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. Not long ago Jesse Berst wrote why U.S. utilities will always be rinky-dink and why that's bad for the smart grid market. So on the surface, we see this week's news that Duke Energy will take over Progress Energy as a positive – and not exactly a big surprise either. Duke has been planning to expand for at least a decade and has been architecting new systems to be extensible and interoperable to make that easier. And as Jesse suggested, consolidation in the utility sector could lead to the kind of economies of scale for the smart grid market that have benefited so many other industries. To get all the hoped-for innovations will require big utilities that can provide access to big markets. As Forbes reports, the all-stock, $13 billion-plus deal Duke has put in play would create the largest utility in the U.S. in terms of market capitalization and generation capacity. Even so, the vast differences in regulations between states will make it challenging to get those economies of scale, since each state requires different versions of billing, rate structure, etc. Your thoughts on this? Use the Talk Back comment form to weigh in. . Also on the financial front today, San Francisco-based EV charging station provider ECOtality announced a $10 million investment from global giant ABB. It represents ABB's first foray into the U.S. EV market.
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