It’s a hot day and you agree not to jack up your air conditioner in exchange for a discount on your utility bill. Startups like Smart Grid Billing are developing applications to help manage this process, and the startup plans to launch a pilot next month. Read more »
Comverge, one of the largest demand response providers in the U.S., announced on Monday that it has agreed to a $49 million buyout by an affiliate of private equity firm H.I.G. Read more »
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 »
Nearly 7,000 votes later and Smart Grid News has the results of its third annual Smart Grid Companies to Watch search. SGN readers nominated smart grid companies they think should be on our radar in the year ahead, and then the readers voted. The results: Read more »
As utility industry trade show DistribuTECH wrapped up last Thursday, attendees got a peek at not only new product offerings — from smart thermostats to software platforms that manage smart meter data — but also the potential for what a utility of the future might look ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the year’s largest smart grid conferences — DistribuTECH — closes today in San Antonio, Texas. It’s like the CES for utilities, power companies and the vendors that are trying to sell them stuff. Here are the top 10 trends I took away. Read more »
Energy software company EnergyHub and weather and sensor network company Earth Networks have teamed up to offer a smart thermostat and demand response program for utilities and consumers. Read more »
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 »
It is becoming abundantly apparent that, while there is still focus on install rates of physical smart meters, what will matter in the future is how well the data from these smart meters can be secured by utilities and how well utilities can use that data ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Nevada utility NV Energy plans to roll out one of the first demand-response programs in the U.S. that will use home energy gadgets and smart thermostats in consumers’ homes, reports Smart Grid News. Read more »
The network of the smart grid is taking its sweet time to get deployed, but we still need smart applications to run over these networks once they are fully installed. Here are five smart-grid startups to watch via the Cleantech Open. Read more »
EnerNOC spent a lot of money on acquiring companies in the first quarter, and it showed in the U.S. demand response leader increased revenues and growing losses for the first quarter. Read more »
Green buildings, meet demand response. The U.S. Green Building Council wants to find ways to count buildings’ ability to turn down power to help utilities shave peak demand in its LEED rating system. Read more »
The smart grid industry’s focus is now shifting to the true purpose of the smart grid movement: applications that will improve the efficiency, reliability and versatility of the electric grid. This report analyzes six key smart grid application trends that will help shape the industry landscape in the years to come: distribution automation, data analytics, demand response, carbon management, home energy management and electric vehicles. The applications that prevail in this new arena will define the smart grid experience for industrial, commercial and residential customers. Along the way, new business opportunities that arise from these applications will become available for the providers of software, systems, devices and services, and enhance customer awareness and control of energy consumption. Companies mentioned in this report include Echelon, Google, EnerNOC, ZigBee and Microsoft. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Is the greentech industry headed for a breakout year or is it retrenching for hard times to come? The first three months of 2011 provided evidence that could support both assertions, with a big rise in venture capital investment and a big drop-off in global energy financing. Solar power remained the largest green technology sector in terms of venture capital investment, while in the world of electric vehicles, GM’s Chevy Volt hybrid and Nissan’s all-electric Leaf — the first two mainstream plug-in vehicles — hit the showroom floors in significant numbers. Meanwhile the smart grid sector’s relative dearth of VC investment was more than made up for by the massive round of acquisitions. Companies mentioned in this report include NRG Energy, Microsoft, Silver Spring Networks, Tesla and BrightSource Energy. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
What’s the purpose of the billion-dollar plus smart grid acquisition surge? According to Schneider Electric, it’s around developing the capacity to be a “true smart grid provider,” which includes procuring energy as well as using IT to manage the grid. Read more »
Where do the worlds of smart grid and smart buildings overlap? Over in my weekly update at GigaOm Pro, I review how two big acquisitions last week shed light on just how muddy that line has become. Read more »
There have been so many acquisitions in the smart grid sector as of late; we’ve been updating the tally every couple of months. Since December there have been a couple more, so we’re updating our list once again. Read more »
A new rule giving demand response “negawatts” an equal price as megawatts of generated power on energy markets is meant to make the grid more efficient and power more affordable. But what if it backfires? Read more »
French power giant Alstom is buying smart grid software developer UISOL, as it chases competitor Honeywell into an open source way to automate demand response: turning down buildings’ power use to manage peak loads. But how open will OpenADR be after it’s folded in? Read more »
Quiet smart grid player Digi International is already providing networking for some of the best-known names in the industry, and it’s aiming to move into the emerging world of cloud-based smart grid services and applications as well. Read more »
The federal grid regulator has ruled that the “negawatts” delivered by demand response companies deserve the same market prices as megawatts of generated energy — a ruling that could pay huge dividends for the demand response industry. Read more »
PowerIt Solutions, a behind-the-scenes player in building energy control and demand response technology player, has raised $5 million and landed a new CEO. New partners and new markets are on its menu. Read more »
Honeywell and State Grid Corp. of China plan a big demand response pilot project using OpenADR, marking the first step into the potentially huge Chinese market for the emerging standard for automating demand response. Read more »
U.S. demand response leader EnerNOC took time during its Wednesday year-end conference call to defend itself in a market rules dispute with big customer PJM, saying the grid operator wants to “underpay” EnerNOC for its negawatts. Read more »
EnerNOC is buying a piece of the agricultural demand response market with its purchase of Boise, Idaho-based M2M Communications. Will controlling irrigation pumps be a field of growth for the demand response industry? Read more »
The demand response players continue rebranding. EnerNOC has launched its EfficiencySMART brand to tie together its building energy management, sustainability planning and energy procurement lines of business from building to enterprise. Read more »
OpenADR may be the open demand response technology of the future, but right now one vendor — Honeywell — has a lock on the market. That may be about to change, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Smart grid trade show GridWeek is wrapping up in Washington D.C., but the hard work of integrating all the hardware and software on display has just begun. Read more »
Schneider Electric likes to say that 70 percent of the world’s electrons flow through its equipment. What’s it doing to make those electrons flow more intelligently? Read more »
Comverge has rebranded itself as a provider of “intelligent energy management” services. What does that mean for the demand response provider’s future against big competitor EnerNOC and upstarts in the smart grid space? Read more »
New smart grid technologies promise to widen the reach of demand response, but what if that process works in reverse? Big demand response players are leveraging their middleman role between utilities and customers to bring their technology in as a “back-door” smart grid conduit between the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Big demand response players are leveraging their middleman role between utilities and customers to apply their technology in to fields traditionally defined as smart grid. Given the way the market is developing, they may have little choice. Read more »
Smart meters get all the attention, but smart distribution grid and substation projects are actually taking the lead in smart grid spending across the nation, and corporate giants are reaping the benefit. That’s the gist of a Cleantech Group report released by the DOE Thursday. Read more »
One of the oldest smart grid technologies out there is also one of the most ripe for M&A: demand response. And that’s not a coincidence. On Friday power company Constellation Energy announced that it plans to acquire demand response and energy management provider CPower. Read more »
Mike Zimmerman, the CEO of building automation software startup BuildingIQ, says his company has for the first time met a utility’s demand to turn down power to manage peak load, automatically with a building control system in Perth, Australia. Read more »
Wanted — California electricity consumers who can turn off 100 megawatts or more of power use on a moment’s notice. In return, you can get paid as if you’re actually generating that same amount of power, with prices set on the open market. Read more »
Power grids that emerged unscathed from the recent heat wave in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states have demand response companies to thank. Here’s why it’s a good idea to get the demand response word out when the electrical grid starts feeling the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Power, pricing and electric vehicles, oh my. The group of North American power grid operators that manage most of North America’s electric grid, expect 1 million plug-in vehicles could be deployed on the continent within five years — and they aim to be prepared. Read more »
Is a negawatt worth the same amount of money as a megawatt? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has said yes, at least tentatively, and this could spell big new opportunities in the demand response industry. At the same time, it could give technologies that enable turning down energy use new and interesting ways to pay for themselves. Read more »
