IBM Teams With Hildebrand to Bring Smart Metering to Homes Across Britain

IBM announced it is teaming with energy consultant Hildebrand to help consumers make more informed decisions about their energy consumption with IBM data management software. As part of this effort, citizens and companies are working together to make more efficient use of energy by collecting, storing and analyzing detailed energy usage information in real time from homes across the UK.

The Hildebrand monitoring system enables real-time analysis of electricity usage for households, or even for individual appliances, to help people make better decisions about energy efficiency in the home and minimize their environmental impact.

The Hildebrand project involves installing small, low-cost energy monitoring devices at groups of homes in five European cities: Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester in the UK, and Plovdiv and Ivanovo in Bulgaria. Each of these groups form a 'living lab,' giving the researchers access to real-world energy usage data, and allowing them to study the behavior of individuals and their attitudes towards energy management.

Homeowners can access this information online in a simple format that displays their electricity usage and perform analytics, such as calculating costs against the users' electricity tariff, or comparing their usage to the average for their group. The end result is that people can make more informed decisions about energy management and change their behavior in order to reduce electricity bills and minimize their environmental impact.

For more information about IBM's smart grid initiative, go to http://www.ibm.com/energy.

Honeywell Acquires Demand Response and Smart Grid Leader Akuacom

Honeywell announced the acquisition of Akuacom, a leader in automated demand response technology and services for the smart grid. The Akuacom Demand Response Automation Server provides utilities and independent system operators (ISOs) two-way communication with energy management systems at commercial and industrial sites. This gives utilities and ISOs the ability to automate the delivery of price and reliability signals to these facilities, and more effectively trim peak demand, adding to Honeywell's energy management and smart grid portfolio.

Utilities and ISOs use demand response to reduce consumption when electricity is expensive and demand outpaces supply — usually on hot days when air conditioners and cooling equipment are running in most facilities. By working with their customers to control energy use, utilities and ISOs save money by eliminating the need for additional peaking power plants, which typically run only when electricity use spikes. Customers reduce costs as well by shifting consumption to times when prices and rates are lower.

Demand response also helps utilities avoid disruptive brownouts and blackouts. And it enables large-scale renewable energy adoption by absorbing the variability that comes with solar, wind and other sustainable resources.

Progress Energy Awarded $200 Million Grant for Smart Grid Projects

Progress Energy has accepted a $200 million U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant awarded as part of the 2009 federal stimulus package. The funds will be used by the company's two utilities for investments in equipment, systems, technologies and communication infrastructure that will add "intelligence" to the systems used to deliver electricity to more than 3.1 million households and businesses in the Carolinas and Florida.

In addition to providing the utilities real-time information about the state of their electric grids, the smart grid transition will enable customers to better understand and manage their energy use, and will provide for more efficient integration of renewable energy resources.

Supplementing the DOE grant, Progress Energy's two utilities will invest more than $300 million in smart grid projects.

Smart Energy Summit 2011 Dates Announced

The 2nd Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer will be held from January 24 - 26, 2011 in Austin Texas.

The Smart Energy Summit, hosted by Parks Associates, is the premier conference studying the market for residential energy management and Smart Grid technologies.

Stay tuned for more information.

IBM Poland and WINUEL Develop the 1st Polish Smart Metering Software Package

IBM Poland and WINUEL SA, announced the first Polish Smart Metering software package to enable intelligent electricity use in more than 15 million households in Poland. The solution was developed jointly with the IBM Software Laboratory in Krakow.

Based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) using WINUEL's programming components and IBM WebSphere, the new solution allows both utility companies and clients to better manage their energy consumption by ensuring detailed, accurate and real-time monitoring at both sides. As a result, utility companies will be able to measure and bill their clients depending on actual energy use. Billing is currently based on rough estimations, which makes the process time consuming and impacts accuracy and income. The solution can be integrated into the platform of any utility company, which also makes it relevant outside of Poland.

The first Polish Smart Metering software package addresses a new 35 million dollar market.

Ventyx Acquisition positions ABB as a key player in energy management

ABB, the global power and automation technology group, has agreed to acquire Ventyx for more than $1 billion to become a leading provider of software solutions for managing energy networks.

ABB will combine its related network management business within the Power Systems division, with Ventyx to form a single unit for energy management software solutions. By providing ABB with broader access to the utility enterprise management market, the acquisition triples the energy management software market available to ABB.

One of Ventyx’s key software applications gives utilities and grid operators the information they need to better match electricity generation with consumption, even at the household level. By generating real-time information on electricity demand, pricing and availability, Ventyx’s software enables a practical business model for utilities to generate revenues from smart grids and carbon trading.

Acceleration of smart grid and smart energy deployments

Ember announced it has reached a key milestone in its quest to become the world's foremost provider of ZigBee technology for smart meters and Home Area Network (HAN) products when it became the first company to ship more than 10 million ZigBee wireless chips. This milestone is reflected in the company's record revenues and sales bookings, making Ember well positioned for almost 300% annual revenue growth in 2010.

Ember's spectacular ramp has been driven by large-scale deployments of smart energy technologies by utilities, device manufacturers, and smart home products for applications in energy management and home security, monitoring and automation. Whether it's in-home displays for energy management such as those from Control4 or Tendril, or home awareness systems like uControl and AlertMe, or smart meters from leaders such as Landis+Gyr and Itron, chances are that the slew of ZigBee smart energy products hitting the market are Ember-enabled.

Across the world, billions are being invested in smart grid programs as part of grid modernization and carbon emission control measures and ZigBee has become the chosen low-power wireless standard for advanced metering and HANs.

Cavet Technologies launches LumiSmart

Cavet Technologies Inc. launched the LumiSmart ILC - Intelligent Lighting Controller - a purpose-built solution that dramatically reduces power consumed by fluorescent lighting systems with no impact on occupant comfort. The solution is designed for industrial, commercial and institutional properties and can be installed within minutes, providing minimal disruption to daily business activities.

LumiSmart ILC is the first of a new class of Smart Grid-enabled lighting controllers that provide microprocessor-driven adaptive control of lighting circuits to reduce power consumption while providing an instant 30 per cent or more power reduction without replacing any existing lamps, ballasts or fixtures.

Cavet's LumiSmart ILC also helps reduce carbon emissions by actively reducing energy consumption at the source, and therefore minimizes strain on the electrical grid. This decrease in carbon footprint results in a reduction in greenhouses gases released into the atmosphere.

U.S. consumers still unaware of smart grid benefits

Parks Associates research indicates over 40% of consumers unfamiliar with term “Smart Grid.”

Consumer knowledge of smart grid technologies is low, even as utilities have deployed 13 million smart meters to U.S. households. In the report, “Residential Energy Management: Opportunities for Digital Systems and Services,” only 11% of U.S. consumers are familiar with the term “Smart Grid.” This low awareness poses a risk to future deployment plans and opens the door for communications service providers to grab market share from utilities by offering their own energy monitoring solutions.

Utilities plan to deploy more than 50 million smart meters by 2014, but they need to improve their educational outreach if they want consumers to embrace this technology.

Consumers in Texas and California have filed lawsuits in which they blame smart meters for unexpected hikes in their electricity bills. The backlash from these stories threatens customer compliance with future smart grid deployments and could disrupt utility plans to create a more robust, interconnected grid that offers advanced services such as monitoring and time-of-use billing.