Smart Grid

Photos: The smart grid devices at DistribuTECH

As I’ve been walking the floor at DistribuTECH in San Antonio, Texas — one of the largest smart grid focused conferences of the year — I’ve been snapping pics of the grid connected devices that will deliver a more efficient system and create the Energy Internet.

Cities need open APIs to be efficient

The Climate Group has a new report out following up its seminal Smart2020 report, and the team is touting the benefits of open APIs (application interfaces) for creating more energy-efficient and smarter cities.

Startup turns to big data for cutting building energy

Retroficiency, a startup out of MIT that uses software and big data to create energy retrofits for buildings, has raised a round of $3.2 million from Point Judith Capital and has acquired the energy efficiency division of Nexamp, called Clean Energy Solutions.

Smart grid: Obama pushes for speedier transmission lines

If there’s one thing the Obama administration can do to push clean energy, it’s make sure the necessary transmission lines get built. On Wednesday, the administration said it’s starting a pilot project to speed up the approval and construction process of seven transmission lines.

Swarm logic smart grid startup raises $5.5M

Startup Regen Energy, which has developed “swarm logic” software that can manage appliances in buildings and electric cars like a swarm of bees, has raised a Series A round of $5.5 million in financing from investors.

Hurricane Irene highlights need for smarter grid

Hurricane Irene wasn’t the raging monster that some forecasters expected, but it’s left millions without power for days, and even weeks, at a time. However, outages from major storms could be shorter and faster to fix after smarter grid technology is installed.

Another reason we need the smart grid: record heat

It’s blazing hot in New York City. And on these scorching summer days you should be thinking about everything your utility is doing to prepare for a “Heatpocalypse” and also taking note of just how important it is for utilities to invest in smart-grid technology.

On its way to irrelevance, WiMAX stops at the airport

There are 17.7 million WiMAX subscribers around the world, and the WiMAX Forum estimates there will be 45 million by 2013, but the future of the technology is bleak. The forum pitches smart grid and airports as potential saviors but neither option looks promising.

GE Buys Up Irish Power Line Monitoring Company

One benefit of GE launching its smart grid challenge last year is that it has created a decent potential shopping list. This morning, GE said it has acquired one of its 12 grid challenge winners: Irish powerline monitoring company FMC-Tech.

Why Buying and Selling Energy Is a Smart Grid Advantage

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.

Alstom Buys UISOL, But Will OpenADR Stay as Open?

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?

Grid2Home Raises $2.6M for the Open Smart Grid

The open smart grid is here, and players are emerging to build applications and services on top of it. The latest is Grid2Home, which makes smart grid software based on open standards, and according to a filing this morning, has raised $2.6 million.

The Energy-Aware Cell Tower Network

IBM will help Indian cellular giant Bharti network its 32,000 cell towers for more efficient energy use. Think of it as a smarter way to link lots of little data centers, on a vast, distributed scale.

GE Launches Next Phase of Grid Challenge: The Home

Last summer, GE and a group of VCs launched a $200 million fund for a smart grid challenge that plans to allocate financing to entrepreneurs and startups innovating around the power grid. This morning at CES, GE announced another phase: the eco-home.

What the Smart Grid Needs in 2011

2010 was a year of ups and downs for the smart grid industry. Here are my thoughts on what needs to happen — both across the industry and with some of the individual players — for this sector to hit a home run in 2011.

Ice Energy Raises Cash for Energy Storage

Ice is nice, but so is cash. The startup that builds an ice-based energy storage and air conditioning system for buildings — Ice Energy — announced this morning that it has raised a $24 million Series C round of funding.

GE Snaps Up Opal Software for the Smart Grid

GE is stretching out further along the network of the smart grid. This morning, GE said it has acquired Australian company Opal Software, which makes software and services for smart grid network testing and management. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Verizon Plays Catch Up to AT&T’s Smart Grid Plans

This week, Verizon announced a partnership with smart grid player SmartSynch for a 3G network solution for utilities’ residential deployments. The news comes about a year after AT&T first announced a trial of a cellular-based smart grid with its network and SmartSynch’s technology.

Smartphones and Broadband Are Making Our Homes Smarter

As consumers adopt smartphones and mobile broadband becomes more ubiquitous, smarter homes will become more common, with brains enabled by machine-to-machine network technologies, mobile applications for monitoring and control, and Internet connectivity to keep homeowners in the loop. I’ve been experimenting with just such a system.

Windows Power Grid Worm is Just the Beginning

A worm that uses a Microsoft Windows vulnerability to penetrate control systems for the not-so-smart grid is just the beginning of how increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks could target the power grid. And the current power grid network isn’t smart or secure enough to handle them.

Smart Grid Denied: When Regulators Say No

Securing a smart grid stimulus grant doesn’t always guarantee a utility’s smart grid project is in the clear. This week Maryland’s public regulator denied Baltimore Gas and Electric Co’s smart grid project request, which would have deployed 2 million smart meters and cost $500 million.

Mitsubishi's $76M Smart Grid Play

Japanese conglomerates that have so far been dabbling in the global smart grid market seem to be looking to ramp up their investments. At least Mitsubishi — which makes everything from clean power equipment to cars to consumer electronics to chemicals — is.

Daily Sprout

Earth, Wind & Fire: A Phoenix, Ariz.-based company called Solar Southwest Technology aims to power compressed air energy storage with surplus wind…

Smart Grid Stimulus Funding: Who Gets What?

[qi:_earth2tech] Today is one of the biggest days ever for the smart grid business. This morning, the Department of Energy announced the…

Daily Sprout

White House Details New Auto Standards: According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Obama administrations new proposed fuel efficiency and…

Daily Sprout

Solyndra Snags $238M Umwelt Deal: Solyndra, which makes cylindrical, thin film photovoltaic systems, has won a supply deal with Germany-based solar integrator…

Are Smarter Gadgets Really Good for the Planet?

With the explosion of low-cost chips, from Intel’s Atom processor to low-power Wi-Fi sensors, just about everything is “getting smart” these days.…

January 26: Picks from the GigaOM Network

Internet video set-top box maker Vudu lays off another 15 percent. (NewTeeVee) Oh no…Mac viruses are coming. (TheAppleBlog) Get an iLife 09.…

Daily Sprout

Talk in Tesla Town: Tesla Motors has announced a set of town hall meetings to discuss jacked-up prices on pre-ordered Roadsters, since…

Broadband Caps Affecting One Million Brits

A UK consumer group has found that nearly 1 million British broadband users have come close to exceeding or have exceeded their broadband caps according to the BBC. The group, uSwitch, also found that five of the nine Internet service providers that advertised “unlimited” access actually had caps.

FIFA Still #1 In U.K.

Electronic Arts must be pretty pleased with themselves about this last weeks ELSPA (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) United Kingdom sales…

Photo Matt Shares His Wisdom

Niall and I met with Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of open source project, WordPress, and founder of Automattic, this week and asked…