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The current world market for Smart Grid software and data management applications is $1.4 billion in 2010, and it will grow to $2.9 billion in 2015 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.6%, according to The Smart Grid Utility Data Market by market research publisher SBI Energy.

A significant portion of this growth is going to occur in 2011 and 2012, as more American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funded projects in the U.S. are finally given approval.

greennumbers arra Smart Grid software Smart Grid

Smart grids could save the EU €52 billion annually, according to leading smart grid companies that have teamed up to promote European leadership in smart grids.

The sizeable savings would arise from reducing losses in the electricity distribution network through automation and encouraging consumers to cut energy consumption with smart meters that provide more accurate and timely information, experts from the Smart Energy Demand Coalition said at its launch yesterday (15 November) in Brussels

Utilities will also be able to lower the system voltage level and make meter-reading redundant, argued Chris King, chief regulatory officer at eMeter. After deducting necessary costs like the installation of smart meters and new software, the net benefit would still be €31 billion per year, he said.

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How do you make sure a smart grid pilot project succeeds? General Electric and Accenture have written a report on the subject

Poorly executed pilot projects are over-budget, lack in clear goals, and fail to make key connections to stakeholders such as regulators and customers. For example, Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity project in Boulder, Colo. shows some potential pitfalls that await utilities trying something new and complicated.

But sometimes it’s better to learn from the success stories rather than failures. Here are five key points for utilities both planning smart grid pilots and those with them underway. The U.S. has put $4.5 billion in stimulus funding into the smart grid sector, and China spent an estimated $7.3 billion last year, so there’s a lot of money at stake in coming up with the right answers.

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IBM has been named systems integration partner for the $100 million smart grid initiative led by the EnergyAustralia consortium. IBM will lead the development of Australia’s first smart grid network, following the formal contract signing of the deal between EnergyAustralia and the Australian Government and work will commence immediately.

ibm EnergyAustralia smart grid australia australian government greennumbers

At an event today at Battelle headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that two million smart grid meters have been installed across the country.

As a result of funding from the Recovery Act, smart grid technology is speeding the modernization of the nation’s electrical grid, helping to reduce the amount of time needed to respond to energy disruptions and enable consumers to monitor their energy consumption and costs.

steven Chu smart grid smart meters two million recovery act

An investigation into Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s SmartMeters has found that the residential meters being installed in millions of California homes are "consistent with industry standards and performing accurately."
But the report, released Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission, blasted PG&E for its defensive customer service culture. Independent investigators found that the San Francisco-based utility did not adequately address customer complaints and concerns about the new technology, which is designed to give consumers more up-to-date data on their energy use.
It found that customers were "consistently treated by PG&E as wrong, until the customer proved to PG&E that they were right," and noted a lack of professionalism among front-line customer service representatives.

pg&e Pacific Gas and Electric smart meters smart grid bakersfield marin county fairfax

Cisco this morning announced its intent to acquire privately-held Arch Rock, which specializes in IP-based wireless sensor network technology with a focus on energy and environmental monitoring and Smart Grid applications.

Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

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'Smart grid' is a term with as much buzz as any I've heard lately.  It's mentioned in conversations about climate change, renewable energy and new types of energy storage.  It seems that just saying "smart grid" several times in a conversation makes people think you're smarter.  But with all the buzz and money being spent to make our existing grid smarter, the least talked about but most important part of the smart grid is what's often left out - you.  The American consumer's acceptance of this new, intelligent technology is of paramount importance.

Here is the beginnings of a consumer charter for smart grids

smart grid charter consumer

The Smart Grid has traditionally been used to describe the electrical grid 2.0.  The distinctions between the traditional electrical grid, or version 1.0, and the Smart Grid cover the bidirectional flow of electricity and communications.  We need to extend our thinking about the smart grid to add distributed intelligence and communications to other parts of the developed infrastructure – water and waste water, gas and oil pipelines, and even our transportation systems.  Doing so will help us engineer the most sustainable and cost-effective solutions.  

The relationship of electricity and water is particularly intertwined – it takes electricity to move and treat water, and water is quite often used to make electricity.  For instance, the state of California moves a great deal of water from the northern part of the state to the south.  Transporting one acre-foot of water – the typical amount consumed by two families of four in a year – requires 3000 kWh per year.  One acre-foot of water (the amount of water covering 1 acre to a depth of 1 foot) equals 326,000 gallons and weighs 2.7 million pounds. The California Energy Commission (CEC) figures that 20% of the state’s electricity and 30% of its natural gas consumption are dedicated to water transport or treatment.  A five minute faucet flow uses approximately the same energy as letting an incandescent 60-watt light bulb burn for 14 hours. 

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The Bonneville Power Administration and Mason County Public Utility District Number 3 announced today that they are partnering on a smart grid pilot project to help manage the electricity grid and use wind power more effectively. 
The project address two fundamental bottlenecks in the power grid; congestion during times of high power use and the imbalance created when more wind-powered energy is being generated than is being used. 

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A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  A power grid is only as secure and reliable as its most overloaded and vulnerable distribution areas.  A single point of failure can interrupt power for thousands, even millions of customers.  This flaw in our grid is becoming more apparent as electricity demand has increased quickly over the past few decades.  Since demand is outpacing the available supply of electricity generation capacity, power grid failures are becoming more common, but this need not be the case.  Smart grid technologies can efficiently schedule and redistribute electricity usage, smoothing the demand curve and reducing the peaks.  If we invest in smart grid technology, automating the detection of grid malfunctions before they become catastrophic, we will save billions of dollars a year.

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The state-owned electric transmission company in China, State Grid, has moved forward with establishing a set of industry rules, standards and favored technologies for the growing smart grid industry in China. But the aggressive move to establish industry standards has competitors in the nascent smart grid sector a bit concerned.

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GE wants to spark a revolution in the way we create and distribute electricity, and seizing on a critical underfunding of grid investments by the U.S. government (a paltry $3.4 billion) the 2nd largest company in the world (as ranked by Forbes) wants to do something about it.

GE is partnering with four major venture capital firms, including Al Gore-advised Kleiner Perkins, to issue the $200 million challenge to "...businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and students to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world’s toughest challenges – building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21st century."

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The smart grid has been a lumbering but steady and inevitable presence in the utility industry, with a speedy uptake in the number of start-ups interested in creating everything from energy storage technology to user dashboards for home energy consumption and a somewhat slower uptake in the number of smart grid pilot projects popping up nationwide. Less than two years ago it was expected to grow to at least $65 billion by 2013. Cisco has identified at least $20 billion in potential business opportunities around the grid, which the company says will be bigger than the Internet, and $3.4 billion of stimulus money was to be dished out to 100 projects. So why the projection from Pike Research that the spending will top off at $35 billion by 2013?

greennumbers smart grid investments spending

Trilliant Incorporated, a leader in delivering Smart Grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, today announced that it has closed financing totaling $106 million from a global syndicate of industry and financial leaders.

The financing round was led by two highly-respected financial investors, Investor Growth Capital (the wholly-owned venture arm of Investor AB of Sweden) and VantagePoint Venture Partners and two leading global grid-related equipment companies, ABB and GE. The financing, which was coordinated by Deutsche Bank, also includes a significant credit facility from a major venture credit provider as well as continuing financial support from existing investors MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures. The new investment will be used to finance Trilliant’s continued growth in North America and globally.

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Consert Inc, a smart grid software company, is getting some major backing by big companies. Verizon, Qualcomm, Constellation Energy and GE have pulled together $17.7 million to invest in promoting the company's software. Currently, Consert has software deployed with electric utilities in North Carolina and Texas, but they're looking to spread. And the backing by big companies with known names is a sign that corporate cooperation is going to be a big factor in advancing the smart grid so that every tech company can benefit.

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In a rush to take advantage of U.S. stimulus money, utilities are quickly deploying thousands of smart meters to homes each day--smart meters that experts say could easily be hacked.

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Jaymi Heimbuch's interview with me about Smart Grids

Jaymi Heimbuch treehugger smart grid interview

Web apps are not exactly secure. IBM tracks 9 billion events per day. They see 150 million intrusion attempts on a daily basis.

Of the vulnerabilities they see, 49% come from web apps. Of the 49%, about 67% of those vulnerabilities never get patched.

So, what happens when the physical world is controlled by networks that connect with on-premise and cloud environments?

smart grid smart grid security security

while we anticipate the first Smart Grid IPO (market-permitting) from Silver Spring Networks, we’ve got to wonder out loud: Why isn’t water being served at this party?

Urban water distribution systems are not exactly ‘grids’. A lot of energy (and money) is invested in water production, treatment, distribution and reuse, but current water systems don’t comprehensively measure usage in real-time. Without measurement, there is no data to base grid management upon. The electric Smart Grid leverages the proliferation of measurement points collecting large amounts of (largely untapped) data, but this is not the case in water networks.

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