Smart Grid Blog

The announcement today from Glen Canyon, which says its NEXGEN advanced technology delivers smart digital meters for the price of dumb electromechanical versions, may be the first salvo in a long-awaited price war. As I have explained, U.S. utilities have been overpaying for years compared to Europe and Asia-Pacific. For one thing, they are smaller than Continue reading →

Smart grid projects are moving swiftly across Europe to meet the mandate that 80 percent of European households have meters by 2020. Just how many meters is that? GTM Research forecasts an additional 100 million smart meters between now and the end of 2016. via 100 Million Meters Coming to Europe by 2016 : Greentech Continue reading →

On November, 29th and 30th took place in Washington DC the 2011 edition of the Grid 20/20 Forum – Focusing on Markets Symposium. This event, organized by PJM(1), one of Alstom Grid’s main customers and strategic partners in the United States, brought together a distinguished panel of industry experts, thought leaders and grid specialists to discuss ways Continue reading →

A US energy efficiency firm whose fans include Barack Obama and David Cameron is now looking to transfer its rapid growth across the Atlantic to Europe. Opower has expanded to be worth an estimated $1bn after signing contracts with 60 US utilities, including eight of the 10 largest in the country, since being established in Continue reading →

EU plans to move towards a low-carbon economy depend upon a transformed cross-border transmissions system that can integrate renewables and smart meters alike, offering energy consumption savings at source. But is Europe on track to meet the challenge? via Smart grids: Making connections | EurActiv.

The GRID+ program was launched recently in Europe to provide high level support to the Electricity Grid Initiative (EEGI) over the first three year phase to 2014. The €3.94 million project brings together a team of top level players, including research centers, SMEs and universities, which will work in close coordination on the EEGI with Continue reading →

Forget about the U.S., Europe, India and even China: the smart grid market is truly global, worth at least $27 billion and potentially $49 billion in emerging countries from Eastern Europe to Latin American to North Africa, according to a new study from Northeast Group. via Emerging Smart Meter Market Could Be Worth $49B : Continue reading →

With certain economists predicting that 90pc of the world’s feasible coal supply will run out by 2070, how is China reacting to the clean-tech revolution that’s already gripping Europe and the US, especially as the Asian country remains the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. via Where is China’s clean technology agenda heading? – Green Continue reading →

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) provides an easy-to-use smart grid project inventory in the form of an interactive map, intended to make it easier to track and share research project results. All it takes is a couple of clicks on the map, which shows more than 200 project locations coded by type of Continue reading →

The US is way ahead of Europe on demand response (DR). So much so that while the home markets of EnerNOC and Comverge (the two big US demand response companies) near saturation point, forcing them to look elsewhere for new business (including Europe), DR in Europe is only just beginning to get off the ground. Continue reading →

Discussions on hydrogen as transport fuel have been going on for many years and trials of vehicles like CUTE (Clean Urban Transport for Europe) buses in European cities, including London (2003-05), came and went. The buses themselves were ten times the cost of a diesel equivalent, so extensive rollout at that point was unlikely. In Continue reading →

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on 30 May that Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy and Europe’s biggest, would shutter all of its 17 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022, an extraordinary commitment, given that they currently produce about 28% of the country’s electricity. via Germany sets aside 130bn dollars for renewable energy to replace Continue reading →

While much of the smart grid development in Europe mirrors programs underway in North America and other parts of the globe, there are important differences in priorities and emphasis. In particular, aggressive goals for energy efficiency and carbon emissions reductions are major drivers for smart grid and smart meter deployments in Europe. Over the next Continue reading →

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the lead agency in developing technical standards for a U.S. smart grid, will be sharing work with European counterparts to develop a common framework for 21st-century electricity distribution systems. NIST and the European Union’s Smart Grid Coordination Group released a white paper this week outlining the basic principles of Continue reading →

A recent article in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper leads with the headline “Why smart meters could make power firms richer.” It’s a speculative piece with many assumptions about what regulators will allow (like, selling your electricity information to the highest bidder without your consent) — but even though it is mostly devoid of facts, it Continue reading →

The smart grid market in Europe will experience considerable development over the next five years, as utilities across the region work to meet rigorous efficiency mandates and integrate an ongoing build-out of renewable energies into the grid. GTM Research’s latest report forecasts the cumulative European smart grid technology market to hit €3.1 billion in 2012, Continue reading →

To meet EU energy targets, many European nations are ramping up their investments in smart metering. Earlier this week Echelon announced that Fortum Norway awarded a smart grid project to Echelon partner Telvent to deploy Echelon’s smart metering system to the utility’s 100,000 electricity customers. That’s a big deployment, and it look like that’s just Continue reading →

Reseach and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that the number of smart meters in Europe will have grown 26% by 2017 (based on a compound annual growth rate compared to 2010) with the UK having the highest growth potential, closely followed by France and Spain. The EU’s third energy directive aims to achieve 80% Continue reading →

This week I attended the Launch Event of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition in Brussels. The Smart Energy Demand Coalition (SEDC) is dedicated to making the demand side a smart, interactive part of the energy value chain in order to ensure the long-term goals of the Smart Grid. While the SEDC has very clear intentions, Continue reading →

There are few transformations driven by information and communication technologies (ICT) that are as promising as “smart grids” in meeting Europe’s urgent energy challenges, according to a white paper published today by SAP AG (NYSE:SAP – News) and presented in Brussels to Gunter Oettinger, European Energy Commissioner. The paper, “Smart Grids for Europe: Benefits, Challenges, Continue reading →