Grid Net and Oracle Join Forces to Deliver New Integrated Smart Grid Solutions for Utilities

Grid Net, a global leading provider of real-time, all-IP Smart Grid and Smart Home software platforms for any device and any broadband technology, announced it will work together with Oracle to deliver advanced distribution management systems and meter data management technology to support utilities’ Smart Grid deployments aimed to improve grid reliability and enable smarter energy choices.

Today’s emerging Smart Grid deployments will generate a vast amount of energy usage data and require near real-time, reliable, and secure communications for utilities to efficiently distribute energy and interact with a rapidly growing number of distributed devices. As a Gold level member of the Oracle Partner Network, Grid Net will work closely with Oracle to help deliver complete, open, and integrated Smart Grid solutions to the utilities industry.

Together, these solutions can help utilities efficiently, securely distribute power, improve network reliability and reduce outage durations. The combined solution will operate on a common data model and integrate easily with Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing providing utilities with a wealth of information that will help them improve network performance and customer satisfaction.

For the full press release, click here.

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.