Smart Grid Blog

The modernization of electrical grids presents an opportunity to improve the efficient use of energy through analytics of energy consumption data. Uses of this data can go well beyond efficiency and flexible pricing programs. Energy consumption data is a potential goldmine of knowledge about consumers. And this means that utilities, energy service providers, consumers, policy Continue reading →

The U.S. electrical grid is the largest interconnected machine on Earth: 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines, linking thousands of generating plants to factories, homes and businesses. The National Academy of Engineering ranks it as the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. What it cannot do Continue reading →

Me, I always thought grids and electricity were two pretty smart inventions, particularly the American electricity grid – 99.97 percent reliable. Hard to beat that. But as it turns out, maybe that can get even smarter. Businesses lose $80 – $150 billion due to outages and power quality yearly according to industry observer Tom Cross Continue reading →

The U.S. Department of Energy has been generous in its support of smart grid efforts this year, granting $3.4 billion to utilities to transition to a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid, and backing companies of all sizes making components and energy management systems to change the way Americans use power. Today it is zeroing in Continue reading →

With fanfare and news releases in both Washingtons, the Obama Administration on Tuesday announced it will invest $88.8 million worth of federal stimulus money in this state to develop “smart grid” technologies to use electricity more efficiently and cut customers' power bills. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., described it as an effort to “infuse intelligence into Continue reading →

In the quest to supply electricity for millions of future electric cars, engineers have stumbled upon the most unlikely of energy prospects — the car itself. If that sounds like a bit of tangled logic to you, then you’re not alone. The very idea leaves most intelligent people scratching their heads. Still, the concept is Continue reading →

According a new report, a radical overhaul of policy and technology is needed for the USA to reap the benefits promised by the smart grid. Sean Ottewell reports. The oversight policy of the US electrical grid has been described as a hodge podge in a new report published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Industrial Continue reading →

The smart grid — the plan to revamp the U.S. electrical grid into a more efficient and optimized system for managing and delivering power — is also a key opportunity on which Cisco aims to capitalize. Cisco has previously stated that it sees billions of dollars of opportunity in helping to provide smart grid technology Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

The computer in my toaster might be more powerful than the one that guided Apollo 11. But half a century after Robert Noyce launched the cyber age by inventing the silicon-based integrated circuit, computers are curiously scarce in one huge and critical part of daily life. When power goes out in your neighborhood, Baltimore Gas Continue reading →

The US Department of Energy (DoE) once again opened up its stimulus fund war chest yesterday, awarding over $57m to eight smart grid demonstration projects across the country. The new investment, which follows $17m of government smart grid funding awarded last year, will aim to accelerate the roll out of projects designed to demonstrate the Continue reading →

With the likely passage of the “Cap and Trade” bill, many investors are jumping on the renewable energy bandwagon. And why not. With the government about to mandate a cap-and-trade program that will drive up the cost of electricity, there are many new opportunities to capitalize on the flow of investment dollars from public and Continue reading →

Because today’s energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies lack connective infrastructure, they provide only first steps toward climate change mitigation. Quantitatively they only make dents. This applies to building efficiency methods, such as improved lighting and insulation, and transportation efficiency methods such as higher fuel economy standards. The same for onshore wind and concentrated solar Continue reading →