Smart meters to be largest wireless comms app, says analyst

Richard Wilson

Monday 26 July 2010 10:51

A report from Pike Research forecasts that 276 million smart grid communications nodes will be shipped worldwide during the period from 2010 to 2016.

The cleantech market intelligence firm expects that this will represent a total industry investment of $20.3bn during the seven-year forecast period.

This means that annual revenues increase from $1.8bn in 2009 to $3.1bn by 2016, despite rapidly falling average selling prices (ASPs) per node.

“The greatest myth of the smart grid is that there will be one communications technology to rule them all,” said senior analyst Bob Gohn.

“The reality is that smart grid networks will be as diverse as the internet, including fixed and wireless, public and private, standard and proprietary technologies.” 

Gohn predicted that advanced metering infrastructure nodes for smart meters will be the largest communications equipment category over the next several years.

Pike Research’s report, “Smart Grid Networking and Communications”,examines the market for communication technologies in all areas of smart grid operations, from the utility substation to the home area network.

Smart Grid Technology Helps New York City

July 17, 2010

By: Zachary Shahan

An old Cleantechnica writer (actually, our previous editor), Ariel Schwartz, wrote a great article this week on how a nascent smart grid helped to prevent brownouts and blackouts in New York during a record-breaking heat wave earlier this month.

Although our nation’s electricity grid has a ways to go before we can really call it a smart grid, it is great to see that initial updates and changes are already making a difference.

Here’s the part of the article about how New York City’s utility, Con Edison, used smart grid technology to help keep the grid up:

It wasn’t easy for New York City’s utility Con Edison to prevent brownouts and blackouts as the heat wave mounted. The utility went so far as to call individual customers, pleading with them to turn off nonessential appliances.

But Con Ed had a backup weapon in its fight against blackouts: an initiative that lets the utility reprogram thermostats in 20,000 homes and businesses outfitted with central air-conditioning systems. When the heat wave began, Con Ed sent radio signals to the thermostats, triggering them to cycle on and off every half hour. The initiative saved 25 megawatts of energy during peak demand last week--enough to at least partially prevent the grid from collapsing.

Smart grid company Trilliant raises $106M

Thursday, July 15, 2010, 6:49am PDT

Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

Southern California Edison Installs Millionth Itron OpenWay® Smart Meter

Stimulus Funds Array of Smart Grid Technologies

"It's not hard to see why I love the smart grid.

It's the future unfolding right before our eyes and it's a pure economic win. So it doesn't get as tangled in the nonsense associated with clean energy sources.

It helps that the CEO of GE (NYSE: GE) has called in the biggest investment of the next 50 years. And that Cisco says it'll be “100 to 1,000 times bigger than the Internet.”

A Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) analyst recently told me they expect 80-140 million meters to be installed in the next 10 years. And they expect total smart grid investment of $215 billion in the next four to five years.

Needless to say, this is going to be huge."

The Smart Grid Deconstructed

By Nick Hodge
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

My heart sank three weeks ago when I read that Maryland's Public Service Commission (PSC) rejected the state utility's proposal to adopt the smart grid.

Baltimore Gas & Electric — a unit of Constellation Energy (NYSE: CEG)— submitted an $835 million plan to install 1.36 million smart electric meters and over 700,000 advanced gas meters in the state.

At stake was a $200 million federal stimulus grant, the adoption of the smart grid in my home state, and a near-$1 billion kick-off party to the kind of smart grid investment about to sweep the nation and world.

But the PSC said two points in the plan — mandatory real-time pricing and a surcharge to reduce some of the cost — were asking ratepayers “to take significant financial and technological risks and adapt to categorical changes in rate designs, all in exchange for savings that are largely indirect, highly contingent, and a long way off.”

BGE said the project “appears dead.” The DoE said the grant program was oversubscribed anyway, and they'd be glad to give the $200 million to another state.

But $200 million is a lot of coin for a state to let slip away, especially when dealing with federal funds that would put it on the forefront of grid modernization.

The biggest piece of pie

$200 million is the absolute maximum a state can be awarded from the stimulus for smart grid development.

And even though $4.5 billion has been allocated for the sector, only six projects were awarded the full amount.

Here are the others:

• CenterPoint Energy (NYSE: CNP), Houston, TX
• Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), Charlotte, NC
• NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE) (formally Florida Power& Light, note the implication of the new name), Miami, FL
• Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN), Raleigh, NC
• PECO (an Exelon (NYSE: EXC) company), Philadelphia, PA

Point is, this was a monumental opportunity, and BGE wasn't going to have it taken away from them.

So this week, a new plan was submitted to the PSC, fixing the sticking points from the previous version.

Instead of adding a surcharge to cover all costs not paid by the grant, the new plan calls for it to cover just 25% of the cost with the rest offset by rate-increases over time. And real-time pricing will be optional rather than mandatory.

The bottom line here, before we get into how this will make us all money, is that the project is expected to cost $835 million.

But the 15-year return would be $2.6 billion.

The average annual expense works out to only $3.60 per customer, with a return of nearly $100 per customer per year.

Unless you hate saving money and energy, this project is a no-brainer.

So is investing in the smart grid

Compared to solar, wind, and geothermal, deploying smart grid technology has much lower capital costs. That makes smart grid projects more attractive not only to utilities and consumers, but to governments and lenders as well.

The Maryland project described above would pay for itself three times over in the next 15 years.

And according to the Energy Information Administration, an upfront $520 billion smart grid investment in the United States would translate to $1.2 trillion in gross energy savings by 2020.

Investing in the smart grid now means utilities — and by default, you — won't have to spend even more money building new power plants later.

That's why utilities (even southern-based, coal country utilities) are quickly adopting the smart grid and other efficiency practices. And it's why they acted even faster to secure stimulus funds to help them do it.

How can we profit? Let me count the ways...

There are six categories of the smart grid being funded by the stimulus. Below you'll find them listed along with a brief definition. A more thorough guide can be found here.

1. Advanced Metering Infrastructure - the installation of smart meters that can measure, store, send and receive real-time energy data
2. Customer Systems - energy management systems for buildings, facilities, appliances, and equipment
3. Electric Distribution Systems - devices, equipment, and/or software applications including substations, transformer banks, feeder lines, pole top transformers, and customer interconnection and communications systems
4. Electric Transmission Systems - devices, equipment, and/or software applications such as phasor measurement units, phasor data concentrators, and visualization tools that use phasor or other data in bulk power markets
5. Equipment Manufacturing - the manufacturing of all these smart grid components
6. Integrated and Crosscutting Systems - projects that cover two or more of the above categories

And as I said, utilities of all stripes were jumping at the chance to execute these projects.

In total, $4.5 billion will be doled out. You can see the full list of awardees here, but to show the range and scope of these projects, here are the biggest grants in each category, in the same order as above:

1. Advanced Metering Infrastructure - $200 million for Baltimore Gas & Electric to install nearly 2 million smart meters
2. Customer Systems - $11.4 million for Honeywell International (NYSE: HON) to provide automated peak pricing response to 700 commercial and industrial customers
3. Electric Distribution Systems - $136.1 million for Consolidated Edison (NYSE: ED) to deploy automation, monitoring, and two-way communication systems to enable the introduction of more renewable resources in New York
4. Electric Transmission Systems - $53.9 million for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council to install 250 phasor measurement units across the Western Interconnection in 14 states
5. Equipment Manufacturing - $19.3 million for the Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) to manufacture smart appliances and accelerate their commercialization
6. Integrated and Crosscutting Systems - these are the $200 million projects listed above; $200 million each for Duke Energy, NextEra Energy, Progress Energy, and PECO Energy

It's not hard to see why I love the smart grid.

It's the future unfolding right before our eyes and it's a pure economic win. So it doesn't get as tangled in the nonsense associated with clean energy sources.

It helps that the CEO of GE (NYSE: GE) has called in the biggest investment of the next 50 years. And that Cisco says it'll be “100 to 1,000 times bigger than the Internet.”

A Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) analyst recently told me they expect 80-140 million meters to be installed in the next 10 years. And they expect total smart grid investment of $215 billion in the next four to five years.

Needless to say, this is going to be huge.

But we're still way ahead of the curve...

So far, only 25% of the utilities in the U.S. have made a smart grid vendor decision. And according to a recent survey, 70% of Americans haven't even heard of the smart grid.

The time to invest is now.

Just yesterday, GE announced a new $200 million push into the sector. But you'll want to invest in pure plays to profit.

Echelon (NASDAQ: ELON) is looking ever more attractive as it makes strategic partnerships, taking a soup-to-nuts approach to smart metering and energy management. And on the utility side, MasTec (NYSE: MTZ) is looking like a good play on the transmission and distribution build-out.

Of course, being so early in this transition, you could buy the newly introduced NASDAQ Clean Edge Smart Grid ETF (NASDAQ: GRID) as a long-term bet.

And for even more information about the smart grid, its development, and other investment ideas, you can check out the whitepaper located here.

Call it like you see it,

Nasdaq.com news: Study says spending on smart grids will top $45 billion by 2015 - World Markets News

Jul 9, 2010

According to a recent study by ABI Research, cumulative global investment in smart grids will total over $45 billion in the next five years, as both governments and utilities repair, upgrade and transform their aging infrastructure. Much of the developed world relies on energy transmission technology and infrastructure that was built between 60 and 80 years ago, and it's beginning to show its age.

The report says that the "lion's share" of this spending will go towards "Transmission and Distribution" investments, which will attract $41 billion through 2015. Smart grids give utilities real-time, two-way communications with each segment of the electrical grid, assessing loads, usage, and efficiency twenty-four hours a day.

Major companies like Cisco (CSCO), Siemens AG (SI), and General Electric (GE) have taken stakes in the smart grid market. Echelon [Echelon] Corporation (ELON) and Itron (ITRI) are dedicated smart-grid and data-systems companies that could benefit from this flood of investment.

In addition, to respond to the demand for smart grid investment opportunities, First Trust has created the First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure Index Fund (GRID), which tracks the performance of stocks in the grid and electric energy infrastructure sector. 

Click here: Con Edison "GET SMART GRID SMART" video animation !!!

Con Edison Gets Animated about Smart Grid

Monday, 05 July 2010 19:27

United States utility giant Con Edison has released an animated video on the company’s Web site to promote the smart grid and to educate the public on the technologies being employed and deployed to modernize the electric grid such as self-healing capabilities, two-way data exchange between customers and utilities, and real-time information on energy use.

Marie Berninger, Third Generation Systems of the Future department says Con Edison’s goal was to “create a communications tool that simplified the complexities of smart grid. We wanted to show how elements such as intelligent grid systems and solar energy fall into our vision of smart grid.”

Among Con Edison’s smart-grid projects is a six million dollar trial in Queens announced last August and a system-wide smart grid upgrade supported by a $181 million DOE grant awarded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Some of the smart grid technologies explained in the animation includes intelligent grid systems that use sophisticated communications technology to find problems on the electric grid and fix them faster; eco-friendly energy sources that are more easily integrated into the electric system to reduce dependence on fossil fuels; and smart building technologies, such as in-home energy monitors, that communicate with a smart meter to enable customers to track and mange energy use.

The need for such management was made clear on Sunday afternoon of the 4th of July holiday, when Con Edison customers set the 2010 record for peak electricity use.  The usage comes ten days after a 12,105 MW drain on June 24.

The Con Edison system delivers energy across a network of 92,000 miles of underground and 33,000 miles of overhead wires to approximately 9 million New York City and Westchester County residents.

US Planning International Smart Grid Network

According to government sources, the United States plans to announce the formation of the International Smart Grid Action Network, or ISGAN, to expand the U.S. energy market through smart grid standardization and take the lead in the new energy business. The Obama administration is expected to make the announcement at the first ministerial meeting on clean energy to take place in Washington, D.C. on July 19-20.

The Network will consist of the United States and other as-of-yet unnamed countries, although South Korea and Italy are also expected to become core members of the organization, and it’s believed Japan is also considering taking part in the new organization. In South Korea, the government and the private sector are working together to promote clean energy through nuclear power and Italy has successfully implemented the widespread use of smart meters.

ISGAN is a framework for high-level coordination among governments on a voluntary basis to speed up the global development of smart grids and the countries comprising the Network will work closely with the International Energy Agency and the International Organization for Standardization, along with other related organizations, to develop a plan of action.

A government source told Kyodo News: “We anticipate broad membership among major economies and other smart grid innovators. Membership is open to interested national-level governments. They can choose to participate in specific ISGAN activities on a voluntary basis where they see added-value for themselves, taking into account their national circumstances.”

It’s expected ISGAN will be launched with an $8 million annual budget, the cost to be split evenly among the participating networks. Working panels will be created to focus on specific areas such as the promotion of an international standard and research and development of new technology.

The Obama administration has made the smart grid a priority, earmarking $3.4 billion in the form of government grants to fulfill the plan. A recent U.S. Energy report indicates that complete penetration of smart grid technology in the United States could lead to an 18 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 in the country.

China to Include Smart Electricity Grid in Five-Year Plan, Xinhua Reports

By Jessica Ng - Jul 2, 2010

July 2 (Bloomberg New Energy Finance) -- China is drafting a five-year energy plan through 2015 to include smart grid technology as one of the key industries for research and development, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The government will provide funding to build several research centers this year to develop transmission technology to connect wind and solar power to the grid, said Li Ye, a government official at the National Energy Administration.

State Grid Corp. of China, the nation’s largest grid operator, released standards to regulate the smart grid technology and related equipment production on June 29, covering areas such as power generation, intelligent transmission, substations, distribution, utilization and dispatch for the implementation of its smart grid project.

The rules, the nation’s first comprehensive standards for smart grid projects, will be implemented in the company’s development in China and provide a reference for standards across the country, State Grid said in a statement.

State Grid will invest 250 billion yuan ($37 billion) this year to build a smart grid network in China, Xinhua reported, citing Wang Yimin, the company’s head of smart grid department. The company aims to install 75 electric car-charging stations and 6,209 recharging towers across 27 cities this year, according to previous reports.

China aims to cooperate with the U.S. to speed up the development of the smart grid and set out international standards for grid construction, Li said.

Cisco Gets Its Smart Grid Toys On With Duke Energy Trials

by Nino Marchetti, July 1st, 2010

Networking company Cisco got into the home energy management sector this week as it unveiled a new in-home energy management device along with connected services that, when used in conjunction with utilities, “help consumers securely and reliably gain insight into, and easier control over, their energy use.” It also wasted no time in immediately finding a large utility partner to field trial this with, as Duke Energy in North Carolina and Ohio has stepped up to test the first generation technology with its customer base.

Cisco’s Home Energy Management Solution, as the company calls it, is a facet of the smart grid that will connect consumers and their utilities “to enable an end-to-end, open standards-based, communications platform that supports new models of energy management.” The heart of the platform – the Home Energy Controller – is a countertop touchscreen display that will let consumers “view and control information on thermostats, intelligent sockets and power strips, and smart appliances such as refrigerators and water heaters.” The other major component – software hosted by your utility – will allow them to communicate with your touchscreen display to provide home owners with more detailed energy control and management, down to the appliance level. It, in theory, will allow you and your utility to “coordinate on new pricing and demand-side management services, enabling home automation for energy management.”

image via Cisco

The Duke Energy deployment of this technology, according to the utility, will occur with customers in Charlotte, N.C., and in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the company has installed digital smart grid technologies. The field trial will be for a year, during which time both Duke and Cisco will solicit customer feedback to determine additional customer-desired functionality. There is no word as of yet as to how many customers will be involved or how they will be chosen.

“Cisco is excited about working with Duke Energy to bring entirely new models of energy management to their customers,” said Paul Fulton, Cisco general manager, in a statement. “Cisco’s Home Energy Management System is like a ‘virtual energy assistant’ for consumers and one we look forward to enhancing with Duke and an ecosystem of partners. Together, we can help consumers undergo the transition to new pricing options and enjoy the benefits of better insight into, and control over, their energy consumption.”