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.
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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.
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.
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.
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 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to make recommendations for how the National Broadband Plan — due to the U.S. Congress on March 17 — should help shape the fledgling smart grid industry. Interested parties have been submitting their comments over the past few weeks, and this week network infrastructure giant Cisco submitted its comments to the FCC, with a couple of key suggestions.
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.
Nick Sinai, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) director of the newly created energy and environment division, outlined how his organization will work with and manage the smart grid industry. Sinai made his remarks at the Cleantech Investor Summit held on January 21 in Palm Springs, California.
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.
On March 17, the United States’ Federal Communications Commission will present recommendations to Congress on how to bring broadband to the smart grid through the National Broadband Plan. The recommendations will include suggestions on promoting open standards and commercial networks, how to use policies to encourage utilities to provide their customers with real-time open access to energy data and ways to use federal spectrum bands for utilities’ smart grid deployments.
We just got the first glimpse into how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will work with and oversee the smart grid industry. On Thursday afternoon at the Cleantech Investor Summit, Nick Sinai, the FCC’s new Energy and Environmental Director, said that the FCC will make specific recommendations for how to bring broadband to the smart grid through the National Broadband Plan due to the U.S. Congress on March 17 (it was delayed by a month).
via How the FCC Will Promote Open Smart Grid Networks & Real Time Energy Data.
The FCC is exploring how broadband technologies can help the nation become more energy independent and efficient and be a key factor in the evolution to a smart electrical grid. During a field hearing Monday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and others discussed the role of broadband and the agency’s development of a national broadband plan in the nation’s quest for energy efficiency and independence.
via National Journal Online — Tech Daily Dose — Broadband and the Smart Electrical Grid.
After health care reform, the next big fight in Washington will be about energy. Spending on health care is now about 18 percent of gross domestic product, while energy spending is about 10 percent — both in the trillions of dollars, which used to be a lot of money.
There are several driving factors contributing to this urgency for energy reform. Speedy spending on shovel-ready energy infrastructure can help jump-start our declining economy — $43 billion of stimulus spending has been earmarked for energy. Current world energy resources, especially oil, are getting expensive, running out, and in the hands of people who want to kill us. Catastrophic global warming is accelerating because of carbon dioxide released into Earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal and oil, and it’s probably already too late to save life, as we know it. President Obama’s political honeymoon will soon be over, so it’s now or never.
Summary: At hearings relating to its broadband initiative, the Federal Communications Commission heard power executives say that utilities need a dedicated chunk of bandwidth to use for the Smart Grid. Among those arguing for Smart-Grid specific bandwidth were Jason Griffith of American Electric Power, a leading power producer; Eric Miller of Trilliant, a Smart Grid hardware and wireless communications company; and Joby Lafky of GridPoint, a Smart Grid software company. Not everyone agreed, however. Expressing the minority view was Henry Jones of SmartSynch, a company that uses IP over existing wireless networks for its metering products. Jones opined that utilities already have access to multiple Smart Grid broadband networks.
via Smart Grid: FCC Ponders Dedicated Bandwidth for Smart Grid.
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission joined the alphabet soup of federal agencies that’s contemplating what its role might be in bringing our electric grid a bit of intelligence. It’s not unreasonable—smart grid devices are all about starting a two-way conversation between utilities and their distribution equipment and end-user devices. But the FCC held the hearing as part of its broadband initiative, and the hearings allowed those in the industry to press the Commission to allocate the smart grid a chunk of spectrum in order to provide its components guaranteed wireless broadband.
Not everyone at the hearing felt it was necessary; at least one person providing testimony suggested that existing cellular networks could easily absorb the added bandwidth. But many of those providing testimony pointed out that deadzones and strangled bandwidth might be acceptable to cellular providers, but wouldn’t be tolerated by utilities.
The most forceful argument against giving the utilities some of their own spectrum came from Henry Jones of SmartSynch, who said that cellular providers are already giving wireless access to millions of diverse devices around the country. Most of the current smart grid applications require very little bandwidth, and Jones said his calculations indicated that plugging all the potential meters in would only add 0.0002 percent to AT&T’s bandwidth requirements. “Allocating scarce resources just for utility purposes is not necessary,” he argued, “We already have multiple smart grid broadband networks available.”
via Utilities may get dedicated chunk of spectrum for smart grid – Ars Technica.
American Electric Power (AEP), one of the largest generators of electricity in the U.S., told the Federal Communications Commission today during a workshop on smart grid technology that “dedicated licensed spectrum is sorely needed by utilities.” In other words AEP supports the idea of having the government allocate wireless spectrum specifically for utilities to use for smart grid purposes. This would mean either restricting that spectrum to a few select groups, or making it completely off limits for other types of companies and organizations working on things other than smart grid technology.
The argument behind this call from AEP is that as utilities roll out more and more smart grid services, the utilities will need more and more network bandwidth. The fear for some utilities is that heavy use of unlicensed, undedicated wireless spectrum — which can be used by any company if they follow specific rules for using the spectrum — could lead to interference between their smart grid applications and other groups’ uses of the network. In AEP’s presentation for the FCC it wrote: “Dedicated spectrum is much less likely to receive interference and has a remedy procedure if interference is experienced.”
via AEP Calls for Dedicated Wireless Spectrum For Smart Grid.
While Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm are starting a new joint venture to provide machine-to-machine (M2) wireless communications and smart services to a wide range of markets including utilities, the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) has hired an energy and environmental director to look at how the U.S. broadband/communications infrastructure and policies can support the nation’s energy and environmental goals.
These are just a couple of the recent developments in the world of smart grids.
The FCC has recently hired former venture capitalist Nick Sinai of Polaris Ventures as its energy and environmental director to create a National Broadband Task Force to evaluate the nation’s broadband/communications infrastructure and how it will enhance the smart grid, reports Fierce Telecom.
The biggest proponents for the smart grid are the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and the IEEE , which jointly developed the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Project P2030.
The FCC will develop rules and regulations for utility companies leveraging wireless spectrum and broadband access technologies, reports Fierce Telecom.
The Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm joint venture, yet to be named, will focus on smart services enabled by M2M capabilities. As an example, smart grid technology enables utilities to wirelessly connect to their grid assets such as circuit breakers, transformers and other sub-station equipment, allowing them to develop more interactive utility networks. Analysts peg the M2M market at more than 85 million connections globally by 2012, according to the companies.
