PG&E selects GE and Silver Spring, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) of California plans to deploy as many as 10.3 million GE meters by the end of 2011, according to MarketWatch. The meters will be equipped with two-way communications technology from Silver Spring Networks.

   QuickTake: We’re almost finished with the “short list” phase of the Smart Meter market, that period during which three to four companies emerge as the ones most buyers put on their “short list” to evaluate before deciding. GE and Itron have definitely made the cut. Have you decided which others are on your short list? Use the “Leave a Comment” button at the bottom to give post your recommendation.

   MarketWatch article

NERC cites improving DR and lagging grid. The just-released 2008 Long-Term Reliability Assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) has good news and bad news. On the plus side, improvements in demand response (DR) will do away with nearly 80% of the growth in peak demand by 2016. On the down side, new generation will significantly outpace new transmission, further straining an overburdened grid. Texas, the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, the Western states and several Canadian provinces are all projecting large additions of wind capacity over the next ten years. “We need more transmission resources to maintain reliability and achieve environmental goals,” said Rick Sergel, NERC president and CEO.

   QuickTake: That new transmission has to be smart and self-healing to better accommodate the stresses of intermittent wind. And “smart” means much more than just DR.

      NERC 2008 Long-Term Reliability Assessment (PDF)

DR twice as valuable as previously projected. NERC is not the only one optimistic about DR. Speaking at a recent forum, Brattle Group consultant Ahmad Faruqui revealed that his firm has updated its 2007 assessment of DR’s present value. The previous assessment, called The Power of Five Percent, concluded that if DR could reduce peak demand by five percent it would produce a benefit stream over twenty years with a present value of $35B. Since then, says Faruqui, the cost of providing peak energy has doubled. Meanwhile, DR technology costs have come down and regulators have started promoting faster adoption. Even at a five percent reduction, the present value jumps to $66B. If DR can reduce peak demand by 25%, says Faruqui, the present value is $332B.

   QuickTake: Faruqui and colleagues are developing a software application to calculate the present value for any region, and with a variety of assumptions about prices and penetration rates. Watch for its release on the Brattle site by the end of the year. And if you are looking for bright DR ideas, be sure to see the story about stealth mode startup Sequentric.

   The Brattle Group home page

   SGN article on Sequentric

Cisco awards $250,000 for clever Smart Grid concept. Two German computer science students and a Russian engineer have just been declared winners of Cisco System’s i-Prize, as reported in IT Business Canada. The winning entry proposes an IP framework to allow devices to ask for power from the grid only when they need it, rather than passively consuming whatever is sent over. A company spokesperson said the idea “will potentially revolutionize how power is managed.” The winners received $250,000 and the opportunity to work for Cisco.

   QuickTake: The competition was open to any a “billion-dollar idea.” Teams from 104 countries submitted 1,200 ideas. Out of all the possibilities, Cisco selected the Smart Grid as the most likely place to build a billion-dollar business in the next five years.

   IT Business Canada article

Ice Energy gets $33M investment and promise of $150M more to finance projects. An Ice Energy device freezes water at night when electricity is plentiful and cheap. On a hot day, pumps the cool air into the house so the air conditioner’s compressor doesn’t have to run. After a first round of $25M, the company has closed an additional $33M second round. The investment, led by Energy Capital Partners, also provides up to $150M in project financing for the deployment of “utility-scale energy storage projects.”

   QuickTake: At a certain level of abstraction, things such as batteries, demand response, distributed generation, and controllable water heaters are the same. They are all examples of distributed resources. Ice Energy thinks it have make a great business supplying one kind of distributed resource. But there’s an even bigger business out there for the company that can knit all the distributed resources into a single, well-choreographed system.

   Ice Energy press release

WSJ says clean energy depends on “a new, ‘smart’ grid.” The success of pollution-free energy and “green” cars depends on updating our electrical grid, concludes a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

   QuickTake: It is terrific to see influential mainstream publications picking up the cry for the Smart Grid – and in language that makes it easy for everyone to understand. Notice how the Journal boiled the grid’s problems down to two issues: 1) not big enough and 2) not flexible enough.

   Wall Street Journal article

Geek guru declares BPL officially dead. Citing closed projects all over the world, popular technical columnist Glenn Fleishman has posted a Broadband over Powerline (BPL) post mortem at Ars Technica. Technical limitations and competition from fiber-to-the-home killed it off, he says.

   QuickTake: We included this item not because it will be news to our readers, but because Fleishman does a good job of documenting what happened. An instructive read.

   Ars Technica post

DOE distributes Smart Grid intro. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) has released a 48-page booklet describing the vision of a smart grid for America.

   QuickTake: This is the first publication to explain the purpose and promise of the Smart Grid in layman’s terms. Useful for those just getting started in the sector; or for those who need a document they can send around to stakeholders to get them up to speed. Our favorite part is the description of the Smart Grid as “an enabling engine.”