WSJ: Stimulus Funds Speed Transformation Toward 'Smart Grid'

High-Tech Firms Seek Out Utilities as They Upgrade
1 CISCO SYSTEMS
2 TENDRIL NETWORKS
3 DUKE ENERGY CORP.
4.AMBIENT CORP.

BY REBECCA SMITH AND BEN WORTHEN

After struggling to sell cutting-edge products to utilities, technology companies are sensing better times ahead with the influx of $4.5 billion in federal stimulus funds for so-called smart-grid projects.

The federal grants are expected to speed transformation of the power grid from a largely electromechanical system into a digital network that gives utilities more efficient ways to send electricity to customers. That could help cut pollution and electric bills.

Smart meters, one component of a smart grid, allow utilities to monitor usage almost in real time, letting them charge variable prices based on demand, for example. Corporate and residential customers ...

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Ambient Corp. of Newton, Mass., started working with Duke in 2005, suggesting ways the utility might use Ambient's communications modules to scoop up data from smart meters to boost grid intelligence. But activity picked up only recently. Ambient last month wrote a letter to the DOE supporting Duke's smart-grid application and this month inked a deal to sell large numbers of modules to the utility, said John Joyce, Ambient's president.
The influx of stimulus dollars "is clearly significant for a firm like Ambient" because it stimulates investment in general and "will make us bigger" as utilities add projects, he said. Ambient had 2008 sales of $15 million but declined to give the value of its deal with Duke.