Smart grid comes home: Google buys Nest

Yesterday Google announced the purchase of Nest, a company that makes “smart” thermostats. Why would Google pay such a handsome price ($3.2 billion) for something as prosaic as thermostats? In short, because these devices may represent the single largest untapped energy management opportunity available — something that many utilities probably would gladly pay for. Not to mention, smart thermostats also provide a way to bring energy management inside the home.

Full post on Siemens Smart Grid Watch blog: Google’s Nest acquisition brings the smart grid closer to home

Look beyond meter-to-cash for smart metering benefits

Meter-to-cash (M2C) is one of the most common business justifications for deploying smart meters and meter data management (MDM) platforms. But MDM is much more than just M2C. MDM can comprise several strategies that help utilities increase revenues and reduce costs, not just through the billing system.

Full post: Meter-to-cash: What it is, and why it’s only the starting point for smart meter benefits

EnergyIP passes 50MM test: meter data management that scales

The data generated by advanced metering infrastructure can quickly grow huge — both as more meters get rolled out, and as each meter generates a larger amount of data. So utilities need meter data management solutions that can scale up fast. To demonstrate that its EnergyIP MDM platform is up to this challenge, eMeter, a Siemens business, recently conducted a test proving that EnergyIP can easily handle scaling up to the data equivalent of 50 million smart meters.

That’s about as many meters as might be deployed across an entire small country. But some large utilities plan to run at that scale — either in terms of the number of meters, or collecting more sensor data from those meters…

Full post: Scalable meter data management: EnergyIP passes 50MM test

Analytics for utility business intelligence: Training May 29-31

Later this month in San Francisco, eMeter, a Siemens business, will offer a special three-day, hands-on workshop. Here utilities will learn how to use eMeter’s Analytics Foundation to solve problems and support core business goals. This course will cover some key aspects and capabilities of the latest version (1.2) of the Analytics Foundation package for Energy IP 7.X.

Full post: Training May 29-31: Using analytics for business intelligence

U.S shows strong gains in energy efficiency, sustainability: new report

Significant data presented in a new market intelligence report on U.S. clean energyindicates that overall U.S. electricity demand is flat or even declining.

According to this report (published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the Business Council on Sustainable Energy), total U.S. energy use fell 6.4% from 2007-2012. This was driven largely by advances in state and federal energy efficiency initiatives, which the power sector frequently opposes.

Read full guest post by Doug Todd, director of U.S. Government Affairs for Siemens Corp.: Report: Strong U.S gains in energy efficiency, sustainability

Power grid resilience: how the smart grid can help

Resilience: it’s a hot topic on the exhibit floor and in the hallways at this week’sDistributech conference in San Diego.

Resilience means the ability of the power grid to withstand natural disasters and other attacks (think computer hacking or terrorism), as well as faster restoration after outages. Resilience also means withstanding disturbances and fluctuations on the grid caused by solar power, wind turbines, and even electric vehicle chargers. These things vary according to the vagaries of weather and whims of electricity consumers — in strong contrast to centrally controlled and operated power stations and transmission grids.

How can the smart grid help? Here are some options…

Full post: Why power grid resilience has people talking

How to engage consumers? Proven strategies

When trying to engage consumers with energy information, details matter. That’s the main point of a new report from the Finnish research institute VaasaETT. VaasaETT conducted a qualitative investigation of nine exemplary utility programs from Australia, the U.S. and Europe. They found several common factors that appear to be crucial to program success…

Full post: Proven recipes for successful consumer engagement

Sandy recovery: smart meters help get the power back on

Hurricane Sandy has caused the second largest storm-related power outage in U.S. history, extending to 8.1 million customers — around 25 million people. We extend our thoughts and prayers to all those affected. Only Hurricane Irene in 2011 knocked out more customers: 9.3 million, including in Puerto Rico.

Utility crews from across the eastern half of the U.S. are helping get the power back on in affected areas. While they can’t do anything about downed power lines, smart meters are helping as well.

Full post: Sandy recovery: smart meters help U.S. rebound from power outages

How smart meters can fix the DST time ward

For me, the hardest thing about the end of Daylight Saving Time (Nov. 4 in the US) will be getting up in the morning. But for millions of electric meters, DST causes much bigger problems — because Congress has a tendency to tinker with DST.

DST and time-of-use rate periods are examples of “details” that can yield tremendous smart meter-related headaches if not handled properly…

Full post: Fixing the DST time warp

New rules in Brazil support smart meter rollouts

This summer Brazil’s energy regulator ANEEL released its specifications for smart meter deployment. Contrary to expectations, ANEEL did not mandate a general smart meter rollout. Rather, the agency defined a set of rules and norms to achieve certain objectives — and smart meters are essential to achieve three key goals…

Full post, by Alicia Carrasco: Brazil: New rules will support smart meter rollouts