The city of Johannesburg has awarded a contract worth approximately $150million to Itron and Edison power group for the supply of smart meters and supporting technologies. Itron will work with City Power to implement its latest smart meter solutions, allowing city Power’s customers to better manage their electricity and complements the city’s demand side management program.
In 2011 Taiwan’s County of Penghu launched its smart gird initiative at an estimated cost of NT$8.09 billion they hope to make Penghu a low-carbon destination. The Penghu smart grid project will run from 2011 to 2015 and over that period it hopes to reduce it carbon emissions per person from 5.4 tons each year to 2.1 tons. The UK government and its European neighbours have set themselves similar targets of improving energy management and cutting carbon emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020.
With their new Energy Data Platform and DROMS (Demand Response Optimization and Management Systems), AutoGrid is promising to cut the cost of demand response systems by 90 percent for utilities and grid operators and increase the "yield" of power from demand response events by 30 percent. You will not need a calculator to know that is a massive saving by any margin and on top of that you will not need any additional hardware.
With a budget of 25 million euros ($32 million), the Swedish Energy Agency is to setup a smart grid project in the rural town of Gotland Sweden. The pilot project will demonstration smart grid in a rural area and allow the agency to carry out research and development in fields that will affect the quality of electricity supply, as well as market application for integration of renewable sources.
Eidsiva Nett as become the first Norwegian company to use eMeter's EnergyIP Platform and selected Applications as their meter data management platform and energy Analytics solution. eMeter, a subsidery of Siemens Business provides software that enables electric, gas and water utilities to realize the full benefits of Smart Grid.
The new solution will replace Eidsiva Nett's current meter data management system, and will be a crucial part in order to build a smarter grid in the regions Eidsiva operates.
Five key stakeholders in the Dutch energy landscape, Liander, Siemens, KPN, TNO and TenneT, are joining forces at this year’s Metering, Billing/CRM Europe with an “Energy Experience” on the exhibition floor, which will demonstrate how smart grids are changing industry and society.
Voltage City
Some 6500 utility professionals will gather in Amsterdam in October for the annual Metering, Billing/CRM Europe at what has become the largest industry conference and exhibition on the continent. “The traditional, centralised energy sector is experiencing a seismic shift in the way electricity is produced, managed and consumed,” says Metering Europe director Aida Mezit, “and increasing demand, security of supply and the growing concerns over climate change are pushing for developments of smart grid and energy efficiency behaviour.”
Since we started buying electronic appliances for our home, we have been thinking of ways to get our appliances connected and talking to each other. Even though the technology was there, it was very complicated, thus only ardent enthusiasts were able to achieve this feat. Fast-forward five years and home automation has come a long way to what has evolved into the “connected home”.
British Gas has selected AlertMe to offer what it calls “Personalised Energy Efficiency Advice Service” (PEEAS) to its smart meter customers in the UK. Under the agreement, data from customers smart meters will be manage and analyse by AlertMe to help customers manage their energy. According to AlertMe they will be conducting a pilot of up to 10,000 homes starting this summer.
Lee County Electric cooperative (LCEC), a utility provider in southwest Florida has selected three of Oracle’s smart grid and metering solutions. The solutions selected are Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway.