C3 Energy today releases three new smart grid analytics applications (C3 Asset and System Risk, C3 Customer Reliability and Safety, and C3 Grid Investment Planning) for the utility sector. C3 also announced C3 AMI Operations, an application that enabling utilities to track the deployment status and operation of AMI meters.
Today in Saudi Arabia AEC, ICT Europe and Enel signed a joint partner agreement to support the development of smart grid within the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC). The collaboration is a response to the Saudi Arabia Kingdom’s plans to embrace smart grid technology. AEC will join their expertise in Electronics with Enel’s utility experience and the financial resources of ICT Europe.
AT&T has become the sole provider for PayGo's utility payment solutions in the U.S. Through an exclusive agreement with PayGo, AT&T will allow users to pay their energy bill how they want, when they want and virtually anywhere they want using smartphones, text messages, kiosks, the internet or by phone.
At this year's Metering, Billing/CRM Asia 2013 Mitsubishi Electric announced plans to grow its smart meters business globally in collaboration with Echelon. Mitsubishi said they will integrate Echelon's Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) into its new line of smart meter products, which are designed for the global market.
National Grid is to increase its smart meter roll-out in the Worcester, Massachusetts from 5,000 to 15,000. National Grid said they will start deploying the additional 10000 meter early this year. To support the project they have assembled some of the biggest names in smart meter and smart grid sector to implement the latest technology solutions. National Grid said the smart grid pilot will evaluate the integration of home automation, dynamic pricing and distribution automation.
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.
Utility companies planning to upgrade their communication network to support the next generation of smart grid infrastructure are being offered a new range of Service Aggregation Routers (SARs) from Alcatel-Lucent. The company has recently announced a new range of routers designed for the part of the grid that distributes power to the energy supplier's residential or business customers, also known as the Distribution and Field Area Network (FAN).
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.
The University of Southern California (USC) in partnership with Mitsubishi Motors have setup a campus wide smart grid project called the “Living Laboratory”. The project will simulate a city with a population of between 50,000 – 60,000 and will use the Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric vehicles as part of the project. The university’s Viterbi School of Engineering and Mitsubishi said the project will work to further develop and improve electric vehicle to accommodate widespread usage.
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.