It was a project that took five years to fight off critics and secure regulatory permits. But now the Sunrise Powerlink — a transmission line to ferry clean power like solar and wind from California’s desert to its southern coastal region — is done and live. Read more »
Nine more utilities, and three large energy vendors, announced support on Thursday for the Green Button project, which enables utility customers to download their energy consumption data with a click of a button and also use that data for energy-saving apps. Read more »
The race for more clean power has intensified in California, and utilities such as PG&E and San Diego Gas & Electric have been busy inking contracts to meet what is the toughest standard in the country. Read more »
Last week saw California’s big three utilities release in-depth smart grid deployment roadmaps, giving smart grid companies about the closest thing to a detailed plan of attack that they could ask for. 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 »
Will your local utility one day go the way of dinosaurs? As more home and business owners install solar panels, wind turbines and other electricity and heat generating equipment, the roles of the utilities will change and new business opportunities will rise. Read more »
Utilities are typically the financiers – not the source of – tech innovations. But San Diego Gas & Electric is breaking that mold by proposing to license a mobile charging device for plug-in electric cars to Juice Technologies. Read more »
The official verdict is out — Pacific Gas & Electric’s smart meter technology has been working properly, but its customer service hasn’t. That’s the conclusion of a state-ordered report released Thursday from independent analysts at the Structure Group. Read more »
Updated with comments from Google: There’s a battle looming in California over smart meters and energy prices. Google says the state should require its big utilities to give near real-time pricing information to every smart meter-enabled customer by the end of next year. California’s big three […] Read more »
Talk of a smart grid enabled by the nascent wireless standard WiMAX has been growing in recent months, and today brings the latest development: Arcadian Networks, a startup that owns licensed 700-megahertz spectrum across a swath of the American heartland and is selling smart grid services […] Read more »
Military bases have been some of the pioneers for so-called microgrids — systems of self-generated electricity and intelligent controls that can be disconnected from the grid at large to keep the lights on when the utility can’t provide power. The idea is that a tree falling on […] Read more »
As I was using my iPhone 3GS last night, I saw an update in the iTunes App Store for the e-book software called Shortcovers. I noticed the app went through a name change to Kobo, which had me scratching my head in thought. Why would such […] Read more »
The meaning of Southern California “car culture” may be poised for a makeover, as the regions around Los Angeles, long notorious for smog, traffic congestion and endless freeways race to take on a greener profile. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced this week at the LA Auto […] Read more »
In a couple months the $3.4 billion in stimulus funds for smart grid projects will be doled out to about 100 utilities and cities. But the tech vendors — smart meter makers, network software developers, wireless sensor gear companies — will see those funds flow down […] Read more »
San Diego Gas & Electric has always been a forward-looking utility when it comes to deploying IT — it was one of the first utilities to work with Google’s PowerMeter and it’s now installing 1.4 million electric smart meters. But SDG&E also has one of the […] Read more »
