Microgrids could be going mainstream as a growth vehicle for large utilities
Microgrids by definition are small, but they are attracting the attention and capital of large utilities. In June, Southern Co. bolstered its $425 million acquisition of PowerSecure International by forming a strategic alliance with Advanced Microgrid Solutions to…
Utilities to the battle against Aggregators
Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s biggest utility, expects to lose about 7.3 percent of its electric load this year, and potentially 21 percent by 2020, to these so-called community choice aggregators, according to…
Energy innovations to follow in 2017
1. DEMAND RESPONSE Balancing the supply and demand of energy across the National Grid is a constant game of careful planning and skillful execution. Add the intermittent nature of wind, solar and tidal energy into…
Regarding Smart Grid Standards
Once a standard for smart grid interoperation has been adopted by an official international standards development organization (SDO), such as IEEE or IEC, products developed to that standard should be able to easily communicate in…
A significant improvement in Demand Side Management communications technologies towards smart appliances direct control
Data has been transmitted across a national electricity grid for the first time, in what could be a significant step towards the creation of virtual power stations, where many thousands of homes and businesses combine…
Zero is zero, … consumption
The ability to monitor in real-time very large meshes of sensors has awaken the hunger for more and more data: more traffic sensors, more weather stations, more customer habits trackers, etc. All this reminds me of the escalate…
Smart Thermostats in 2016 report
Thermostats are the center of the home when it comes to residential energy management. In the United States, heating and cooling account for about 48% of the energy use in a typical home, making it…
Spintronics for energy efficient big data meshes
A completely new niche market has emerged in the past 10 years: the small hardware to big-data business. Thanks to the ever expanding telecommunications networks, a big portion of our territories have access to Internet….
