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Itron CEO talks smart grids and cities, big data, China, and water

Xconomy featured an interview with Philip Mezey, who took over as CEO at Itron at the start of the year. He provides an interesting perspective on a number of topics, for instance, when asked by Benjamin Romano about the best international markets for smart grid, he said:

“The most exciting opportunity right now is post-Fukushima Japan. The Japanese government has committed to implementing smart meters as a load-control program to deal with their significant shortage of electricity as a result of shutting down a large number of nuclear power plants. Tokyo Electric Power has publicly stated their intent and has issued tender documents to let what will be the world’s largest smart metering project. And when I say world’s largest, I always caveat outside of China. TEPCO itself is 32 million electric meters. Japan total is about 80 to 85 million electric meters, so these are big projects.”

Read the full article at Xconomy >>

Chinese army unit is seen as tied to hacking against U.S.

We write frequently about electric infrastructure vulnerability to cyber attack, but one of the more sobering pieces to date has to be a new report covered in depth by The New York Times earlier this week that follows the trail of China's cyber warriors. And to bring it home, the Times says:

"What most worries American investigators is that the latest set of attacks believed coming from Unit 61398 focus not just on stealing information, but obtaining the ability to manipulate American critical infrastructure: the power grids and other utilities."

Read the full article at The New York Times >>

Energy department’s investment grant program advances rapidly, as scheduled

In this month's IEEE newsletter, Joseph Paladino of the Department of Energy writes about the $7.8 billion Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, suggesting that it "is beginning to produce concrete results that will have wide relevance." He discusses analysis released in December that evaluates how well the 99 projects met strategic objectives in four areas: electricity demand reductions; O&M savings from advanced metering infrastructure; reliability improvements from distribution automation, and controls for voltages and reactive power management.

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Read the full article at IEEE Smart Grid >>