Smart Grid Blog

US maker of networking gear for the smart grid, Silver Spring Networks, is an early winner in the race to build Australia’s next-generation power infrastructure. It scored contracts with electricity distributors CitiPower, Powercor, Jemena and UED for their smart meter rollouts.

Silver Spring provides the hardware, software and services to run smart grids, based on internet protocol, which makes it an upstart in the industry that dates to 1872.

Silver Spring vice president Eric Dresselhuys says the adoption of smart grids based on the internet’s lingua franca opens the doors to innovation in much the same way as digitising the phone networks opened telecommunications to new ideas 20 or more years ago.

“The utilities need an open, standards-based technology like we saw with telecommunications and the internet and every technology transformation,” Dresselhuys says. “We offered an IP-based utility solution that connected everything from the utility to the home.”

Silver Spring’s network interface cards or ‘NICs’ attach to meters such as those from Landis+Gyr and GE to relay data between the power company and the premises according to specifications doled out, in this case, by the Victorian Government in protocol documents. But every type of meter is different and there are regional variations so Silver Spring customises its cards for each customer.

via Silver Spring finds silver lining in the smart grid – Networking – Technology – News – CRN Australia.

Green energy and smart grid technology continue to provide green pasture for patent applicants. Southern California Edison, which is a large power utility, filed a patent application in 2008. The application published as Patent Pub. No. 20080177678 and claims:

A method for communicating between a utility and individual customer locations comprising the steps of:

• (a) communicating between the utility and customers and between the utility and customer equipment located at each individual customer location via the Internet or via an advanced utility meter;
• (b) providing each individual customer location with an advanced utility meter; and
• (c) using each individual utility meter to communicate between the utility and the advanced utility meter, to communicate between the advanced utility meter and individual customers and to communicate between the advanced utility meter and equipment located at each individual customer location;
• wherein the utility is an electrical utility and wherein electrical usage data from individual pieces of equipment located at each individual customer location is communicated to the advanced utility meter.

In a first Office Action, the USPTO rejected all claims as not being a novel invention in view of a patent application that was filed three years earlier that published as Patent Pub. No. 20060031180 and is assigned to USCL Corp. One of SCE’s claims was rejected as being obvious in view of both the USCL Corp. patent publication and a patent owned by a family trust: Patent No. 7,069,161. The USCL patent publication is directed to a system for informing subscribers of utility commodity costs and usage, and for controlling the utility commodity usage. The ‘161 patent is directed to monitoring and managing the resource consumption and infrastructure of a building in real time.

As most patent applicants know, Office Actions having rejections are fairly common. They are communications from the patent examiner in a sometimes protracted negotiation of appropriate claim scope. SCE can respond to the Office Action by either (1) amending its claims so that they do not cover the USCL patent application’s disclosure as far as the USPTO is concerned; or (2) explaining to the patent examiner why SCE’s claims are patentable despite USCL’s disclosure.

via Smart Grid Patent Landscape Developing : Patent Law Insights.

Law360 reports that “Sipco LLC, a Georgia-based developer of wireless mesh technology, has filed a suit accusing Florida Power & Light Co. of infringing three patents for smart grid technology.”

The relevant patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 6,437,692; 7,053,767; and 7,468,661.

The ‘692 patent is directed to “monitoring a variety of environmental and/or other conditions within a defined remotely located region.” Its first claim recites:

1. A system for remote data collection, assembly, and storage comprising:

• a computer configured to execute at least one computer program that formats and stores select information for retrieval upon demand from a remotely located device, said computer integrated with a wide area network (WAN);
• at least one wireless transmitter configured to transmit select information and transmitter identification information;
• a plurality of relatively low-power radio-frequency (RF) transceivers dispersed geographically at defined locations configured to receive select information transmitted from at least one nearby wireless transmitter and further configured to transmit the select information, the transmitter identification information and transceiver identification information;and
• at least one gateway connected to the wide area network configured to receive and translate the select information, the transmitter identification information, and transceiver identification information, said gateway further configured to farther transmit the translated information to the computer over the WAN

via Smart Grid Patent Lawsuit : Patent Law Insights.

Smart grid technology opens a world of possibilities for energy conservation and efficient operations. Unfortunately, it is also creating great opportunities for smart grid hackers.

Tony Flick, principal at FYRM Associates, compares the evolution of nascent smart grid security standards to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is aimed at securing payment cards.

That’s not a good thing, in Flick’s opinion. He said PCI DSS rules, which were created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), fall short because they are vague and allow the industry to police itself. This leads to deployment uncertainties, scenarios in which implementations are considered compliant without actually being secure and other problems.

“I wouldn’t characterize [PCI DSS] as an absolute failure — any security is better than none — but at the same time, there are valid criticisms of the standard,” Flick said.

Utility companies have begun rolling out digital electric metering devices that connect to the Internet and collect electricity use at a home or business. The devices are connected to electric substations and enable utility companies to route power more efficiently. The goal is to reduce costs and save energy by closely monitoring energy consumption.

Flick, who is scheduled to make a presentation entitled “Hacking the Smart Grid” on July 30 at Black Hat USA 2009 in Las Vegas, said that final decisions on rule creation have not been made. He urges NIST to eschew the hands-off approach that characterized the PCI DSS effort.

via Smart grid security risks exposed at Black Hat | Search Security Asia.

In Boulder, Colo., a surge of electricity on the power grid can largely go unnoticed. The grid is monitored electronically, so that if there are any sudden rushes or fallen power lines, electricity is automatically rerouted from one part of the system to another. This pilot project sounds simple enough—maybe even a little obvious. But this new type of technology could have prevented the 2003 blackout that knocked out power to much of the Northeastern United States. On that August day, a few sagging power lines brushed against some trees, and the lines shut down. This set off a domino effect, as one part of the grid taxed another. The result? By the end of that humid evening, 50 million people in eight states and southeastern Canada were left without power.

At the time, energy experts and politicians called the blackout a wake-up call about the country’s antiquated power grid. Since then, major changes have been slow to take hold. The power grid has basically been the same for the better part of a century, says Ian Bowles, Massachusetts’ secretary of energy and environmental affairs. That is, until the smart grid. “You have to think of the smart grid as a cell phone, as opposed to your grandmother’s black rotary phone,” he says.

The “smart grid” is a catchall phrase for the power grid of the future, with various test projects underway in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and Hawaii. The idea is to make a system that will stop power surges from causing blackouts. It would create more energy-efficient power lines to carry electricity longer distances without losing voltage (current grids lose about 8 percent of power over distance). It would incorporate wind and solar energy into existing power grids. And it would let customers monitor the electricity they use in their homes, paying less for power consumed in off-hours.

Smart-grid plans have been on the drawing board for years, but the Obama administration has given the system, well, a jolt. The stimulus package includes $11 billion toward modernizing the electric grid, including the development of renewable energy. Within the next two to three years, cities such as Fort Collins, Colo., hope to use the stimulus money to build a “zero-energy district,” where one neighborhood generates as much power as it consumes.

First, green-energy experts say smart grids have to overcome two hurdles: funding and disparate state-by-state webs of utility companies, tech startups, and municipal governments, all vying to be the rainmakers of a greener power grid. “The smart-grid industry is not ready for an overall national-scale deployment,” Bowles says. “What the stimulus has done is capture the attention of all 50 states and provide 50 percent financing for significant projects.”

via Plugging Into the Future | Print Article | Newsweek.com.

IOActive, a provider of comprehensive security services, has revealed that its Senior Security Consultant, Mike Davis, will deliver a briefing on Smart Grid Device Security at the Black Hat USA event.

The Black Hat Briefings is described as a security conference series for the information security community. This year, the briefings will be held on July 30 in Las Vegas.

In his talk, Davis will be highlighting on how quickly the malicious code can propagate throughout a neighborhood, ultimately causing power disconnections and calibration modifications rendering the meters inoperable. Davis will also discuss his optimism for the future of the Smart Grid and suggestions for developing more secure meters.

Smart Grid is the higher version of Power grid and it delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology. This kind of real time distribution of power contributes to the saving of energy, cost reduction and increase in reliability and transparency, officials say.

While the benefits of the Smart Grid are undisputed, it is critical to consider the security of the infrastructure as well, said the company.

via Smart Grid.

Maryland’s biggest utilities told state regulators Wednesday that speedy approvals for their smart grid initiatives would put them in the best position to get federal stimulus money in early October.

But staff members of the Public Service Commission advised commissioners that moving faster than the suggested schedule, with hearing dates from Oct. 15 through Oct. 19, would be difficult because of the PSC’s jammed schedule.

“We collectively have a concern that we want to make sure when we do this we do it right,” said Douglas R.M. Nazarian, chairman of the PSC.

“We have some important decisions to make about what we’re going to do in this state in terms smartening — if that’s a word — the grid and where on the continuum of completely stupid to completely brilliant we want to land,” he said.

The utilities, Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., Delmarva Power and Potomac Electric Power Co., are clamoring for a slice of the $3.9 billion in smart grid funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to technologically advance the nation’s electric grid.

The U.S. Department of Energy has said it will issue grants beginning in mid-October, and it will give additional merit to smart grid plans that have gotten regulatory approval. While approval is not needed to win funding, the DOE does require a timeline for regulatory hearings.

Stimulus funds are meant to be quickly deployed to pump money into the economy and create new jobs. All three utilities stressed that projects that are ready to move forward quickly will probably have a better chance of getting federal grants.

“I don’t think really there’s much … question that applications that have regulatory approval and that start quicker are going to score better in the DOE evaluation process than those that don’t,” said Mark Case, senior vice president for regulatory affairs at BGE.

via Maryland Daily Record.

The Energy Department is making up to $30 billion in loan guarantee authority available for renewable energy and electric grid modernization projects.

DOE announced yesterday it was ready to accept applications for about $8.5 billion in loan guarantee authority for advanced renewable energy projects made available in the department’s 2009 spending bill and $3.25 billion provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to cover the subsidy costs that will unleash the billions of dollars in loan guarantee authority for renewable energy, transmission projects and biofuels.

Of the $3.25 billion in subsidy costs from the stimulus act, $500 million is specifically for biofuel projects, and $750 million is for large transmission projects that begin construction before Sept. 30, 2011.

Applicants have 45 days to apply for the new guarantee authority, DOE said.

The government-backed authority should help boost lending capital for renewable and other clean-energy technology projects, which has dried up with the financial recession. The stimulus act also included an extension of tax credits for renewable energy and added flexibility where companies can apply for grants instead of using tax credits that the Treasury Department also made available this month (E&ENews PM, July 9).

via DOE Makes $30B Available to Jumpstart Renewable Energy,’ Smart Grid’ Projects – NYTimes.com.

More smart grid pilot projects show that monitoring and adjusting distribution grid voltage in real-time can save utilities energy.

The case for smart grid technology that saves energy on the distribution grid is growing.

The latest comes from utility Xcel Energy, which has linked up about 42,500 homes in its Boulder, Colo. SmartGridCity demonstration project with two-way communications and control systems that can do things like read home electricity usage, shut power on and off and detect outages.

But while much focus on that project has been on future energy-saving projects for those connected homes – most recently, on Xcel’s request to install energy control devices in some of them – the devices the utility has installed on its own grid is saving it money and energy right away.

That’s according to Xcel’s July 9 report to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. The report shows that SmartGridCity has sharply reduced – in some cases, eliminated – transformer failures, customer complaints and voltage problems on its distribution grid.

And that’s what comprises the complicated web of substations, feeders, and end points that make up the “last mile” of electricity delivery for utilities. It’s an often-overlooked piece of the smart grid, but offers some immediate gains for utilities that upgrade it, said Kevin Corcoran, director of product management at Current Group, one of many companies providing devices, software and services to SmartGridCity (see Green Light post).

The basic idea is simple, he said – put sensors on the grid that can tell you when equipment is about to fail, or sense frequency or voltage fluctuations that suggest a problem is about to occur.

It isn’t cheap, necessarily. EnergyAustralia is spending $170 million to install and integrate about 12,000 devices from companies like Denmark’s PowerSense on its distribution grids over the coming years.

But the results can be as dramatic as cutting the time it takes to find and fix outages by as much as half, and cutting the cost of maintenance by as much as 90 percent, largely by doing away with the need to drive around checking remote systems. That’s according to a 2007 report by IBM on a similar project done by Danish utility Dong Energy (see A Feeling and Thinking Distribution Grid).

via Greentech Media: Distribution Automation: Smart Grid’s Quiet Efficiency Offering.

You know you’re at a hacker convention when the word Pwned is used in numerous speeches and conference literature. I spent a couple hours on Thursday at the annual Black Hat security convention in Las Vegas — not to learn about the newest ways to break into web companies’ private systems, but to listen to numerous speakers on the subject of potential vulnerabilities in the smart grid, and (more productively) what companies and policy-makers building the smart grid should do about those security issues.

According to one speaker, Tony Flick, a principal at IT security consulting firm FYRM Associates, utility and energy management web sites may be serious security concerns for the smart grid. Flick says he looked at eight different utility energy web sites, where consumers could conduct a number of types of energy management services, including turning down appliances that consume energy, and found that the majority of the sites had “very simple” and “basic” security vulnerabilities.

The security lapses he found are common problems with many web sites, for example using something called “clear-text protocols,” which are communication methods that don’t encrypt data and “cross-site scripting,” which allows hacker to inject code into a site when it is viewed by other visitors. But given the sensitive and private nature of energy consumption and control data, the vulnerabilities could cause problems for utility companies, Flick pointed out.

via Utility Energy Web Sites Could Be A Pain Point for Smart Grid Security.

Cooper Power Systems, a division of Cooper Industries, Ltd. (NYSE: CBE), has announced that its Yukon Demand Response Consumer Portal module is now online at Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE).

Using an installed Honeywell UtilityPRO™ thermostat or a Cannon Load Control Receiver (LCR), the consumer portal gives BGE customers who participate in the PeakRewards program web access to their program history and control of their thermostat or LCR. The devices intelligently cycle air conditioners to help reduce peak demand for electricity throughout BGE’s territory.

PeakRewards, a component of BGE’s larger Smart Energy Savers Program, allows customers to conserve energy, save money and promote a greener environment. Customers use the Web portal to stay informed about program activity and make program participation changes including programming their communicating thermostat via the Web.

BGE has been using Cooper Power System’s Yukon software to improve grid efficiency since 2006, adding Yukon Demand Response in 2008. The modular software design supports a number of applications that can be added as utilities realize their Smart Grid vision. This software upgrade withstood rigorous functionality, performance and security testing by Cooper Power Systems, BGE and several utility partners prior to going “live.”

via Utility Products – Baltimore Gas & Electric Implements Cooper Power Systems Yukon Demand Response Consumer Portal – Baltimore Gas & Electric Implements Cooper Power Systems Yukon Demand Response Consumer Portal.

A commercial from General Electric (GE) which was run during the Super Bowl about the new Smart Grid technology (“If I only had a brain…”)

For millions of New Jersey residents, solar power is coming soon to their neighborhoods – even to the utility poles in their backyards.

In a move both bold and expensive, state regulators yesterday approved a plan for Public Service Electric & Gas Co., the state’s largest utility, to install solar panels on 200,000 utility poles in its service territory.

The project will make New Jersey the nation’s second-most solar-fueled state, according to the state Board of Public Utilities, trailing only California.

PSE&G will spend $515 million to install 80 megawatts of solar power through the end of 2013, doubling the state’s solar capacity. Half the new production will be derived from individual solar modules mounted on about a quarter of PSE&G’s 900,000 utility poles.

The other 40 megawatts of production will be generated by centralized solar arrays, including one at PSE&G’s Cox’s Corner Switching Station in Evesham Township, Burlington County.

The 80-megawatt PSE&G project amounts to a tenth of the nation’s current total grid-connected photovoltaic capacity, according to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

“We think it’s a good program to get solar started in the state,” said Stefanie Brand, director of the N.J. Division of Rate Counsel, the state’s consumer advocate. Her office supported PSE&G’s proposal, which she said had a “very minor impact” on rates – adding about 10 cents per month for a residential customer in the first year, a 0.13 percent increase.

But the PSE&G project still amounts to only about 4.4 percent of the ambitious goal the state has set for power generated from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Unlike most solar projects, which supply individual customers with electricity, the PSE&G plan has attracted attention because its panels will feed directly into the electrical grid. PSE&G is calling the project “Solar 4 All” to drive home the point that all customers will benefit from solar, not just those who can afford to mount the heavily subsidized panels on their rooftops.

via PSE&G plan takes solar energy public | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/30/2009.

Siemens Energy and Viridity Energy have formed a strategic partnership that’s intended to blend the scope and reach of the power engineering giant with the startup’s new technology for next generation demand response and energy management.

Siemens and Viridity announced the move Wednesday.

The relationship is designed to bring virtual power plant functionality — which enables a cluster of distributed generation installations, including micro combined heat and power, small hydro and wind turbines, to be run by a central control — to large users of electricity at big sites, such as university campuses, government complexes or industrial facilities.

To provide the solution, Viridity will combine Siemens’ decentralized energy management system, known as DEMS, with the startup’s VPower system.

Together, the smart grid technology enables customers to better manage their power loads, power generation and participation in demand response programs, and ultimately sell excess energy to the public grid.

“Electric utilities and electric customers are increasingly recognizing the value that distributed resources can have on the grid, ” said Viridity Energy President and CEO Audrey Zibelman. “This value can be maximized when customers are able to optimize individual load management and generation resources as integrated, dynamic resources on the grid.”

via Siemens and Viridity Energy Partner on Smart Grid Solution | Green Business | Reuters.

Although Smart Grids (electric networks based on renewable energy) are going up in the US and Europe, the World Bank is only now investing in green energy technology with a program in Turkey.

At the end of May, the Bank announced it is investing $600 million in developing renewable sources such as biomass, hydro, wind and geothermal. Funding is being channeled through banks, which will loan cash to private entrepreneurs to give the market a boost.

Banks will also give loans to business that want to become more energy efficient. The Turkish program is the first project of the Bank’s Climate Technology Fund, which is bankrolled by several countries.

Turkey seems ripe for the occasion, with a budding eco-construction sector and recent pledges to save its coast from runaway development.

via Turkey Lands World Bank’s First Smart Grid | Green Prophet.