The California Public Utility Commission is the first major regulator to issue such sweeping guidance on how data privacy should shape the smart grid. Here is how the ruling will affect the three big California utilities, as well as tech companies, startups and telcos. Read more »
Might the battery from your old plug-in hybrid or all-electric car eventually store energy for your home? A group of companies and researchers in California hope to establish some viable models for doing just that. Read more »
While corporations can learn from web workers, I think that the reverse is also true. As someone who has worked recently on both sides of the fence, I thought it would be interesting to think about what web workers can learn from corporations. Read more »
Updated: Smart meter maker Itron reported better than expected fourth quarter and annual 2009 earnings late Wednesday. That wasn’t too shocking given Itron has been expected to turn around this year as it has started shipping significant volumes of smart meters to utilities. But what was […] Read more »
It looks like utilities are poised to drive the U.S. solar market in coming years, based on a new report from Emerging Energy Research that predicts utilities will add 21.5 GW of photovoltaic capacity by 2020, up from only 77 MW of utility-driven PV projects in […] Read more »
Updated with clarification and additional information about the utilities’ stimulus funding: Two major California utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison — were noticeably absent from the $3.4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants announced last week, despite both being widely recognized as […] Read more »
UPDATED As we wrote on Monday, Tuesday is the day of reckoning for the smart grid biz. The Department of Energy this morning has announced the recipients of the $3.4 billion in stimulus grants for 100 smart grid projects (25 large and 75 small) that are […] Read more »
As we were recording our podcast this morning, Matt Miller said that the HTC Hero has him thinking about a Sprint plan. The only problem is that Matt lives in an area with limited Sprint coverage. The carrier does have a roaming agreement with Verizon Wireless, […] Read more »
For years, the U.S. solar-installation market has been driven mainly by independent developers and contractors who initiated most of the projects to put solar panels on rooftops and on the ground. But now, as some have predicted, it looks like utilities are starting to take the […] Read more »
National Grid, the second largest utility in the U.S., will be testing out smart grid technology based on WiMAX, a nascent wireless technology that provides high bandwidth. The move is the latest of a growing number of large utilities and communications companies investigating how WiMAX can […] Read more »
Plug in anywhere — on the road, at a friend’s house, in a public parking lot — and add the cost of topping off your electric car’s battery to your monthly utility bill. That’s the idea of an intelligent mobile charger developed by Juice Technologies, an […] Read more »
As a rule, neither utilities nor automotive standards groups tend to win many points for speed. We’ve written before about automakers and utilities ratcheting up efforts to hash out standards for how plug-in vehicles will interact with the grid. So far they’ve stopped short of forming […] Read more »
Looks like California’s going to be getting a whole lot of solar power soon. After a year of discussions, the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday not only approved Southern California Edison’s 250-megawatt rooftop solar project -– but doubled it. To jog your memory, the Rosemead, […] Read more »
Electric utilities are increasingly offering energy-efficiency programs, but there’s a good chance their customers don’t know about them. That’s according to a survey by market research firm Gartner that found that while the vast majority of respondents said they were willing to participate in programs that […] Read more »
Cities have thrown down the gauntlet for electric car charging in recent months, and utilities are increasingly eager to tout infrastructure efforts. Among automakers, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has been out in front working to coordinate governments, utilities and charge station companies to develop regional networks of […] Read more »
The news that utilities like San Diego Gas & Electric and incumbent meter maker Itron will be offering Google’s PowerMeter energy tool to their customers offers a glimpse of how the old-skool power industry is starting to be shaped by the new world of the Internet, […] Read more »
According to VGCharts, there are now 4 million Playstation 3s on the market, while just 1.8 million of them have been sold. More than two million PS3s sit forlorn on store shelves. That coupled with another recent set of sales figues suddenly made me realize the […] Read more »
