Insights from our Editorial Team
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Sep 06, 2010 |
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's long-awaited report, Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security, was quietly released just as we all headed into the last long weekend of the summer. The recommendations contained within will take some time to digest, but offer concise steps for both utilities and smart grid technology manufacturers to follow to address both cyber security and consumer privacy issues going forward. A work in progress, to be sure, but a good one.
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Sep 03, 2010 |
With meter accuracy questioned, and established by third-party testing, in Texas and California, the industry's focus might well return to closing the gap between meter installation and tangible consumer benefits. The gap creates a vacuum for critics to discount the value propositions that proponents can only promise, and it has figured in regulatory hearings this summer. One industry thought leader says that silos at utilities mean that meter installation is not well-timed to coincide with IT and communication network upgrades, thus the delay in consumer benefits. The situation is urgent and represents the industry's Achilles heel. Do you agree?
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Sep 02, 2010 |
Despite a parade of witnesses that said smart meters were ruinous to their health, a hearing by the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday received a report that found smart meters installed by Pacific Gas & Electric are accurate, as are backend systems. The report faulted PG&E on its initial lack of public outreach and on how it handled complaints. But jumps in electricity bills generally were due to a heat wave, rate increase and personal use changes, according to the "Structure Report." In some cases, accurate smart meters replaced rundown electromechanical meters. The report cleared the air but did not lay the controversy to rest.
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Sep 02, 2010 |
Talk about being at the right place at the right time! I visited Itron yesterday just as the company announced a ground-breaking strategic alliance with Cisco designed to bring plug-and-play interoperability to the utility mainstream. I spoke with Philip Mezey, Itron's senior vice president and chief operating officer, about what it all means.
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Sep 01, 2010 |
The pursuit of energy storage technology is racing ahead, fueled by federal stimulus dollars, matching private sector funds and intense interest from venture capitalists. The list of applications is long and critical to grid operations. One analyst sees the market exploding over the next ten years. Most of the global action, for a variety of reasons, is in the United States. We look at a new report that projects the market and names the technologies.
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Aug 31, 2010 |
The Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, is working on a specification for a socket interface that could add flexibility and options to in-home energy management scenarios for residential electricity customers. If the specification survives interoperability testing, now getting underway, it would be handed off to a standards development organization to achieve acceptance and reach the market. The interface is designed to be agnostic of numerous communications technologies and in-home devices and controls. Will this aid or challenge the smart meter-home area network concept?
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Aug 30, 2010 |
Demand response is a huge issue. The regulatory issues involved in ensuring compensation for demand response providers is both just and reasonable is an issue with thorns. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will be holding a day-long technical conference to address two of the biggest questions on Sept. 13. In the meantime, we discuss the issue here. What's the best and fairest way for FERC to address the issue, and why?
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Aug 30, 2010 |
SmartGridCity, the ambitious pilot project in Boulder, Colo., has become notorious for exploding costs, from an initial $15 million to today's $44.5 million. Now the sponsor, Xcel Energy, wants ratepayers to foot the bill. The city of Boulder has backed away from the regulatory question of who should pay and Xcel has called Boulder's explanation "pernicious." The state's Office of Consumer Counsel said yesterday that some costs might be appropriate for ratepayers to bear, given the convoluted circumstances of the case, but Xcel shareholders ought to pay as well. Hearings on the matter begin today and Intelligent Utility will have further coverage on this potentially landmark case.
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Aug 27, 2010 |
JEA is implementing a pilot program for enhancing its IT architecture, among other objectives. With service oriented architecture (SOA), for instance, call center representatives can see the same Web portal page that customers do, to facilitate interactions. An SOA can integrate applications and automate business processes, speeding responses to internal and external customer needs and providing the basis for solutions to new business challenges. JEA's CIO "Wy" Kendrick explains the utility's pursuit of its own flavor of SOA, dubbed "eServices."
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Aug 27, 2010 |
An outage management system integrated with smart grid technologies can help utility personnel quickly identify the cause of an outage and efficiently assign and coordinate the necessary resources to restore power or other services as quickly as possible.
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