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Smart meters eventually will be ubiquitous globally over the next few decades, but, interestingly enough, installations of smart meters in the U.S. will actually sharply decline over the next two years, before they pick back up, according to Pike Research. Read More »

Building a business case for smart meters

Utility regulators tend to put investments in newer technologies such as smart meters under a microscope. Fortunately policymakers in over 30 states and countries have already found that the benefits of smart meters have exceeded the costs. Read More »

 
 

Despite some of the push back from a very vocal but tiny group, smart meters in the U.S. are coming — and fast. According to research group NPD, 75 percent of the electric meters in the U.S. will be smart digital meters by 2016. Read More »

7 smart grid projects that are turning heads

We’re at a juncture in the smart grid market where utilities are moving beyond the expected, from the flywheel systems protecting Austin Energy’s new control center to SAIC’s “Smart Grid as a Service” that supports critical energy management systems in Alaskan villages. Read More »

Meter giant Itron has made a rare smart grid acquisition. On Wednesday afternoon Itron announced that it plans to acquire smart grid cellular networking company SmartSynch in a deal worth around $100 million. Read More »

What the utility of the future looks like

As the smart grid grows up and reaches its full potential, Adam Lesser, GigaOM Pro green IT analyst, sees five important ways in which how we interact with our utility can be revolutionized and why they matter. Read More »

2012: Questions on the road ahead to the smart grid

Last week eMeter’s Chris King shared his smart grid predictions for 2012. But also, as the new year turns, he says he’s pondering these important questions, too: Read More »

Meter giant Landis+Gyr has snapped up smart meter data management company Ecologic Analytics, the companies announced on Tuesday. Ecologic Analytics has been around for over a decade, and Landis + Gyr was already a minority shareholder in the firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read More »

GE’s smart grid services highlight a move to the cloud

Two recent wins for GE signal not just where GE is headed, but also two important trends for 2012. First, the move to “cloud-based” hosted services is under way in earnest. Second, many of the sector’s biggest players are targeting coops and municipals. Read More »

How renewable energy is a disruptive technology

eMeter’s Chris King explains that like any disruptive technology, the growing flocks of wind turbines and expanding acres of solar-equipped rooftops around the world are causing temporary growing pains for the energy industry. Good thing there are also solutions. Read More »

One of the key ways that eMeter has developed over the past 20 months since its current CEO Gary Bloom came on board has been to act like an enterprise software company, according to an indepth interview with Bloom in Xconomy. It’s a solid tip. Read More »

How to build a better electric grid

Efforts to modernize the U.S. grid in recent years have emerged as a hodgepodge of pilot projects, the installation of new technology and hefty financial backing from the U.S. government and private investors. How to plan for such a change is a daunting task. Read More »

More Must Reads

Power and engineering giant Siemens will buy smart meter software company eMeter, the companies announced on Monday. While the companies did not disclose the price, this is one of the most high-profile deals for the smart grid in 2011. Read More »

PG&E plans to start testing out home energy gadgets and software starting in March 2012 with a small group of customers, and the utility unveiled details of its plan this week. Here’s what you need to know. Read More »

You might only read about smart meters when media reports cover people pushing back on them, but smart meters are steadily being installed across the U.S. The penetration rate of smart meters has jumped from 6.5 percent to 13-18 percent, according to a report from FERC. Read More »

It seems — and is — a geeky thing to write about, but Daylight Savings Time can cause serious problems for some smart meters and meter data management systems. Read More »

The U.S. Department of Energy released a report Thursday that aims to help public and private sectors figure out ways to protect the grid against cybersecurity breaches. Here’s 10 ways to deal with cybersecurity in a smart grid world. Read More »

Tech stocks took a beating on Monday morning, the first day of trading after Standard & Poor downgraded the credit ratings of credit agencies. At the same time, greentech stocks — from solar to biofuels to smart grid — fell alongside the weak macro economic news. Read More »

OK, maybe hacker-types shouldn’t see this, but the iFixit crew has done a teardown of an Elster smart meter, pulling off all the electronics, chips, radios and casing. Read More »

It’s official. On Thursday, Japanese electronics giant Toshiba said it plans to acquire Swiss smart meter company Landis+Gyr. The deal will turn Toshiba, already a huge player in power and grid systems, into a sizable smart grid contender. Read More »

Greentech feels like it’s hit a slump recently, but as Saul Griffith recently said: the future of the planet needs to sound awesome for kids, while also combined with science-based realism. Here’s 7 reasons why I’ve been worried lately, followed by 7 things to still get … Read More »

Itron and Tropos Networks say they can roll smart meter neighborhood networks and backhaul networks into one system, and they’ve landed Michigan utility DTE to try it out. Read More »

California’s utility regulator has proposed rules on how home energy devices should protect smart meter data privacy — and whether the device is “locked” into one company’s platform or technology or not will be a big deal. Read More »

Utility PG&E has hit another snag with its smart meter roll-out. This afternoon, the company announced it will replace 1,600 of its smart meters, which were manufactured by Landis+Gyr, because of a defect that causes the miscalculation of customer energy bills. Read More »

Smart meter companies take note: the battle over smart meters in California isn’t going away, will likely get more complicated, and could impact tech companies banking on the rollout of a massive amount of smart meters connected to wireless networks. Read More »

According to a recently-released independent report from the California Council on Science and Technology, which compiled a lot of the already available research done on the subject, there are no known health risks associated with living with a smart meter. Read More »

Brazil hopes to install 62 million smart meters by 2020, and companies like Silver Spring Networks, Landis+Gyr and Echelon are targeting the market. Read More »

I can see it now: utility execs and smart grid entrepreneurs shaking their collective heads over the recent (and seemingly never ending) spate of media attention on consumers pushing back against smart meters. This story seriously won’t go away. Here’s why. Read More »

Intel has made no secret of its ambition for a fat slice of the home energy management market, but here’s the chip maker’s official play: a hardware design blueprint based on its Atom chip for any manufacturer that wants to build and sell home energy monitoring … Read More »

After weeks of testimony, Baltimore Gas & Electric has gotten itself back into the good graces of Maryland state regulators. The utility announced Monday that the Maryland PUC approved the redrawn project on Friday, meaning BG&E won’t have to return a $200 million DOE stimulus grant. Read More »

The first wireless and web-connected gadget for Microsoft-Hohm is now available in the form of an electric meter sensor, a wireless LCD monitor and a Wi-Fi adapter. With this combo, I’m able to track my electric usage, determine my home’s carbon footprint and get green recommendations. Read More »

There’s good news to report about the public’s perceptions of the smart grid . . . and then there’s bad news. GE’s take on perceptions about the smart grid: Read More »

Worries over the installation of smart meters isn’t just happening in select cities in the U.S. Last week the government for the Australian state of Victoria declared a moratorium on its plan to roll out 2.5 million smart meters to residents and businesses. Read More »

According to a recent Harris Interactive poll, 68 percent of Americans haven’t even heard of the smart grid. And without a sense of how the smart grid and an ecosystem of devices, apps and services help consumers save money on electricity, the whole concept remains an … Read More »

That whole PG&E smart meter debacle — the one where customers complained about higher rates in Bakersfield after the California utility installed smart meters in their homes — is being sent out to third party independent contractors for testing. Interested in being the ones to … Read More »

The smart grid buildout could be one of the largest creators of wealth in the decade, smart grid analyst Jesse Berst has said. The installation of more than 250 million smart meters — electricity meters that provide real-time information about energy consumption and enable two-way … Read More »

Just two months ago, Ford Motor launched a trial of a software system meant to enable communication between its plug-in vehicles and the power grid, by way of smart meters and a Zigbee wireless connection. At the time, Ford’s Nancy Gioia, recently named … Read More »

While I was edumacating attendees of our “Biggest Opportunities of the Smart Grid” webinar this morning (for subscribers to GigaOM Pro), I learned a great deal from Pike Research analyst Clint Wheelock, who gave an overview of the market on the call. Most interesting … Read More »

Semiconductor companies increasingly are positioning themselves to take advantage of the growing business opportunities surrounding energy efficiency. Teridian Semiconductor is one of them, and today the Irvine, Calif.-based firm launched a chip that can be used to measure with extreme accuracy the electricity use of … Read More »

The UK government today unveiled a plan to outfit most of the homes and small businesses in England, Scotland, and Wales with smart meters by the end of 2020. The plan, which could cost an estimated £8.11 billion ($12.3 billion) and … Read More »

Utilities and meter makers are quick to point out how smart meters can reduce consumers’ energy bills, but the motivation behind rolling out smart meters isn’t necessarily first and foremost to help the consumer: It’s to help the utility, and as a result can be a … Read More »

The announcement this week that Miami could soon be home to the nation’s largest smart grid project brought together some of the biggest companies in the space, GE and Cisco; one of its most promising startups, Silver Spring Networks; and the utility arm … Read More »

When we asked you to imagine the damage Internet viruses and worms could do to the critical infrastructure of the power grid, it wasn’t an exercise in futility — it’s already happening. This morning the Wall Street Journal reports that hacker spies from countries … Read More »

It might be up for debate whether smart meters — electricity meters that provide real-time information about energy consumption and enable two-way communication between a utility and a consumer — will solve the U.S. power problem. But regardless, over the next couple of years an … Read More »

Subodh Nayar is the Chief Operations Officer of Powerline Telco Empowering consumers with actionable intelligence about their power will not be the outcome of the deployment of smart meters. Rather, it will be exactly what the utilities intend for it to be: a cost-effective way to implement … Read More »

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