Utilities, tech vendors and trade groups like the Grid Wise Alliance have openly been complaining that it’s taking too long for the billions of dollars in smart grid grants, which the Department of Energy promised back in October, to reach the projects, and ultimately create jobs. Well, it looks like the dam has been broken, albeit for a small project. Municipal utility Glendale Water and Power announced Thursday that it has signed a contract to start the flow of $20 million in DOE smart grid grants and according to Craig Kuennen, Glendale’s smart grid program sponsor, it’s the first such contract signed in the country. “That’s what DOE told us,” Kuennen said to us Thursday.
Companies that receive U.S. stimulus grants from a $3.4 billion smart-grid electricity project will not be taxed on those funds by the federal government, the Treasury Department said today.
The decision lets the Energy Department proceed with grant agreements in the coming weeks, according to a joint statement from the Treasury and Energy departments.
Glendale Water & Power will begin this spring a demonstration project of a smart grid system funded by a federal grant.
The project will install 1,500 electric and water meters that allow for two-way communication between the customer and the city-owned utility giving real-time electricity usage data that will help save on Energy costs.
Glendale is the first city in the nation to sign an agreement for a Smart Grid Investment Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy’s $620 million in awards for smart grids and other energy-related projects should provide the government and industry real insight into how to get the nation’s electrical grid talking.
Wireless technology will be used to help utility grids become smarter as the technology can help better manage in the delivery of electricity in real time in a more efficient manner. But how great a role wireless plays in the evolving smart grid has yet to be determined. The smart grid system is something that will take decades to achieve, but real progress is under way. In order for this vision to develop, billing systems and other items that touch the grid will need to be implemented.
The Department of Energy is offering $8 billion in loan guarantees to break ground on a new nuclear power plant in Maryland. Will this be the start of a nuclear building boom?
Speaking in Lanham, Maryland, President Obama outlined a simple objective: Jump start nuclear power plant construction in the U.S., which hasn’t built a new plant in three decades.
Beacon Power Corporation (Nasdaq: BCON), a leading provider of advanced products and services to support a more stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid, today announced that it plans to hire approximately 50 new employees this year at its Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, headquarters, as it ramps up production of its grid-scale flywheel energy storage systems.
Utility companies around the world will invest $21 billion in smart grid security efforts between 2010 and 2015, according to estimates released in a new report.
They’re being spurred on by the U.S. Department of Energy’s smart grid stimulus programs, and the need to secure smart grid deployments that are becoming more and more technology-reliant and vulnerable to infiltration and compromise.
S&C Electric Co. has been selected by American Electric Power (AEP) for the utility’s gridSMART Project in Ohio following AEP’s award of $75 million in Department of Energy (DOE) stimulus funding.
The AEP Ohio gridSMART Demonstration Project will be deployed to 110,000 AEP Ohio customers in northeast central Ohio. It will integrate a range of advanced technologies in the distribution grid, utility back office and consumer premises with consumer programs to comprehensively demonstrate smart grid impacts for consumers and the utility.
Is the smart grid nearly as smart as the hype around it says? It depends on whether you expect the technology to ax energy consumption and carbon emissions … or whether you think it’ll act more like a scalpel.
Instrumental in helping secure the funding, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen had a first-hand look Friday at how the N.H. Electric Cooperative will integrate “smart grid” technology to improve the way it does business, giving its members a better understanding of, and control over, the energy they use.
A smart electrical power grid could decrease annual electric energy use and utility sector carbon emissions at least 12 percent by 2030, according to a new report from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will spend up to $12 million for the development of early stage solar technologies and to help bring them to market.
Itron (NASDAQ:ITRI) smart grid solutions have been recognized for their contribution to a robust clean energy economy by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The acknowledgement came as part of President Obama’s announcement to award $2.3 billion in Recovery Act Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits for clean energy manufacturing projects across the United States.
By being tied into the smart grid in Fort Collins, Colo., New Belgium Brewing Co. will know when it makes sense to produce its own power, reports the Coloradoan.
The city’s distributed energy generation program is designed to let companies and organizations that have their own generating capacity to add power back to the grid during times of peak loads. The program is part of the Fort Collins Zero Energy District, or FortZED.
