The brutal heat wave punishing the American northeast has underscored the need for smart grid technologies. Bob Gilligan, vice president of General Electric’s Digital Energy business says it is imperative to invest overhauling the power infrastructure. “As record-breaking temperatures in the northeastern United States have consumers turning up their air conditioners, our overburdened electric grid Continue reading →
plug-in vehicles
A line will start forming this week for people wanting to buy mass-produced electric cars, but the vehicles’ rollout could be hindered by a shortage of Bay Area charging stations. Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. will begin accepting online reservations for the fully-electric Leaf vehicle on Tuesday for a $99 fee. via Electric cars searching for Continue reading →
With a million plug-in electric vehicles potentially on the road in 10 years, U.S. and Canadian power grid operators said the adoption of smart grid technologies and staggered charging times would reduce the cars’ potential negative impact on electric load. In a report, the ISO/RTO Council said most PEVs would be concentrated in the major Continue reading →
Consert, Inc., based in Raleigh, N.C., provides a market-driven, incentive-based solution to utilities, residences and small businesses by which they can conserve energy, save money, eliminate the need for new construction of peak-consumption generator facilities and begin the transition to alternative, renewable energy sources. In addition to a patent-pending method to locate, measure, aggregate and Continue reading →
US power company GE has endorsed the European Union Commission’s introduction of a smart grid roadmap to border-neutral carbon reduction. The commitment will involve Smart grid technologies will be used in an EU-wide smart city strategy that will see smart meters deployed in homes, together with technology to optimize renewable generation and accommodate plug-in electric Continue reading →
Toyota announced on Monday plans to begin selling “several tens of thousands” of plug-in versions of its popular Prius hybrid in 2012, as Hiroko Tabuchi reports. In another article in The New York Times today, Matthew L. Wald describes how the rollout of so-called smart meters – which are promoted by electric utilities as a Continue reading →
Imagine going to the gas station to fill up your car. You fill your tank but there is nothing on the pump to tell you the price per gallon or how many gallons you put in your tank. Instead of paying right there, you drive away and the oil company sends you a bill at Continue reading →
Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) is launching a 3-year pilot project aimed at helping households and businesses save more on electricity bills. The initiative comes on the back of higher consumption patterns and more diversified energy sources. Due to the current design of Singapore’s electricity grid, users do not know how much electricity is used Continue reading →
Toyota is donating 10 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to a research project aimed at monitoring how plug-ins interact with Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity project in Boulder. The 10 cars — part of a 150-car plug-in demonstration fleet that Toyota plans to release in the United States early next year — will be studied by the Renewable Continue reading →
California’s push to lead U.S. sales of electric cars may result in higher power rates for consumers in the state, as a growing number of rechargeable vehicles forces utilities to pay for grid upgrades. The autos’ effect on electricity fees is being reviewed by California’s Public Utilities Commission this month as the most populous U.S. Continue reading →
Like a complex jigsaw puzzle with lots of missing pieces, the picture of a smart electric power grid is slowly beginning to take shape in the United States, along with predictions of big energy savings and emission reductions that could come with it. The scattered placement of the pieces is a work in progress, with Continue reading →
Just two months ago, Ford Motor launched a trial of a software system meant to enable communication between its plug-in vehicles and the power grid, by way of smart meters and a Zigbee wireless connection. At the time, Ford’s Nancy Gioia, recently named director of Ford Global Electrification, told us Ford would consider developing a Continue reading →
Mother Nature News has a post on a some recent comments by Google’s Dan Reicher on the company’s interest in developing software for managing the recharging of electric vehicles – Google creating software to make plug-in hybrids more efficient. In its continual climb to take over what seems to be just about every industry, Google Continue reading →
Ford Motor Company has developed an intelligent charging system that previews how its production vehicles will interact with the grid. The unnamed system enables all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners to restrict charging to when electricity prices fall below a certain threshold, or even “when the grid is using only renewable energy such as wind Continue reading →
Having too many plug-in hybrid cars actually plugged in could blow up the grid — or at least knock out a few localized transformers. That’s the message from one utility executive, anyway, speaking at the 2009 Plug In conference in California. But even if it’s true, Boulder’s transformation to the nation’s first smart-grid city will Continue reading →
As more and more vehicles start plugging into the electric grid, utilities will need to manage the plug-in connections, or risk overloading the system. Seeing an opportunity to address that basic challenge, last year smart grid company GridPoint acquired startup V2Green, which had developed smart charging software for electric vehicles. Now less than a year Continue reading →
