Grants and Smart Grid Demonstration Programs is more than paying off. As of March 2012, the $2.9 billion spent on projects has yielded a total economic output of $6.8 billion. Also, the analysis indicated that high tech, industrial and service businesses usually involved in smart grid projects record higher than average labor income and boost Continue reading →
Citing concerns over domestic shortages of rare earths and other materials critical to U.S. energy security, the Department of Energy is creating a research team led by Iowa’s Ames Laboratory to develop solutions. via Smart Grid: DOE plunks $120 million into rare earths research hub.
Executives from the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and New York state’s electric utilities were joined by officials from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) yesterday to highlight the benefits of a statewide $75 million smart grid initiative, which the DOE supported with a Smart Continue reading →
In February of this year, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) gave a presentation entitled Visioning the 21st Century Electricity Industry: Strategies and Outcomes for America. This was a product of an internal DOE workshop to envision what the nation’s power sector could become by 2035, in order to inform and coordinate the DOE’s electricity-related Continue reading →
Southwest Research Institute and industry collaborators General Electric, Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation and Thar Energy announced they have been awarded an $8.5 million contract by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a high-efficiency supercritical CO2 hot gas turbo-expander for concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. The award was given through DOE’s SunShot Initiative, a program Continue reading →
Cyber security is of course a major issue for utilities. The risks, the potential vulnerabilities, the investments. And probably that nagging question: Is our security as good as we think it is? A new tool from the Energy Department, the Cyber Security Self-Evaluation Survey Tool, has been released to help utilities answer that question. Part Continue reading →
A first-of-its-kind self-evaluation model and survey will provide utilities with a way to benchmark and measure their cybersecurity readiness. Announced today by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Electricity Sector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model, or ES-C2M2, and evaluation survey will help utilities assess their own level of cybersecurity. Available online, the model provides a common Continue reading →
Kicking off ConnectivityWeek, a national conference gathering of top Smart Grid leaders in Santa Clara, Calif., Senior Energy Department Official Patricia Hoffman today announced the winners of the DOE’s ”Apps for Energy” contest. Winners were based on an expert vote, and four of the five judges participated in ConnectivityWeek’s opening panel. According to the DOE’s press release, the competition “challenged innovative software developers to build new Continue reading →
The U.S. Department of Energy has offered Delta Products Corporation $1.9 million to help develop a new electric vehicle charging system using smart grid technology that could speed to introduction of these new vehicles. The new smart grid-tied system would make use of data sharing with utility companies to help balance power demands throughout the Continue reading →
A senior advisor to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu visited one of the University of Colorado’s newest graduate degree programs Tuesday to talk with students about the evolution of smart grids. Lauren Azar told students in CU’s Digital Energy Program — which was launched in 2010 with the help of a $2.4 million grant from Continue reading →
Like the utility industry itself, the Department of Energy has long operated in siloed departments. Some months ago, several of them developed a shared vision of the US electricity system in 2035. Although the DOE originally developed the vision for internal use, it has decided to take the show on the road and pitch it Continue reading →
We reported in early December that industrial distributed generation (industries developing their own on-site power generation) is expected to grow dramatically over the next five years. On Thursday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu affirmed DOE’s support for a relatively young sector in the field, combined heat and power (CHP), during a hearing on the department’s 2013 Continue reading →
This week the Department of Energy announced $12 million is available for projects that speed solar energy innovation. It is part of the government’s SunShot Incubator program designed to help startups and new business units in existing companies push forward on solar technology development. Applications are due April 9 via Smart Grid: DOE finds more Continue reading →
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) accelerated approach for approving funding of smart grid projects led to inadequate review of cybersecurity plans, warned the DOE’s Inspector General (IG). In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, DOE received $3.5 billion to fund smart grid projects, which the department awarded to 99 recipients. via Infosecurity – Continue reading →
The Energy Department is preparing to change how it assesses congestion on the high-voltage power line network as it seeks to revitalize the stalled transmission policy process created in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, DOE senior adviser Lauren Azar says. This year, DOE will complete its third triennial analysis of congestion in the Eastern and Continue reading →
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded nearly $7 million in research and development funding that will help to reduce the current costs of electric-vehicle (EV) chargers by 50% over the next three years. With support from the DOE, manufacturers in California, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania will work to improve the development Continue reading →
The near-term commercial potential of electric transportation and alternative fuels has prompted the US Department of Energy (DoE) to announce it will direct more of its $3 billion in research money to better support items like electric vehicles and smart grid technologies. via Department of Energy Will Direct More Research Dollars to Sustainable Energy | Continue reading →
If there’s one thing the Department of Energy and the Obama administration can do to push clean energy, it’s make sure the necessary transmission lines get built. Miles of transmission lines needed to connect solar and wind farms in the desert can often take years to decades to get built and are one of the Continue reading →
Cybersecurity — the word inspires fear and has become an urgent topic of discussion in the energy world. The U.S. Department of Energy released a report this week that aims to help public and private sectors figure out ways to protect the electric grid against cybersecurity breaches. via 10 ways to deal with cybersecurity in a Continue reading →
Intergraph, a global leader of integrated operational support and infrastructure management solutions for the utility and communications industries, is providing its InService Outage Management Systems (OMS) and Mobile Workforce Management (MWFM) solutions to Westar Energy, Inc., the largest electric energy provider in Kansas, USA. This implementation was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Continue reading →
