Smart Grid Blog

The New Mexico counties of Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, northern Santa Fe and five American Indian communities will receive $10.6 million in stimulus grants to improve high-speed Internet infrastructure, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

…The project also will promote energy efficiency by enabling smart grid applications for regional rural electric cooperatives. Officials said local Internet service providers will be able to utilize the new infrastructure to deploy new or improved high-speed Internet service to consumers and businesses.

via New Mexico lands millions in broadband funds – New Mexico Business Weekly.

America's first wireless Smart Grid network has been deployed in Plumas-Sierra county, California, using TV White Space spectrum as a means to deliver connectivity.

Using Google’s PowerMeter technology, service provider Spectrum Bridge has joined forces with Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative and Telecommunications (PSREC) to test the new network’s capabilities in delivering real-time broadband connectivity and data flow for smart grid management.

via Wireless Smart Grid Technology Tested by Google and Spectrum Bridge | Harry Tournemille.

Stratford wants to build a smarter community — don’t worry you won’t have to go back to school.

Festival Hydro unveiled a new company called Rhyzome Networks Friday, the final day of the Ontario Small Urban Municipalities conference here. Rhyzome is a fibre-optics branch of Festival Hydro. It doesn’t create content on the Internet but does distribute that data from point A to B, explained Paul West, business development manager at Festival Hydro.

There are several definitions of an intelligent community — one is a community that has taken steps to create an economy capable of prospering in a broadband economy.

via Smart head start – The Beacon Herald – Ontario, CA.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called the grant “a two-part victory for the Northeast Kingdom – improved electricity reliability and an enhanced broadband backbone that will expand the smart grid and broadband access.”

Commenting on the grant, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., “During the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there is no better time to invest in good-paying jobs for Vermont working families while making much-needed infrastructure improvements.”

via Schedule for May 2010.

There are two sets of standards for powerline communications – one for household wiring, the other for powerline communications – and the advocates for each are finally going to try to cooperate, with the Smart Grid program as a catalyst and the IEEE as a mediator.

The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) said it is facilitating cooperation between the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, which has traditionally focused on home networking, and the HD-PLC Alliance, which has traditionally been more concerned with transmission on outdoor powerlines.

via Broadband on powerline standards to be bridged.

Glendale Water & Power (GWP) and Tropos Networks announced today that Tropos’ GridCom architecture has been selected as a core element of GWP’s Smart Grid Initiative. GridCom™ is based upon Tropos’ wireless broadband mesh network system and will be used as the utility’s private distribution area network to deliver high-speed communications between the utility, utility applications and utility customers.

“The high throughput, extremely low latency and network security features of the Tropos network enables it to provide secure communications for multiple Smart Grid applications”

via Glendale Water and Power Selects Tropos GridCom for Smart Grid Initiative | Business Wire.

After more recent and serious delving into the merits of The National Broadband Plan, with the usual effects of a clearer understanding; a more interesting and omnipresent realization begins to emerge.

How can we not see, and surely embrace, the positive effects such a plan could have on an energy consuming U.S. thereby creating an energy saving global leader and economic powerhouse with continued and sustained broadband proliferation? It sets before us, waiting to be reviewed and accepted, with its pure intentions of common sense logic. But little has been said or debated, in suggesting that such a direction could save the U.S. economy $billions, while creating tremendous job growth and reviving our economic conundrum.

via BroadbandBreakfast.com: National Broadband Plan on Energy & Environment: Green, Lean and Mean.

The National Broadband Plan, recently published by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would lay the groundwork for the federal government to establish a nationwide “smart” electrical grid that would change how Americans use and pay for electricity, affecting such things as homes and transportation with battery-powered cars.

via CNSNews.com – FCC’s Broadband Plan Sets Groundwork for National Smart Grid To Transition To More Green Energy Use: Electric Cars, Solar Panels.

Commenting on the FCC’s (News – Alert) National Broadband Plan, GE officials said the company applauds the commission’s willingness to investigate all alternatives, including a dedicated communications spectrum for smart grid applications.

In the National Broadband Plan, FCC has recognized the need for improving the communications infrastructure to modernize the electric grid.

via FCC Plan Highlights Bandwidth to Meet Energy Infrastructure Challenges: GE.

Itron Inc. (ITRI 73.24, +0.54, +0.75%) and Tropos Networks announced today an agreement to jointly develop products for the utility market including an integrated network solution. The joint solution will allow utilities to extend their smart grid foundation into a comprehensive, privately owned broadband network for utility applications. This aligns with the larger goal of the partnership, which is to simplify utility smart grid deployment and management while laying the foundation for additional smart grid applications.

via Itron and Tropos Partner to Strengthen Smart Grid Communications – MarketWatch.

At the IPTV World Forum, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, the driving force for global powerline network technology, today celebrated its 10th anniversary by announcing several key milestones. With HomePlug technology continuing to gain momentum for broadband, IPTV and triple-play services, the organization has added nine technology vendors and utility companies to its roster, and is nearing the completion of the new Green PHY (GP) specification for Smart Grid applications.

HomePlug and HomePlug AV devices currently account for more than 75 percent of the world’s broadband powerline communications market, with over 45 million devices sold to date and shipments forecasted to reach 60 million by year’s end.

via StreetInsider.com – HomePlug® Powerline Alliance Announces Milestones on 10th Anniversary as Powerline Technology Leader.

For all you broadband junkies, it’s here: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unveiled the first U.S. National Broadband Plan on Tuesday morning. And — what we’re particularly interested in — there’s an entire chapter on Energy and the Environment (Chapter 12, Page 245). The National Broadband Plan looks at how broadband can be used to build out a smarter power grid, make information technology more efficient and make transportation cleaner (the content is very much in line with the speakers and panels at our Green:Net conference in San Francisco on April 29).

via What the FCC’s National Broadband Plan Recommends for Smart Grid, Energy.

The future is coming into focus. We’ll need smart grids for electricity and broadband for communications. We’ll need powerful networks that combine smart grid and broadband, giving citizens lower electric rates, quality TV and phone service via Internet protocol (IP) and the ability to upload and download data faster than ever before.

via More Speed, More Power – Sponsored Case Study – Government Technology.

Labor and environmental groups joined with the U.S. government on Thursday to promote high speed Internet access and related technologies to create green jobs and help lift the United States out of recession.

“In the same way that building the interstate freeway system brought the United States out of the post-World War Two recession … a clean energy economy is exactly what we need in recession-bound America to put people back to work,” said David Foster, executive director of Blue Green Alliance, an organization of unions and environmental groups.

via Labor, environment groups push ‘green’ broadband | Reuters.

A federal plan to wire the entire United States with high-speed Internet access will be key to creating a nationwide “smart” power grid for reducing wasted electricity, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski recently provided a preview of the National Purposes Update, a document that identifies opportunities for broadband deployment to improve health care, education, employment and energy efficiency.

via National Broadband Plan Crucial For ‘Smart’ Power Grids.

A Federal Communications Commission director suggested the agency is exploring new ways to use a swath of spectrum to serve multiple users including utilities building smart electric grids as part of a national broadband plan the FCC will release March 17.

“Just looking at data growth for iPhones and other devices, you can see broadband in America will increasingly be a wireless solution, so spectrum will be a core issue we will be handling in the national broadband plan,” said Nick Sinai, director of energy and environment on the National Broadband Task Force at the FCC.

via Embedded.com – NEWS – FCC may redraw spectrum allocations in broadband plan.

The communications revolution is shifting the national and global focus towards e-health, e-education and smart grids. Increasingly we are seeing governments around the world undertaking national broadband initiatives as awareness grows that broadband infrastructure can also be used by other sectors such as healthcare, education and government services as well as by smart grids and digital media. Another key reason is that, in the context of the recent economic crisis, they see this development as a new method of economic innovation.

via OfficialWire: USA And Australia Leading The World In Smart Grid Development.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken an active and financial role in plans for both the smart grid and broadband development, and it’s now encouraging the two industries to use one another. Speaking Thursday to attendees of the Cleantech Investor Summit, FCC energy and environmental director Nick Sinai said that the FCC will make specific recommendations on how to bring broadband to the smart grid through the National Broadband plan due to Congress in March.

via FCC encourages cooperation between broadband, smart grid.

There are a lot of similarities between the build out of telecom and Internet infrastructure, and the current rollout of the smart grid. But here’s one major, and very important, difference between the construction of communications and energy networking, which the President and Chief Operating Officer of utility ComEd, Anne Pramaggiore, mentioned on a panel at the Cleantech Investor Summit last week: unlike broadband and telecom service providers, utilities are very risk averse.

via Smart Grid 101: Utilities Are Very Risk Averse.

As the FCC gets ready to finally turn in its broadband plan to Congress in March, the agency has asked service providers and the utility industry to find a way to collaborate on how they can leverage their expertise to create the smart electrical grid.

via FCC hones its broadband, smart grid vision – FierceTelecom.