Oh, the endless issues with the smart grid stimulus funds — the close to $4 billion in federal grants to over 130 smart grid projects. With that level of funding there were bound to be some hurdles. Here’s another: speed. On Thursday morning at the Wall Street Journal’s Eco:nomics conference, the CEO of Florida power company FPL Group, Lewis Hay III, expressed his concern that “not a dime” of the smart grid stimulus funds had been allocated to the winners to his knowledge.
Onvia, Inc. (Nasdaq: ONVI) is tracking 2,700 energy efficiency, renewable energy, and transmission upgrade projects kicking off in 2010 as a result of funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law a year ago. Worth billions, these projects will lay the foundation for a green economy that will fuel job and business growth for years to come. Onvia is the leader in gBusiness solutions and the creator of Recovery.org, a private sector initiative to give businesses transparency into recovery project spending.
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 ins and outs of tomorrow’s energy grid will be tested on an unprecedented scale in Chicago. Local utility ComEd, a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation, will use $5 million in Recovery Act funding to institute the program, which will initially outfit 8,000 homes with advanced smart meters in order to test how well consumers manage their energy consumption when monitoring and programming are available. The project will also include outfitting 100 homes with distributed solar power systems, creating “mini-utilities” through which ComEd can glimpse the smart home of the future.
Posted by Derekon February 24, 2010 News /
1 Comment
THE nature of the power grid is about to fundamentally change, analyst Paul Budde believes.
Instead of a central power station pushing energy out to homes, farms and business sites around the grid, many sites will become capable of generating renewable power and sharing it around the grid via a “smart” management system that uses computer analysis to trigger switchgear. The United States government has just allocated US$20 billion to developing such a grid, and the Australian government is seeking tenders on a more modest $100 million grid linking 10,000 houses.
You may already know this, but our power grid system has been largely left alone for half a century. We’re using inefficient grid technology to try to thread power across our country and in the process are losing precious energy and a lot of cash. As part of the infamous American Reinvestment and Recovery Act–or Stimulus–Obama smartly set aside 3.4 billion dollars to invest in smart grid technology in 2010 and beyond. That block of funding was matched by industry money and private investment to total over $8 billion in funding for everything from installation of smart meters to funding for manufacturing processes.
Smart meter maker Itron reported better than expected fourth quarter and annual 2009 earnings late Wednesday. That wasn’t too shocking given Itron has been expected to turn around this year as it has started shipping significant volumes of smart meters to utilities. But what was surprising in the company’s conference call was this nugget that CEO Malcolm Unsworth let out about how some utilities might potentially be thinking about rejecting the smart grid stimulus funds because of certain tax restrictions.
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.
Only the rich will be able to afford heating/cooling when the Smart Grid goes nationwide. At least, that is the logical conclusion to be drawn from an early example of the Smart Grid – in Colorado, where the budget has tripled in two years.
China’s overall federal stimulus investments in smart grid projects will surpass the United States’ in 2010, according to a forthcoming market research report — though not on a per capita basis.
After years of talking about a needed overhaul of the United States’ electrical infrastructure, the federal government decided to do something about it by awarding US$3.4 billion in smart-grid project grants on Oct. 27.
Billed as “the largest single energy-grid modernization investment in U.S. history,” the funding under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is designed to expedite the country’s transition to a smarter, more robust, more efficient and more reliable electrical system.
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.
Posted by Derekon February 01, 2010 News /
1 Comment
The Chinese government has committed $7.3 billion to create a more efficient Smart Grid. The investment, $200 million more than that being spend by the United States in 2010, makes China one of the global leaders in smart energy development. The key areas of development include distributed energy generation, renewable energies and improving transmission inefficiencies.
