IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional association, has launched the IEEE Smart Grid Web Portal, an integrated gateway to Smart Grid intelligence, education, and news from IEEE and other expert sources. The portal is designed for manufacturers, policymakers, educators, academics, governments, engineers, computer scientists, researchers, and other stakeholders in the power and energy, information technology, and communications industries.
An IEEE working group has released Draft 2.0 of its P1901 broadband over power line standard. Publication of the draft is an indicator that the standard is as good as done, and ready for final publication and implementation.
The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today that John D. McDonald, general manager of marketing for GE Energy’s transmission and distribution business and an IEEE Fellow, will serve as chair of the governing board of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, the organization launched by NIST in November to sustain and coordinate development of interoperability standards for a modernized electric power grid.
Efacec Advanced Control Systems — which for more than 32 years has conducted the industry’s most enduring user group meeting for utility executives and engineers –- applauds next week’s landmark “Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT).”
The workshop, the first sponsored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) and hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will be held January 19-21, 2010 in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
The dream of home connectivity, for functions such as home automation and smart grids, but without risking aerial hacking and dead spots and without costly and time-consuming drilling additional holes and fishing more wires is becoming closer to reality.
At this week's CES show in Las Vegas, powerline communications (PLC) networking advocates got a nice win as the IEEE announced that it has released the P1901 Draft Standard for powerline communications.
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Role of Information and Communications Technologies in Building Smart Grid: Technologies and Markets” report to their offering. This report addresses multiple subjects associated with the development of Smart Grid ICT. It, particular, concentrates on the following items: * Standardization process: it is mostly at the beginning stage. Smart Grid technologies can improve the reliability, security, and efficiency of the electrical grid. Intelligent devices can automatically adjust to changing conditions to prevent blackouts and increase capacity. While currently available, a lack of standards and increased upfront cost hinder the deployment of smart grid technologies. Uniform standards will simplify new equipment selection and installation. The IEEE and all other major standard organizations are involved in the standardization process for Smart Grid ICT. There are also multiple industry groups, manufacturers’ consortiums and other organizations that are providing input. So far, the standards landscape is complex, with some duplications and lack of leadership. The picture, probably, will soon change when the ISO and IEEE come up with standards.
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.
Grid Net, a provider of policy-based network management system software and communications reference designs for the utility Smart Grid, has reportedly signed an agreement with Intellon Corporation for using its INT6400 chipset in its advanced communications technology for smart grid electricity meters.
Intellon Corporation is a provider of HomePlug-compatible integrated circuits (ICs) for home networking, networked entertainment, Ethernet-over-Coax (EoC) and smart grid applications. The INT6400 is an advanced IC offered by Intellon. It is said to have the lowest power consumption of any 200 Mbps PHY-rate HomePlug AV-class IC, and supports European 2011 Code of Conduct requirements for adapters and embedded products. The solution delivers higher TCP throughput and user friendly options with improved Quality of Service (QoS).
As per the terms of this deal, Intellon’s INT6400 Industrial temperature chipset will offer Home Area Network (HAN) communications capability for new smart meters.
“Intellon’s HomePlug AV powerline solutions provide reliable communications from smart meters into home area networks,” said Ray Bell, president of Grid Net.
“Most important, interoperability with the emerging IEEE (News – Alert) 1901 standard will ensure cost-effective, future-proof smart meter installations.”
Intelligent consumer use of our limited energy supply is now recognised as one of the major factors in the green revolution. According to the Smart Energy Home Initiative, which brings together companies to overcome the barriers that prevent sustainable houses from being the norm, buildings consume 40% of the energy used in Europe and contribute to 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, with the loss in monetary terms estimated at €60 billion a year.
Using home automation technology for energy control can reduce power consumption by limiting use to where and when it is most needed … therefore saving money on energy bills without affecting quality of life.
The Potential
Not so long ago, home energy control was one of the more mundane applications of home automation. Now, though, it has become the most important one, thanks to the need to conserve our planet’s resources.
Some examples of home energy control: zoned heating and cooling, lighting control, and automatically opening and closing windows and curtains for natural lighting and heating control. There are impressive applications even for energy control. One of my favourites is a dishwasher (which has been set to start in the middle of the night) that can send a message to the water heater to turn up the water temperature as needed — so dishes are properly cleaned and sterilized — and then turn it down again. This is realistic, practical and definitely possible.
If you have missed the IEEE P2030 meeting at Santa Clara on June 3 through the 5th and would like to have access to the information, you can watch the video of Task Group 1 about Power Engineering delivered by Sam Sciacco.
The first meeting of the P2030 working group is being held on June 3–5, 2009, in Santa Clara, CA. Intel Corporation has volunteered to host this P2030 inaugural meeting.Meeting Notice/Agenda
PISCATAWAY, N.J., June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional association, is at the forefront of both helping the world’s citizens understand the benefits of smart grid, while also creating a forum for collaboration for all entities involved in this groundbreaking initiative. Members of IEEE have been working diligently on numerous aspects of smart grid development and execution, including developing interoperability standards, ensuring that the smart grid is environment-friendly and enacting protocols to maintain the grid’s security.
As the smart grid development program has become a top priority – to move nations toward energy independence and environmentally sustainable economic growth – IEEE and other prominent organizations are working in collaboration to create a framework of standards that will bring together numerous industries, including power, security, technology, manufacturing, government, and communications toward furtherance of this vision. In the U.S., Dr. E. James Prendergast, Executive Director of IEEE, participated earlier this month in the Smart Grid Leadership meeting, organized by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, which brought together industry leaders to share their vision on how to utilize standards to create a roadmap for successful smart grid implementation.
“IEEE is excited to be a central force in the smart grid initiative, as it will be impactful to life as we know it,” commented Dr. Prendergast. “In the future, the smart grid is going to be the infrastructure that powers our daily lives. Not only will the smart grid be able to grow with our evolving energy needs as new technologies enter the power equation, but it will also help reduce blackouts and energy pollution as well. This is something that will benefit humanity on many levels, for developed and developing nations alike.”
The HomePlug Powerline Alliance today announced a technology path for Smart Grid (intelligent energy networks), an infrastructure-critical market poised for rapid growth. The Alliance has completed its Market Requirements Document (MRD) for HomePlug Smart Energy. The MRD will guide the development of new HomePlug specifications, creating a new class of powerline communications products that offer lower cost, low power consumption while also being fully interoperable with the current HomePlug AV standard and the forthcoming IEEE 1901 standard ‘ at data rates tailored to meet the anticipated future requirements of smart energy management. This will allow utilities, electricity meter manufacturers and product manufacturers to future proof Smart Grid networks based on HomePlug/IEEE technology.
The Alliance members believe HomePlug powerline technology will play an increasingly important role in achieving a standards-based Smart Grid infrastructure that is more efficient and reliable. The demand for reduced energy consumption, combined with utility company initiatives, legislative mandates and government funding is expected to drive rapid growth in this sector. In fact, the installed base of smart meters is expected to grow to greater than 170 million units worldwide by 2014, according to the ABI Research ‘Advanced Metering Infrastructure’ report published in March 2009. The HomePlug Command & Control (C&C) and HomePlug 1.0 technologies are already being deployed in Smart Meter networks around the world. HomePlug C&C is co-existent with other HomePlug technologies and, in combination with those, will help provide a flexible solution for powerline communications needs.
