grid

Home-area network company Control4 wants you to control your energy consumption and home entertainment from the same box.

The Salt Lake City-based company on Wednesday said that it has raised $17.3 million to fund its expansion into energy monitoring and displays. The company plans to introduce its "energy controller," a thermostat that can connect to smart meters, early next year.

One of the investors is the venture arm of Best Buy, which indicated earlier this week that it is looking at offering products for managing climate-control systems in stores.

Control4 is best known for its products for … Read more

Imagine a refrigerator smart enough to cut your electricity bills.

Smart-grid start-up Tendril and General Electric later this year will test a smart-grid system that will allow GE's networked home appliances to take advantage of cheaper electricity rates, the companies announced Wednesday.

The joint development deal calls for GE to speak to Tendril's smart-grid software in a range of GE appliances--dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, and water heaters--over Zigbee wireless networks.

The integration will allow consumers to control their appliances from different points, such a Web browser, iPhone, or in-home display.

GE's support for Tendril's software for utilities … Read more

Sacramento County's community-owned electric utility has signed a deal for Silver Spring Networks to provide a smart grid for roughly 600,000 homes and businesses.

Installation is to begin in July with an expected completion date tentatively set for March 2011.

So what will residents be getting?

The smart grid will include the installation of two-way electricity meters and home area networks that will provide real-time usage information, rate information, and the ability to control a building's energy usage. This will allow users to monitor their electricity consumption, enabling them to adjust some of their energy usage habits (… Read more

WASHINGTON--Here at a conference on the utility of the future, the starring players are Google, IBM, Cisco Systems, Intel, and smart grid start-ups. The reason? Data.

Modernizing the grid isn't just about installing more transmissions lines and smart meters. It's a giant information challenge as well, said attendees of consulting firm Kema's Utility of the Future conference here on Thursday.

The heavyweight IT companies are seeking to capitalize on initiatives around the world to upgrade the power infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to soon announce how billions of dollars in stimulus money for … Read more

Duke Energy detailed on Tuesday a smart-grid program that pushes power generation and storage to edge of the transmission network.

The company is testing what it calls a "virtual power plant" at a substation in Charlotte, N.C., that it hopes will allow it to use electricity more efficiently.

The substation--where electricity is distributed to a local neighborhood--is equipped with a 50-kilowatt solar array, enough to supply at least five homes when operating. The 213 solar panels either feed electricity directly to the grid or to a 500-kilowatt zinc bromide battery.

About 100 households in the McAlpine Creek … Read more

If you think the lack of technology is the reason we don't have more wind and solar power, think again.

The National Research Council on Monday published a report that finds that renewable energy sources--wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, and biomass--could supply 10 percent of U.S. electricity supply in 2020 with existing technology. Today, renewable energies excluding hydro power are about 2.5 percent of the U.S. electricity mix.

Getting to 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2035 is possible with sustained policies and investment, it said. To achieve more than 50 percent of electricity generation … Read more

Competition to supply gear to modernize the power grid is heating up as utilities Duke Energy and ComEd named their expected smart grid suppliers on Tuesday.

Duke said that it has chosen Cisco to supply an array of equipment for a planned smart grid program estimated at $1 billion over the next few years. Cisco, which unveiled its smart-grid initiative last month, is expected to supply in-home energy monitors as well as networking hardware for Duke's substations, the utility said.

North Carolina-based Duke aims to provide a digital upgrade to its 11 million customers in the five states it … Read more

Smart-grid company Tendril has raised an additional $30 million in venture funding to expand the reach of its home energy monitoring gear.

VantagePoint Venture Partners on Tuesday announced the series C round for the Boulder, Colo.-based company. The money will be used to grow Tendril's network of manufacturing and distribution partners.

Tendril makes small displays for consumers to see how much electricity a home is consuming. The company also makes software for utilities to run energy-efficiency programs that allow consumers to take advantage of lower rates at off-peak times.

The Tendril displays use Zigbee wireless to connect to … Read more