Ambient Expands Smart Grid Deployments in Ohio

Ambient announced that it has ramped up manufacturing capacity to meet the increasing demand for its products. Ambient is positioned to meet the recent increase in purchase orders, currently totaling over 44,000, for the X-3100 smart grid nodes. The company continues to further increase capacity for additional anticipated orders.

Ambient's node is a key component in smart grid deployments that are intended to bring these benefits to over 750,000 consumers. To date, Ambient has shipped approximately 25,000 IP-based smart grid communications nodes (from previously received orders), with over 17,000 of these nodes deployed in multiple locations in the United States.

Having experienced more than four consecutive quarters of growth, the Company is continuing to add essential resources to enhance its smart grid communications portfolio of products and expand its customer base. Ambient designs, develops and markets Ambient Smart Grid communications technologies and equipment. Using open standards-based technologies along with in-depth industry experience, Ambient provides utilities with solutions for creating smart grid communication platforms and technologies.

For the complete press release, please click here.

GreenWave Reality sponsors Smart Energy Summit 2011

Parks Associates welcomes GreenWave Reality as a new 2011 event sponsor for the Smart Energy Summit.

GreenWave Reality is a global innovator in the emerging Home Energy Management market. GreenWave Reality provides an affordable, easy-to-use, standards-based platform that allows utilities enhance their relationship with consumers and better balance energy on the grid while consumers can conserve energy with a minimal impact to their lifestyle by easily monitoring and controlling their appliances and adding intelligent LED lighting.

Visit GreenWave Reality at www.greenwavereality.com.

Thank you GreenWave Reality for your support!

Parks Associates presents new consumer data at CEDIA Expo

Parks Associates’ Director of Home Systems Research, Bill Ablondi will lead and moderate the keynote panel session “The Future of Energy Management” during the CEDIA Expo on Friday, September 24 in Atlanta, GA. Leaders in consumer technology, energy management, and smart grid technology will deliver the state of the union as it relates to energy management and the electronic systems industry during this keynote panel. Speakers include: Control4 Energy Systems, Direct Energy, GlobalSmartEnergy, Home Automation, Inc. (HAI), and Intel Corp.

Bill will present findings from Parks Associates’ Residential Energy Management project, including consumer research, new opportunities for manufacturers and service providers to deliver energy solutions, and strategies for companies to communicate the benefits of smart grid technologies and successfully engage consumers.

In the new white paper “Consumer Attitudes and the Benefits of Smart Grid Technologies,” Parks Associates reports more than 80% of U.S. broadband households are interested in learning about ways to cut energy expenditures, but utilities and their partners will be challenged in designing solutions to meet consumers’ varying needs and budgets.

Independent probe says heat (not smart meters) caused PG&E bills to soar

Around the time Pacific Gas & Electric started installing smart meters in California’s San Joaquin Valley, temperatures started to soar. But consumers got hotter still when their electricity bills started arriving with new smart meters and higher bills. Could this really be right?

The California PUC commissioned an independent evaluation to determine if PG&E smart meters were working properly. In a 414-page report, the smart meters were determined to be accurate.
Better communication and customer service need to bring together utilities, suppliers, vendors and advocates to better understand consumer needs and share best practices.

The Smart Grid “Middle Mile” Issues

If the smart grid stalls, it may be because of the “middle mile.” The middle mile may suffer from traffic jams unless utilities plan carefully.

Many utilities start their smart grid push with advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which doesn’t require much bandwidth or speed. The middle mile starts to get overcrowded when new applications (grid automation, assest management, or outage management) are added.

The solution is to plan ahead for future needs. Utilities need to determine the requirements for bandwidth, for latency, for range and for quality of service (prioritizing critical messages) with a network that has lots of excess capacity or at least has a plan for expanding.

To read more on "How the ‘middle mile’ could stall smart grid communications," click here.

Exploring Smart Grid Tech at the Shanghai World Expo

The “Magic Box” inside State Grid Corporation of China’s pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo has already attracted more than 2.6 million visitors with a Disney-meets-Star-Wars explosion of color and lights. This 4,000-meter Magic Box provides an opportunity for expo visitors to experience smart grid technologies and a look at how smart communities and smart homes of the future will impact their lives.

A case study of the Magic Box as a consumer engagement tool is featured in the impressive new report, “Accelerating Successful Smart Grid Pilots” from Accenture and the World Economic Forum. That’s because the authors engaged over 60 industry, policy and regulatory stakeholders in their mission, which was to assess real-world smart grid pilots to identify factors that contribute to their success (or otherwise).

The result is a thought-provoking analysis packed with lessons learned and strong recommendations in several key areas. Examples include:

-- Consumer-centric pilots call for a more interactive approach, presenting utilities and retailers with a unique opportunity to interact with customers and share the benefits of smart technologies.
-- During a Duke Energy home energy management pilot, analysis of data received from the calls indicated that the technology being used required significantly more education of the consumer to enable them to effectively use the technology.
-- Business customers are often more sensitive to price and open to innovative product and service offerings that help increase profitability.

Where will the next smart grid technologies be displayed?

To read the entire Smart Grid News article by Liz Enbysk, click here.

Comverge Strengthens Management Team With Addition of Energy Industry Veteran

Comverge, Inc., the leading provider of Intelligent Energy Management solutions for Residential and Commercial & Industrial customers, announced it has appointed Jeff Bladen as vice president of regulatory, markets and government affairs. Bladen has more than 15 years of management experience in the energy sector and before joining Comverge.

He joins Comverge during a very successful 2010. In August, the company announced a contract extension to support the TXU Energy iThermostat program through to 2012, which includes the installation of 100,000 residential and commercial energy management devices. Earlier in the year, Comverge signed a new agreement with PECO to install 145,000 residential and commercial energy management devices and also extended a long-standing and successful agreement with NV Energy to enable the industry's largest smart grid ready residential program.

In addition, Comverge secured more than $74 million in expected future contracted revenues in the PJM Interconnection market as a result of the 2013/2014 Reliability Pricing Model Base Residual Auction. The award extends Comverge's recent growth in the C+I market, following an increase of more than 456 megawatts (MW) under management in the first half of 2010.