20 Mar 2009
With smart meters set to make up a key component of President Obama's stimulus package some of the biggest players in the market are putting the finishing touches to their technologies and business models in preparation for large scale roll outs.
Telco giant AT &T this week became the latest technology firm to step up its interest in the sector, announcing a partnership with smart metering manufacturer SmartSynch to offer a service plan for utilities trying to establish smart grid technology.
Under the terms of the deal, AT&T will carry data from the company's electricity meters back to utilities' headquarters over its wireless network.
The deal, which was already in place for commercial properties, is designed to support residential smart meters, which establish two-way communications with utilities for demand-side management. The meters also give utilities extra features, such as outage monitoring and power quality.
The advantage of the AT&T deal is that utilities do not have to build out their own communications networks to support the metering systems.
SmartSynch meters operate using either GPRS or WiFi connectivity and send their data using the ubiquitous Internet Protocol (IP). They connect to a Transaction Management System (TMS), which is a head-end system designed to manage and monitor the meters, aggregating their status and communicating with a back-end system that stores the data.
AT&T joins IBM, Google, and a raft of energy companies in a smart meter market that is expected to be buoyant in the coming year, following president Obama's call for widespread deployment of the technology, and allocation of funds to support it in the recently-passed stimulus package.
Google is already developing a software tool called PowerMeter designed to support smart metering hardware, while IBM has also undertaken a number of successful trials of smart grid networks.
In related news, smart metering firm Silver Spring Networks reportedly boosted its fourth round of funding by $15m (£10.3m), bringing the total to $90m. The company competes directly with SmartSynch and others.
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Smart grids are a good first step
While deploying a smart grid is a great step towards more efficient, integrated utilities delivery, we need to keep in mind that this is not the end game. While the smart grid is certainly more efficient, it is still a separate walled garden that does not integrate with important services, such as renewable energy. Eventually, the smart grid will need to evolve and embrace the openness of renewable energy systems, which already have the capabilities to sync and integrate with many other renewable energy systems via open energy management solutions. I work with Fat Spaniel -- www.fatspaniel.com -- one of the companies that designs these open energy management platforms. We're already working with thousands of energy systems across more than 15 countries to help them monitor and manage all of their renewable energy systems from one central platform. This increases the efficiency, performance and production of these systems significantly. And now we're working with leaders in smart grid technology, too, to help move the industry forward. We look forward to the day where the walls are broken down between traditional utilities and renewable energy systems, so that all can be managed and monitored via one integrated platform -- which will not only maximize the production and efficiency of these systems, but also make them far more cost effective. And that's the final point I think we all need to keep in consideration -- how do we achieve great systems like these in a cost effective manner? In today's economic climate, and with significant amounts of stimulus money being proposed for the advancement of these projects, it is no longer enough just to be green. We need to be able to pair eco responsibility with fiscal responsibility, and open energy monitoring helps achieve that.
Posted by Robb Henshaw, 21 Mar 2009