Itron Releases Active Smart Grid Analytics Solution
January 24, 2012
Built to leverage the company's metering, communication network, and meter data management solutions, the analytic applications are intended to provide actionable business intelligence to enable specific smart grid solutions for distribution operations, revenue cycle services and customer engagement.
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Digi Releases Next Generation ZigBee Smart Energy Gateway
January 24, 2012
The gateway is designed to connect ZigBee smart energy devices from a home area network to an energy service provider via broadband. It offers additional memory and processing power for over-the-air updates of connected smart energy devices.
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California ISO Maps Out New Long-Term Strategy
January 23, 2012
Between now and 2020, wind and solar generation will quadruple within the ISO transmission grid at the same time electric vehicle charging increases dramatically. Advancements in technology including distributed generation such as storage as well as smart grid developments are also reshaping grid and market operations.
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Variable Growth in Smart Grid Industry Across APAC Region to 2020
January 23, 2012
According to a new report from GBI Research, the Chinese smart meter market cumulative number of units installed is expected to grow from 12 million units in 2010 to 561 million in 2020 at a CAGR of 46.9%. The Chinese synchrophasors market cumulative units installed is expected to grow from 663 units in 2010 to 3,846 million units in 2020, at a CAGR of 19.2%.
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Study: Consumers Like Smart Grid for More Than Just Saving Money
January 23, 2012
Results of the study by the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative Consumer show that education about smart grid remains vital, as awareness and understanding are still lacking. 51% of consumers, a number unchanged since September 2011, say they have never heard the term smart grid, and another 21% say that they have heard the term but don't know much about what it means.
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Landis+Gyr Announces Next Generation Gridstream Solution
January 20, 2012
The Gridstream is designed to provide the intelligence and connectivity necessary in order to manage smart grid functions from the home to the grid to the utility office on a single secure network, providing utilities with monitoring and control points throughout their distribution networks.
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ETSI Approves Open Smart Grid Protocol for Grid Technologies
January 19, 2012
The two OSGP specifications that originated with ESNA and were published by ETSI for global use are: 1) an application layer protocol that can be used with multiple communication media, and 2) a specification which defines a high-performance narrowband powerline channel for control networking in the smart grid, that can be used with multiple smart grid devices.
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Sprint Announces Key Smart Grid Agreements
January 19, 2012
Sprint recently announced agreements with Itron, Lanner Electronics, Power Insight and Silver Spring Networks in which these companies will offer Sprint wireless network connectivity in support of their automated products and services.
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CSC and Proximetry to Deliver Smart Grid Network Management Cloud Service
January 19, 2012
The companies will leverage Proximetry's AirSync platform to provide network management to multi-vendor, multi-radio (LTE, WiMax, WiFi, 4G) public and private networks that is intended to be secure, reliable and highly-available. The offering will be hosted from CSC's cloud data centers.
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Nissan, ABB to Evaluate Second-Life Storage Applications for Battery Packs
January 19, 2012
Electric vehicle batteries, such as those that power the Nissan LEAF, have longer lives than those of personal computers or cell phones, with up to 70 percent capacity remaining after 10 years of use in an automotive application. This longevity allows them to be used beyond the lifetime of the vehicle for applications such as a smart-grid community energy management system or battery energy storage.
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Itron and Cisco Launch Next-Generation Smart Grid Platform
January 18, 2012
The platform is based on open industry standards and provides native IPv6 networking services from Cisco to enable multi-application support and simplify the path to smart grid device interoperability. The intention is to enable "plug and play" interoperability of smart grid applications and devices, as well as allow freedom from vendor-specific, proprietary integration requirements.
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Tropos Announces New Offerings for Smart Grid Field Area Networks
January 18, 2012
The new product line is designed to extend advanced enterprise-class security to utility and industrial applications that monitor and control field automation devices. It also is intended to provide communications for these applications for as little as half the cost of competitive proprietary, low-speed wireless networks per connected automation endpoint.
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Arista Power Selected to Develop Intelligent Microgrid for U.S. Army
January 18, 2012
The microgrid will be designed to seamlessly integrate both renewable and traditional energy sources to provide the scalability and automatic operation needed to deliver highly reliable power. The goal is to minimize the use of fossil fuels and save lives by reducing the need to transport diesel fuel.
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UK Smart Grid Pioneer Prepares For Expansion
January 17, 2012
Flexitricity contracts to National Grid for the provision of short term operating reserve (STOR) and frequency response services. During STOR year 4, which ended in March 2011, Flexitricity accounted for 18.1% of the demand-side STOR market in terms of calls received.
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New Software Tool Gives Utilities "Omniscient" View of Smart Grid Communications
January 17, 2012
The GridMaven Network Manager (GNM) is designed to sit atop utility communication networks, allowing operators to manage them as a system and ensuring real-time delivery of mission-critical data. The GNM leverages the resources of GridMaven's parent company, SK Telecom.
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Zhone Technologies Announces Deployment with Clarksville Department of Electricity
January 17, 2012
Zhone and CDE are building an FTTX network with Active Ethernet intended to support fast delivery of more affordable and reliable automated metering infrastructure (AMI), high-speed Internet access, VoIP and video services to residential and business subscribers in Clarksville.
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Secretary Salazar, Governor Brown Expand Partnership to Expedite Renewable Energy Projects in California
January 16, 2012
The agreement broadens the state and federal partnership to formally include transmission projects and bring in new partners, including the California Independent System Operator, the California Public Utilities Commission and the California State Lands Commission.
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eMeter Unveils Meter Data Analytics Platform
January 16, 2012
The analytics capabilities of the upgraded energy information management platform are designed to enable utilities to analyze outages and events, monitor loads, gauge AMI health, and protect revenue as data is collected, with zero impact to business-critical operations.
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Petra Solar and Enviromena Announce Partnership to Develop Solar and Smart Grid in the Middle East and North Africa
January 16, 2012
Combining Petra Solar's smart energy technology with Enviromena's expertise in development of renewable energy projects in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is seen as advancing the growth of solar and smart grid in the region.
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Wake Electric Selects Sensus for Smart Grid Deployment
January 13, 2012
According to Wake Electric, the member-owned utility selected a licensed spectrum solution in part because unsecured public networks are susceptible to radio frequency interference from power line carriers and wireless sources, particularly in densely populated areas.
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GE Appliances and Flint Energies Announce Smart Grid Appliance Pilot - Without Smart Meters
January 12, 2012
Ten volunteer households in Warner Robins, Georgia, will receive GE's full suite of Brillion-enabled appliances, a programmable thermostat and Nucleus energy manager, as well as GE's new Whole-Home Sensor, which is designed to enable consumers to receive real-time energy data without a smart meter.
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Sales of Hybrid Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks To Nearly Double in 2012
January 12, 2012
According to a new report from Pike Research, the worldwide market for hybrids and plug-ins will grow at 92% in 2012, with total sales surpassing 19,000.
Going forward, the market is projected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 47.2% between 2011 and 2017, reaching 100,746 truck sales by the end of that period.
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Honeywell and TEDA Launch China's First Demand Response Project
January 11, 2012
The agreement represents the official launch of the Demand Response System Pilot jointly sponsored by the United States and Chinese governments through the U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP), which aims to develop a nationwide set of smart grid industry standards and regulations in China.
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Simple Energy Customer Engagement Platform Launches in Texas
January 11, 2012
The state-wide initiative follows the completion of an energy efficiency program piloted in California, where the Simple Energy platform succeeded in more than doubling energy savings among participating residential customers during a three-month period.
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Sensei Solutions and ThingWorx Form Smart Grid Monitoring Partnership
January 11, 2012
Sensei's solutions incorporate adaptive neural net technology that combines enterprise knowledge, predictive analytics, and configurable visualization and event notification, which helps the company's customers reduce unplanned downtime and equipment failure costs.
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Standard for Low-Frequency, Narrowband Power Line Communications Enters Letter Balloting
January 10, 2012
IEEE P1901.2 is designed to specify secure PLC at data rates up to 500kbps and at transmission frequencies of less than 500kHz for applications such as grid to utility meter, electric vehicle (EV) to charging station, home area networking and lighting and solar-panel communications. Letter ballot on the draft standard opened 20 December 2011 and will continue through 25 January 2012.
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Report: Electric Utility Efficiency Program Results, Budgets Steadily Growing
January 10, 2012
The new IEE report, Summary of Ratepayer-Funded Electric Efficiency Impacts, Budgets and Expenditures (2010-2011), finds that ratepayer-funded energy efficiency and demand response programs in the U.S. saved enough electricity to power almost 10 million homes in 2010, representing approximately 112 million megawatt-hours of electricity (MWh).
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