New Smart Grid Solutions and Services Abound at DistribuTECH — Bring a Shopping Cart

By Doug Peeples

SGN News Editor

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The 2010 DistribuTECH Conference and Exhibition continues to rain news about the latest innovative Smart Grid technologies and the flurry of cross-pollinating continues as Smart Grid companies partner up to take advantage of each other's strengths. The following news roundup is a sampling of what's going on as the conference moves along. Keep in mind that it's just a taste, so be sure to keep up with our Press Release channel for more announcements.

Silver Spring Networks announced numerous enhancements to Utility IQ, its enterprise software suite for the Smart Energy Platform. Utility IQ 4.1 expands flexibility and scalability, extends multi-vendor support to accommodate future technological developments and lowers total cost of ownership by increasing functionality — making it simpler for utilities to remotely upgrade metering assets and connect millions of devices to a common network.

S&C Electric is working with Oracle on advanced distribution management systems for the Smart Grid. The collaboration will produce interoperability between Oracle's Utilities Network Management System and S&C's IntelliTEAM SG® Automatic Restoration System. The integration will support utility Smart Grid buildouts. The two companies are demonstrating integrated solutions at the conference. The IntelliTEAM system performs fault isolation, quick self-healing of the distribution system and other functions focused on making deployment of advanced distribution automation easier.

Telvent unveiled its new Distribution Management System (DMS), which gives utilities the capabilities to identify faults and isolate and restore operations faster. The DMS also enables distribution system demand response to reduce peak power and the addition of a fast response spinning reserve. The system also gives customers real-time data and energy delivery options.

Itron and Tropos will jointly develop utility market products, including an integrated network solution, which will give utilities the ability to grow their Smart Grid foundation into a comprehensive privately-owned broadband network to handle utility applications. The overall goal is to simplify Smart Grid deployments and management while building the groundwork for more applications.

Itron and SmartSynch announced the commercial release of IP-enabled public wireless communications as an element of Itron's OpenWay Smart Grid platform. It allows utilities to use networks like general packet radio service (GPRS) for transmitting all critical metering and event data from their meters' wide area network (WAN). This enables a complete network by complementing coverage in areas where a dedicated local area network isn't fully deployed.

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