On Christmas night, Maja Bendtsen and her husband were curled up on the couch watching TV in their cozy house on the Danish island of Bornholm. Suddenly the house lost power. “The lights flickered briefly and then everything went black,” Bendtsen recalls. Peeking out the window, they saw that the whole neighborhood was dark. A Continue reading →
The concept of a smart home will be crucial to selling the benefits of smart meters to consumers, according to research by YouGov for Telefonica UK (O2). Smart homes will allow consumers to remotely manage their home appliances such as lights, heating, oven, TV and more. via Smart home vision critical to smart meter success Continue reading →
Charging your electric vehicle could help balance the grid and save you money. Northwest researchers have developed a smart charger to do just that. Right when you get home from work, you may cook dinner, turn on the TV, power up your computer. And if you have an electric vehicle, you may plug it in Continue reading →
Many years ago, I used to work for one of the largest Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) in the country. The employees understood that our main job was to keep the lights on, safely and affordably. There was also an understanding that most end-consumers don’t think about their electrical infrastructures until the lights are out. This Continue reading →
“Well, that’s embarrassing,” my Dad said as the cameras panned across the darkened Superdome. To fill the half-hour gap in Super Bowl XLVII, the TV commentators made idle chitchat, Dad watched YouTube videos on his smartphone and I added a few more rows to the latest baby blanket to hang from my knitting needles. Meanwhile, Continue reading →
The Weightless protocol for white space radio networks is now under the management of a Special Interest Group, which aims to get the Cambridge-developed technology established as a standard for the “Internet of Things”. The Weightless SIG hopes today to publish version 0.9 of a proposed standard for machine to machine (M2M) communications, that can link Continue reading →
While it’s still not possible to definitively predict the course a nasty storm will take, we can say with absolute certainty that once it does arrive, two things will happen. First, we will be treated to the last remaining example of slapstick on TV–weather reporters trying to remain upright in a gale. And second, we’ll Continue reading →
The storm that has spawned so many worst-ever superlatives managed a few more when it comes to electricity, with record-breaking power outages across 18 states stretching from Michigan and Indiana to Maine and North Carolina, according to a Department of Energy assessment. As of Tuesday, Superstorm Sandy had left more than 8 million people without Continue reading →
Imagine being able to figure out just how much power in your house is being used by the TV, versus the refrigerator, versus the washer and dryer, versus the air conditioning and lights and everything else — not by attaching a sensor to each device, but through data and analytics. That’s the basic concept behind Continue reading →
Homes in rural locations or with poor broadband connections could now be fitted with smart meters, helping occupants and industry save money and energy. Bglobal, a provider of smart energy solutions and NEUL, a white space specialist have successfully carried out a trial in which smart meter readings have been taken remotely over a distance Continue reading →
As a child, everyone has a favourite boast about their daddy. But few would have a story to match Prof. Jayant Baliga’s. “The first TV broadcast into a home in India occurred in my house.” In true tradition of a man of science this isn’t an empty boast. It really did happen. “My father, B.V. Continue reading →
Have you heard about Sony’s pay-as-you-go smart power vision, enabling you to swipe a card in front of a power outlet to pay for electricity and choose your power source? Sony’s vision for 2030, shown in a video, seems pretty cool, but one has to wonder how realistic it is. I can see such applications Continue reading →
The smart grid communications space is already noisy and contentious. Technologies such as RF mesh, point-to-point, powerline, 3G, 4G/LTE, WiMax, WiFi and ZigBee are already competing. Now a UK company says TV white space could be a superior solution. TV white space is the “buffer zone” that separates over-the-air TV broadcasts. As television goes digital, Continue reading →
One of the big words of the week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is “Smart.” As in Smart home, smart TV, smart connectivity. Smart. Smart, smart. And that’s a very good thing, because the term is often being associated with home connectivity and saving energy. Even for smart TVs.Panasonic is showing“Viera Smart” Continue reading →
If you walked in late on the final morning of the Gridwise Global Forum conference, you may have been confused. Instead of a panel about communications standards or Volt/var control, there was a Pampers ad playing on a large TV screen. via Does Smart Grid Need Madison Avenue? : Greentech Media.
