Smart meter initiatives around the country in recent years have proven the concept. They are cost-effective and maximize energy efficiency, leading many governments to mandate advanced metering. Today a small fraction of U.S. meters are smart, but the segment is expected to grow between 15 percent and 20 percent annually. This section will keep you up-to-date with the fast-evolving technologies that underlie the smart metering phenomenon.
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The California Public Utilities Commission today gave a unanimous thumbs up to a Pacific Gas & Electric Company proposal to allow customers to opt out of its smart meter program - if they're willing to pay a fee for that choice. But after a noisy and emotional meeting it was clear that this story is far from over: smart meter opponents are dead set against paying the fees.
As utilities prepare for smart meter roll outs, the CEO of UK-based Sentec suggests a key consideration for the IT infrastructure associated with those roll outs should be the capability to both store data and relay it back to the consumer in an easily digestible format. Click for Mark England's perspective on how to go about that.
CURRENT has had a rough time of it in the U.S., but is making inroads in Europe. The company has been selected by Spain's Iberdrola to provide advanced metering, transformer supervision and network communications there this year.
It looks like the great majority of Oklahoma Gas & Electric customers like their smart meters, a welcome contrast to the recent slew of bad press about consumer pushback and attempts to block installations. The utility's customers are really appreciating the lower electric bills, the company says.
The Internet's power will allow management of the home in ways that save energy and money automatically in its next stage of development, according to a pioneer in the online world. Click to read Peter Gardett's interview with AlertMe CEO Mary Turner.
The Michigan Public Service Commission plans to investigate state utilities that are installing smart meters in response to concerns expressed by customers and some communities about safety and privacy issues. Get the details inside on this latest installment in Michigan's ongoing smart meter backlash story.
While some utilities around the country are agreeing to let customers opt out of smart meter installations for a price, in Michigan DTE Energy says it has no plans for an opt out - even after a city declared a moratorium on smart meter installations until the utility makes an opt-out plan available.
An alarming story from Germany: researchers there demonstrated that a company's smart meters were so vulnerable to outside attack that they were able to alter meter readings and spy on unencrypted data to determine when customers were home or away. There's more on the story inside.
A Silicon Valley start-up is touting advanced technology it says can deliver smart digital meters for the price of dumb mechanical meters. Click to learn why this may be the opening salvo of a long-awaited price war.
Some utilities want to insist that every customer get a smart meter. Others are willing (if not happy) to let those who object use an old-style meter instead - provided they pay for it. But how much should they pay? Should they be charged for the installation? For the full cost of sending out a manual meter reader? Click for a quick review of what several pioneers are proposing and to trade comments at our discussion forum.
There was a lot going on in the smart grid world in 2011: major developments and advances, successes and failures, rising and falling trends, and a lot in between. But some of those stories seem to go on and on and on. Take a look at our roundup of the year's stories that just won't end.
Traditional outage management poses at least three challenges for electric utilities -- lack of timely reporting, slow restoration of nested outages and difficulty diagnosing single-customer outages. With a well-designed AMI system, utilities can overcome those issues, according to Chris Montgomery of Silver Spring Networks. Click to learn the six outage-management capabilities Chris says your AMI system should deliver.
We encourage our readers to share their thoughts or sound off on our news stories and the hot smart grid topics of the day – and you're not shy about letting us know what you think. 2011 was no exception. In case you missed some, we're taking a look back at the hottest Tuesday Topic discussions from throughout the year.
Ecuadorian utility Electrica de Guayaquil has completed installation of more than 600,000 smart meters in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city. It will be the first of many Latin American installations to come this decade, we predict, as attention shifts away from North America. The system uses Itron meters, communications and meter data management.
There's been yet another twist in the seemingly never-ending saga of Pacific Gas & Electric's scuffle with customers who, citing health concerns, don't want smart meters anywhere near their homes. The utility submitted a proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission on Monday to allow customers to keep their old analog meters. Click for more on this major course change.
Add Taiwan to the growing list of countries in the Asia Pacific region that intend to become major forces in the smart grid. The government there plans to invest an additional $4.3 billion in smart grid beginning in 2012. Click inside to learn what Taiwan hopes to achieve.
More good news on the smart grid front: A new study from Northeast Group identifies 25 emerging countries with whopping potential for being the next wave of smart grid deployments. SGN Chief Analyst Jesse Berst has a prediction on what that could mean in the next five to 10 years.
Utilities from Connecticut to California are still facing complaints that the consumer benefits of smart meters don't justify the cost. Could it be that utilities are still telling the wrong story?
Utility companies today rely on legacy systems that were designed to handle simple tariff schemes and batch processing of usage data based on quarterly or monthly billing cycles, and these systems were not expected to accommodate the large amounts of data produced by smart meters at much more frequent rates, according to this report from Research and Markets. Nor were they designed to handle new challenges such as consumer energy microgeneration. To accommodate these smart grid service innovations, utilities will need new systems functionality to process high volumes of smart meter data in near real time, handle a wide variety of usage-, time- and event-based tariffs, and enable flexible new service creation, discounting and promotions.
What if you could get all the benefits of advanced metering without buying a single meter or hiring a single person? That's the proposition put forth by SAIC's "Smart Grid as a Service." Click inside for details on managed services and what SGN Chief Analyst Jesse Berst says they could mean for municipals and cooperatives.
A new research report says the market for smart meters with cellular communications will likely grow from 2.6 million shipments in 2010 to 9.5 million annually by 2016, with most of the volumes in the US and the UK. Click inside for the thinking behind the forecast.
Brazil will be the next major market for smart meter sales, and Echelon has its foot in the door early thanks to its somewhat different approach. SGN Chief Analyst Jesse Berst has a few comments inside.
If UK-based Sentec succeeds, next-generation meters will look more like smart phones for energy, with apps and all. In this latest installment of our Smart Grid Discovery Showcase series, SGN Chief Analyst Jesse Berst explains how this concept could insulate utilities against the smart meter obsolescence issue - and why Sentec's track record suggests a company that can make things happen. Don't miss it.
The French government announced it will deploy 35 million smart meters throughout the country over the next seven years. Meter maker Itron, which participated in a successful French pilot project that led to the decision, says it's ready to roll if selected for the massive countrywide initiative. Read more on the story inside.
Glendale Water & Power, the first utility to win a Recovery Act stimulus grant, has just become one of the first to wrap up its smart grid project with the completion of an installation of smart electric and water meters for the 120,000 customers in its service territory. Get the details on the story inside.
We're getting mixed signals about the vitality of the smart grid market. On the one hand, the recent DistribuTECH conference was one of the most successful ever. On the other, a well-known Wall Street analyst recently told his clients that the smart metering sector is "facing several headwinds," including weak regulatory support in the U.S. and delays in European adoption. Taking the pulse of the smart grid industry is this week's Tuesday Topic.
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