grid

Intel has announced a reference design for a home energy-management device, an attempt to get a foothold in the smart grid business and bring Intel's chips to your kitchen table.

At the West Coast Green conference in San Francisco yesterday, Intel Vice President Doug Davis said the design of the tablet-like device, which Intel calls a home energy control and management "panel," is part of the chip giant's efforts to provide tech tools around energy.

The device is meant act as a hub for controlling networked appliances and thermostats and to gather information from smart meters. … Read more

It's like a giant online science fair hosted by a giant corporation. And it's generated some a flood of ideas.

General Electric's $200 million Ecomagination Challenge, launched in July with four venture capital companies, ends tonight after 10 weeks of receiving submissions. People from around the world have offered ideas for making the electric grid cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable. Now a panel of judges gets to pick the winners.

By the end of October, GE will announce the contest entrants with which it plans to pursue commercial relationships. There will be five $100,000 awards … Read more

WALTHAM, Mass.--Five years ago, energy storage on the U.S. electric grid was almost nonexistent, but demonstration projects have shown that storage makes the grid more reliable and cleaner, according to a Department of Energy official.

Imre Gyuk, the program manager for energy storage research at the DOE, was the keynote speaker today at an IEEE conference on grid technologies where he said the grid storage industry is in the process of scaling up. Costs remain a barrier to putting more storage buffers onto the grid, but the question of costs may be a "red herring," he … Read more

WALTHAM, Mass.--Technologies now being tested on the grid are a step toward strengthening the U.S. energy infrastructure and boosting the economy, according to speakers at an IEEE conference on the grid.

After relatively little change for decades, the electric grid is poised for a technical facelift that could include small nuclear power plants, new forms of grid storage, a network of electric vehicles, and power electronics that control large flows of energy efficiently, speakers said here yesterday. The IEEE, which stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is a professional organization of engineers.

The pace of … Read more

WASHINGTON--How successful utilities are at motivating consumers to actively manage energy will go a long way toward determining whether many smart-grid investments improve the country's energy efficiency.

At the GridWise Global Forum here this week, consumers, although absent, are playing a starring role, a reflection of how many utilities realize they need to change how they interact with customers.

Several speakers, from IBM CEO Sam Palmisano to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Jon Wellinghoff, voiced concern that residential electric power customers are vital to efficiency gains through smart-grid technology, yet many have not bought into the idea.

"All … Read more

Utilities around the world may be eager to embrace smart grids, but they don't necessarily want to have to deal with them themselves.

Pike Research released a report today suggesting that utilities have turned to experts to install and deploy smart grids, the two-way digital communications systems for distributing and managing electricity based on real-time use by consumers. It seems likely they'll use an external service provider to manage and maintain their systems as well.

Currently the world is on track to spend a total of $470 million in 2010 on smart-grid management services. Pike predicts that will … Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C.--In a rare public-speaking occasion, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said that the energy infrastructure needs to be further digitized and focused on the consumer.

Palmisano, the keynote speaker today at the GridWise Global Forum conference here, argued that modernizing energy requires a systems engineering approach, rather than the piecemeal upgrades happening now.

Smart meters and sensors on power lines give system operators more information to work with. But the system as a whole needs to become more resilient and efficient. The challenge for industry is to make sense of the enormous amount of data that this "… Read more

The billions of dollars being plowed into electric vehicle battery manufacturing around the world is helping jump-start another clean-energy industry: storage on the electric grid.

Earlier this week, A123 Systems opened a plant in Livonia, Mich., to make lithium ion battery components and packs for hybrid and electric vehicles. Among the government officials at the event were state governor Jennifer Granholm and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who called it a key step to restarting manufacturing in the U.S..

Ramping up lithium ion battery manufacturing by A123 Systems and other companies is projected to drive down the cost of batteries … Read more

Smart-grid companies are the latest to copy the mobile phone apps model in a bid to get traction for their technology.

Echelon on Wednesday introduced a software platform and hardware device designed to collect and process information coming from smart meters and other devices at the edge of the power grid. The company also announced that utility Duke Energy has signed on as a customer.

To modernize the grid, utilities are installing sensors along the grid network and two-way meters at customer premises. These hardware devices gather information that help utilities run the grid more efficiently and reliably. For example, … Read more