Juno Beach, FL, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 26, 2013 - Florida Power & Light Company has announced the successful completion of its 4.5 million smart meter deployment in its 35-county service area as well as its Department of Energy-supported grid modernization projects.

“This is one of the most ambitious projects that has ever been undertaken in the country and definitely one of the most ambitious projects that FPL has undertaken,” said FPL president Eric Silagy. “Completing the installation of the 4.5 million smart meters and the deployment of smart grid technology throughout our service territory is making it possible for us to improve our service reliability, prevent outages and detect problems, while giving customers more control over the energy they use.”

Austin, TX, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 25, 2013 - It was an anemic quarter for smart grid venture capital (VC) funding in Q1 2013, coming in at $62 million in nine deals, according to Mercom Capital Group’s latest quarterly review.

As such this is consistent with four of the past five quarters – with the lone exception of Q3 2012 with Alarm.com’s monster $136 million raise.

Brussels, Belgium --- (METERING.COM) --- April 25, 2013 - Eleven new members have joined PRIME Alliance in the last few months, bringing the membership to 53 and continuing the uptake and expansion of the PRIME standard by the smart grid community.

New utility members include HC Energia, part of the EDP group, Polish utility Energa-Operator, which is in the process of installing its first 310,000 PRIME smart meters, and E.ON.   

Riga, Latvia and Redwood Shores, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 25, 2013 - Latvenergo AS, Latvia’s largest energy supplier, has selected Oracle to help it enhance customer service as it prepares to meet the challenges of a newly deregulated energy market.

As part of the agreement, Oracle Utilities will provide Latvenergo with an integrated solution comprising Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, Customer Self Service and Utilities Business Intelligence, which will bring customer care and service to the highest standards, providing the utility with a competitive advantage as new entrants join the market.

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 24, 2013 - Electric vehicle market shares are still below 1% in most major markets, due in part to high upfront costs, real and perceived range limitations, and a lack of consumer education, but at the same time, there has been considerable progress in the global market, which suggests a relatively positive outlook, according to the first Global EV Outlook.

Liberty Lake, WA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 24, 2013 - Itron Water Analytics has been launched, including a data store optimized for analytics, business intelligence dashboards and water utility specific analytics that turn smart metering and other operational data into actionable intelligence to improve utility operations and asset management.  

Seoul, Korea and New Delhi, India --- (METERING.COM) --- April 23, 2013 - The identification of best practices in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is the subject of a new case book from the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) that was released last week.

The AMI case book considers six AMI rollouts – Ontario’s smart meter deployment project, Ireland’s smart meter pilot customer behavior trial, Enel’s Telegestore, automated meter management project in Italy, Kepco’s AMI rollout in Korea, the smart meter rollout in Sweden, and four AMI deployments in California.

Wakefield, MA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 23, 2013 - The Smart Grid Interoperability Panel has been awarded funding of $2.75 million towards the continuation of its activities from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

This includes $750,000 for the remainder of the current year and $1 million for each of the years 2014 and 2015.

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 23, 2013 - Electricity consumers are most concerned with managing the utility bill, and will show interest in a new program if it reduces the bill, according to a new survey from energy management consulting firm DEFG.

Almost half of the consumers would like the utility bill to be “as low as possible,” while almost one in five would like the utility bill to be “predictable” and one in six would like “a secure and reliable supply of electricity.”

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 22, 2013

The Collaborative Labeling & Appliance Standards Program (CLASP), the Global Buildings Performance Network (GBPN), and the Institute for Industrial Productivity (IIP) have launched the EnergyEfficiency 2030 partnership to drive best practices to reduce the energy use of appliances, buildings, and industry.

Brussels, Belgium --- (METERING.COM) --- April 22, 2013

The e-Highway2050 project has been launched by a European research consortium, with support from the European Commission with the aim of developing a long term planning methodology for the expansion and conversion of the European electricity transmission grids.

The resulting approach will propose a modular development plan for the pan-European transmission network from 2020 to 2050. The development of an integrated European electricity market emphasizes the importance of increasing interconnections between existing and future transmission networks. This research project paves the way for an integrated pan-European grid, able to meet commitments such as integrating large quantities of electric power generated by renewable energy sources (wind, biomass and solar) and transporting it over long distances to consumption sites. Such a complex and networked transmission system at a pan-European level raises interest in the innovative concept of “electricity highways”.

Seoul, Korea and New Delhi, India --- (METERING.COM) --- April 19, 2013 - Renewable energy standards and targets is the top motivating driver for smart grids globally, while advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is the top technology priority, according to a new report from the International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN).

The other top motivating drivers in order are:

Clemson, SC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 19, 2013 - Researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina are leading a project to investigate how the functioning of the brain may be applied to the management of the power grid, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has revealed.

Led by Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy, director of the university’s Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory, a team of neuroscientists and engineers is using neurons grown in a dish to control simulated power grids. The researchers hope that studying how neural networks integrate and respond to complex information will lead to new methods for managing the power grid.

Stockholm, Sweden --- (METERING.COM) --- April 19, 2013

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Sweden’s government has established a national Smart Grid Council, tasked with developing a national knowledge platform and draft action plan for the development of smart grids in the country.

Paris, France and New Delhi, India --- (METERING.COM) --- April 18, 2013 - Demonstration and deployment of smart grid technologies is intensifying, driven by forces such as accelerating integration of large scale variable renewable energy sources, but accelerated investment and new regulatory and business models that enable sharing of smart grid costs and benefits will be required to meet 2020 targets, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a new report.

Malmö, Sweden --- (METERING.COM) --- April 18, 2013 - E.ON Sweden has contracted Capgemini and Ericsson for five years to provide more than one million customers better information about outages, price and consumption.

Capgemini will deliver a range of smart meter management services for electricity and gas to E.ON Elnät AB. The contract includes management of just under half of E.ON’s portfolio of smart meters in Sweden, and encompasses services including regular and scheduled meter reading, field services, service desk, management reporting, data center hosting and application management. Capgemini will also be responsible for managing subcontractors, such as telecommunications, software providers, meter manufacturers and field service providers.

Toulouse, France --- (METERING.COM) --- April 17, 2013 - The SOGRID project has been launched by ERDF and STMicroelectronics, along with a consortium of eight other partners, to support the deployment of the smart grid in France and globally.

The €27 million project will run for three years through the end of 2015, with support of €12 million from the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (ADEME).

Arlington, VA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- April 17, 2013 - The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has recommended that all existing meter sockets should be thoroughly inspected when electrical meters are installed.

In a statement NEMA notes that new smart meters are often installed in pre-existing meter sockets. Meter sockets are expected to operate safely for many years. However, the safe operating life of the meter socket may be reduced by many factors including excessive moisture, environmental contaminants, frequent changing of meters, excessive electrical load, vandalism, ground settling, and storm damage.

Dusseldorf, Germany --- (METERING.COM) --- April 17, 2013 - The new RX111 group of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) – the first in the RX100 series – has been introduced by Renesas Electronics for smart metering and other low-end 32-bit embedded applications including industrial and building automation and sensors/detectors.

The RX111 is produced on an ultra low power zero wait state flash process supporting 32-bit power consumption/performance levels as well as fast wake-up, with a wide range of standard peripherals and multiple safety functions as well as an integrated USB 2.0 peripheral supporting host, device and on-the-go (OTG) functionality.

Copenhagen, Denmark --- (METERING.COM) --- April 16, 2013 - Correctly navigating the interface between policymaking and human behavior is key to achieving sustained reductions in energy consumption, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The latest of a number of studies that have been produced on this topic, the report Achieving energy efficiency through behaviour change: what does it take?, claims to go one step further than these in addressing the distinction between consumer behavior and consumption practices. Most recent academic literature argues that it is the consumption practices themselves that need careful scrutiny as they tend to lock consumers into patterns that are more and more energy intensive and they involve a wide range of actors.