Technology Projects Aim to Transform Energy Management for Residents, Businesses

The city of Vancouver, Cisco and Pulse Energy announced a collaborative relationship designed to accelerate the development of Vancouver's green-energy goals. The effort with Cisco and Pulse Energy is the latest in Vancouver's ongoing initiatives to showcase the city as an economic hub for the advancement of clean technology, develop a network of specialized partners, and improve energy efficiency and management.

Beginning in 2010, the three parties will work to advance Vancouver's green-energy vision by implementing technologies for building-energy management, home-energy management, urban carbon-footprint reduction and data center efficiency.

Vancouver is consistently ranked as one of the most livable cities in the world and recently launched the Greenest City initiative with a goal of making Vancouver the greenest city in the world by 2020.

The city of Vancouver, Cisco and Pulse Energy are joining together to explore opportunities that will transform the city's energy and environmental strategy through the use of innovative technology.

Cisco and Itron Join Forces to Deliver Next-Generation Smart Grid Platform

Itron Inc. and Cisco recently announced a strategic alliance that will advance the transformation of the world's energy infrastructure. Together, the two will deliver a definitive 21st century Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications platform to the smart grid market and help advance more consistent and reliable delivery of energy across the electric distribution system and into homes and businesses.

Itron and Cisco -- world leaders in smart metering and networking communications, respectively -- will collaborate on solutions that will transition smart metering technology into an open and interoperable, enterprise-class network for utilities. Specifically, the two companies will develop a standards-based, highly secure technology for full IPv6 implementation of field area communications to support smart metering, intelligent distribution automation and interfaces to the customer premise. Such an approach will help ensure consistent and interoperable wired and wireless communications among the various components of the smart grid, enabling utilities to scale to meet the demands of increasingly empowered customers and highly distributed generation portfolios.

Itron will license and embed Cisco IP technology within its OpenWay® meters as well as distribute Cisco networking equipment and software as part of its smart meter deployments. Itron will continue to provide the complete solution and maintain its customer relationships.

Cisco Powers Up Energy Management Tools for Utilities, Consumers, Businesses

Cisco unveiled new technologies that build on its recently announced Connected Grid portfolio and help consumers and businesses better monitor and manage their energy consumption for cost and carbon savings, including an easy-to-use interface for the home environment. The Cisco Home Energy Management Solution features a Home Energy Controller along with Cisco Energy Management Services that, when provided by utilities to their customers, are designed to help consumers securely and reliably gain insight into, and easier control over, their energy use.

Additionally, Cisco announced key updates to its Smart Connected Buildings portfolio, including the new Cisco Network Building Mediator Manager 6300, which enables centralized management of Smart Connected Buildings across global enterprise operations, and the new Cisco Network Building Mediator 3.1, which provides the platform for linking multiple disparate building automation systems and protocols over Internet Protocol and for allowing greater integration and visibility of energy flows across real estate and information technology.

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Grid Net Announces Cisco Investment, accelerates market development

Grid Net, a global leader of real-time Smart Grid and Smart Home software platforms for utilities, their partners and their customers, announced that Cisco has made an equity investment in the company.

Grid Net intends to use the proceeds from this investment to promote its real-time, all-IP, secure, reliable, extensible, end-to-end Smart Grid network infrastructure solutions. In addition, the investment highlights the two companies’ shared vision of creating an energy infrastructure for the 21st century that is built on open standards and helps utilities scale for more effective, efficient electricity transmission and distribution.

The financing will be used to accelerate its cooperative efforts around product development, marketing, customer engagement, industry standards, and regulatory Smart Grid initiatives. Improved coordination and integration of advanced communications and smart grid networking technologies will foster solutions that remove the inherent risks and uncertainties associated with deploying single-vendor proprietary technologies.

Grid Net has built an ecosystem of partners that include GE, Intel, Motorola, Clearwire and others to develop and deploy market-leading Smart Grid solutions worldwide.

Landmark “Pecan Street Project” Brings Together City of Austin To Design Energy System of the Future

Representatives from the City of Austin, Austin Energy, The University of Texas’ Austin Technology Incubator, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) unveiled details of the Pecan Street Project, a bold effort to design a new, clean energy infrastructure, business model and proving ground for tomorrow’s energy technology. Corporate partnerships with Dell, GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPoint were also announced.

Austin is not the only city embarking on a “utility redesign” or “smart grid” project. But because Texas has its own grid, modifications to the power system do not require federal approval. And because the City Council is Austin Energy’s board of directors, Austin is in a unique position to implement technology changes more quickly and offer its electric grid as a real-world proving ground for tomorrow’s clean energy technology.

The project scope includes designing a system that: delivers plentiful, reliable and affordable energy to Austin’s growing citizenry; is responsible with Texas’ most precious natural resources, like air and water; can eliminate the need for more polluting power plants; produces a power plant’s worth of energy, generated within the city limits via renewable resources, and that;
Austin intends to share with cities across America and around the world. This project will help cities map out the creation of the infrastructure it will take to power their economies and preserve the environment.

Corporate partners will assist the project team by providing staff resources and strategic guidance within their areas of expertise. Partners will also help the project team identify technologies that can be pilot-tested on the local electrical grid once the initial phase of the project is completed.

For more information about the Pecan Street Project, visit www.pecanstreetproject.org.