IBM, Cisco and Duke unveil smart grid initiatives

Cisco and IBM announced last week that they are to work together with the City of San Jose on a scheme to integrate smart meters with the city's solar energy infrastructure.

Under the initiative, 75,000 homes and commercial properties will be retrofitted with smart meters, giving the utility better control over solar installations, and enabling it to manage grid load more effectively.

The announcement was made in conjunction with utility Pacific Gas and Electric, which has been aggressively increasing the renewable part of its energy portfolio while rolling out smart grid technology.

The launch of the project came as the two IT giants also made their own smart grid announcements. Continuing its move into the energy management space, networking giant Cisco launched a major new marketing and development initiative around smart grid technology.

The company announced a Smart Grid Ecosystem, designed to pull together various systems integrators, technology vendors and service providers to test the interoperability of their smart grid products.

It also unveiled a grid security services offering that will help utility customers to build secure smart grid infrastructure, while carrying out compliance assessments, said the company. The move includes the creation of a technology advisory board, which will advise Cisco on product and technology direction.

Meanwhile, IBM unveiled its Solution Architecture for Energy and Utilities Framework, a software package designed to help operators monitor and maintain their smart grid technologies.

The company said that the new software suite would help firms ensure that their networks of smart grid equipment are working properly, while also making it easier for them to integrate data from smart grids with utilities' existing networks.

In a separate announcement, energy holding company Duke Energy has signed relationship management software firm Convergys to provide a billing and customer management system for its four million smart grid customers. The company said the new technology would deliver dynamic billing services for users of smart meters, allowing them to constantly track how much they are spending on energy.