Smart Grid Blog

Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has scoffed at suggestions the federal government’s multi-million-dollar smart-city, smart-grid trial had been cancelled despite missing a critical deadline.

The government had committed up to $100 million to the project to establish a large-scale smart-grid and smart-meters pilot aimed at demonstrating best practise, shape government policy and help industry and consumers realise the benefits of smart grids.

via Smart city still on the cards, says Penny Wong | The Australian.

Townsville Enterprise Limited (TEL) says north Queensland would be in the international spotlight when it comes to energy efficiency if the Federal Government chooses the city to host a smart grid initiative.

TEL spokeswoman Lisa McDonald says the Federal Government has short-listed Townsville as one of three cities to trial the program which will trial ways to best reduce power consumption in homes and businesses.

via Townsville in ‘smart grid’ bid – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Smart-meter maker Landis+Gyr said Monday it won a deal to supply up to 1 million smart meters to British Gas customers in the United Kingdom’s first major smart -grid trial.

The nation hopes to have all residential and business customers of its six major utilities connected to smart meters by the end of the decade.

via Landis+Gyr Wins First Major British Smart Grid Deal « TechPulse 360.

National Grid has proposed a new “smart grid” project to test new technologies that would allow people to more smartly manage their electricity usage.

The project will be located in Syracuse and impact 39,000 customers there.

via National Grid proposes new smart grid project only in Syracuse – The Buzz: Business news – Capital Region business, industry news – timesunion.com – Albany NY.

A company founded by two former executives of power-grid operator PJM Interconnection has gotten the green light to demonstrate its smart-grid technology on the campus of Drexel University.

Viridity Energy Inc., which was started last year by its president and CEO, Audrey Zibelman, and its chief technology officer, Alain P. Steven, will deploy its VPower System at three buildings on Drexel’s campus in January.

Viridity also will work with the Power Resources Department in Drexel’s College of Engineering to improve its system, which uses power-management software developed by the energy unit of German conglomerate Siemens AG.

Siemens developed the software as part of a partnership with German power-plant operator RWE Energy aimed at enabling multiple generation facilities to be run as a single entity called a virtual power plant.

Running multiple plants as a system enables their owners to run them more efficiently. It also gives them more possible customers for the power the plants produce. Those things are particularly true if the plants are small, as is often the case with plants that use such green energy sources as biomass, wind or the sun.

In Viridity’s hands, Siemens’ software will become the heart of a networking system that uses multiple factors to manage the power consumption of multiple buildings so that the buildings consume the least amount of electricity and their owners can buy power for them at the cheapest possible rates.

Factors the system takes into account include weather forecasts, prices on the various power markets, planned usages of the buildings and the preferences of the buildings’ owners.

For example, Zibelman said, a building’s owner may want it chilled to 72 degrees in the summer if electricity costs a certain amount, but only want it chilled to 75 degrees if the price of power exceeds that amount.

via Viridity’s smart-grid science will be tested out at Drexel – Philadelphia Business Journal:.

Over its 3-year lifetime, Cambridge, UK-based home energy management startup AlertMe has managed to develop a slick hardware design and become one of the first startups to sell its gear to customers. In the past several months since the company decided to focus predominantly on utility sales, however, it had not announced any utility deals. But on Monday morning AlertMe plans to announce a baby step in that direction — it has scored a partnership with a division of one of the largest residential suppliers of gas and electricity in the UK, British Gas, to do a trial using AlertMe’s energy management kit.

AlertMe hinted at the deal last month and told us it had been “working closely with some of the largest UK utilities and service providers, which we expect to convert to major strategic relationships in the near term.” The trial with British Gas will first focus specifically on a heating system that can be controlled remotely, enabling home owners to turn on/off, up/down their home heat from any broadband-connected device, like a PC or cell phone. British Gas is offering AlertMe gear as a voluntary option, and customers will actually have to pay for the upfront hardware as well as a recurring subscription service fee. The trial is supposed to start by the end of 2009.

AlertMe wouldn’t expand on the size of the trial or pricing of the gear and service. But when it comes to energy management products these days, utility trials are a dime a dozen. A lot of utilities are in the process of “sampling” — doing several small pilot deals with a lot of experimental companies. As a result, venture capitalists have been struggling to see past the initial lure of the smart home trial to identify the true leaders in the space.

via AlertMe Inks First Utility Trial With British Gas.

British Gas today announced plans to create 2600 jobs by 2012 to roll-out smart meters across the country and offer advice about energy efficiency.

The announcement came when British Gas managing director Phil Bentley opened a new Energy Academy in Leicester.

“Today’s announcement of 2,600 new jobs by 2012 shows we are creating skilled green jobs in Britain and training the experts who will help customers become more energy efficient in the future,” he said.

The Academy will train ‘smart energy experts’ to install smart meters and low-carbon microgeneration technologies. Trained staff will also be able to carry out home energy audits and advise householders on energy-saving tariffs, energy saving measures such as insulation and microgeneration.

British Gas is already running a trial of smart meters in 50,000 homes and businesses and welcomes the Government’s plans to roll out smart meters across the country.

via British Gas to create 2600 jobs to roll out smart meters | Energy Efficiency News.

Country Energy has foreshadowed a significant body of work ahead between the electricity sector and the Government to work through overlaps between smart grids and the national broadband network.

The utility’s general manager for strategy, Ben Hamilton, told an Australian Information Industry Association lunch today that connectivity alternatives for Country Energy’s intelligent network project had been assessed.

He said it was likely the network backbone would be a mix of technologies.

“Given the geographic spread of locations, in all likelihood there’ll be a mix of our own assets for network control as well as existing carrier assets,” Hamilton said.

“The NBN also becomes a consideration now. It’s likely the NBN will give us some backhaul capability between some towns [we service].”

Country Energy’s project has been running for about 18 months. At its heart is a residential smart grid trial and a “demonstration house” in Queanbeyan, a suburb outside Canberra.

via Country Energy adds NBN to smart grid thinking – Networking – Technology – News – iTnews.com.au.

A TRIAL of smart energy meters could start soon as the Bligh Government investigates a plan to make consumers pay more for power at peak times.

A meeting of energy ministers in Darwin yesterday was told Queensland intended to unveil a timetable for the smart meter pilot study by the end of the month.

The meters would register the amount of electricity consumed at any given time, allowing the Government to charge more for power in the morning and evening peaks to encourage energy conservation.

A communique from the meeting reveals there is still a “range of uncertainty about costs and benefits of smart meters”.

It said ministers believed the pilot study would help them determine how the meters could be rolled out nationwide.

via Smart energy meters to roll out in trial | The Courier-Mail.