Loughborough, England --- (METERING.COM) --- February 26, 2013 - The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has launched four projects worth more than £1 million to help catalogue the technology infrastructure and identify the ICT as well as the value chains required to develop, design, test and demonstrate a first of a kind smart energy system for the U.K.

Gaithersburg, MD, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 26, 2013 - A new guide for developers of web tools and applications to communicate and handle Green Button data has been compiled by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The aim of the User Guide is to serve as a playbook for implementation of the Green Button software development kit.

Sydney, Australia --- (METERING.COM) --- February 25, 2013 - Australia’s residential energy management (REM) market is poised for significant near to medium term growth in the key markets of Victoria and Queensland when key policy, regulatory and institutional barriers are overcome, according to a new study from local energy research specialist Energeia.

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 25, 2013 - More than 400 vendors are vying for the more than $66 billion smart grid market opportunity by 2023 across 35 emerging market countries, according to a new report from the Northeast Group.

Among these 400 vendors, the number of local-based vendors active in smart grid projects currently exceeds the number of large international vendors, signaling an opening up of the smart grid vendor landscape. Among these local vendors, over 160 of them based in Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, South Africa, and Southeast Asia are well positioned in the smart grid market. Of these, over 25% are already active in significant smart grid projects.

ROSEMEAD, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 22, 2013 - Southern California Edison (SCE) is to launch a real world demonstration of smart grid solutions at the University of California, Irvine with GE on June 30.

Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the demonstration project will include electric distribution infrastructure, substations, residential homes, cybersecurity networks, battery energy storage systems and EV charging stations, and other competitor supplied products that positively affect the reliability of a modernized grid.

Brussels, Belgium --- (METERING.COM) --- February 23, 2013 - Europe's traditional “fit and forget approach” approach to grid design alone may no longer be fit for purpose, European power distribution grid operators have said in  a new paper from Eurelectric.

In the context of growing generation from decentralized and intermittent renewables – most of which will be connected to distribution grids – designing grids for peak load is no longer necessarily the most cost effective option.

Bilbao, Spain --- (METERING.COM) --- February 21, 2013 - The PRIME standard has now been officially published by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as Recommendation ITU-T G.9904 “Narrowband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing power line communication transceivers for PRIME networks.”

The new standard, which is available free of charge from ITU’s official web site, contains the last  consolidated specifications of physical layer (PHY) and data link layer (DLL) developed by PRIME Alliance, including convergence layers for both IEC61334-4-32 and IPv6 profiles, so supporting either standard DLMS/COSEM smart metering applications or new advanced internet-based smart grid solutions.

Barrigada, Guam --- (METERING.COM) --- February 21, 2013 - Guam Power Authority’s smart meter deployment has reached the half way mark, with nearly 24,000 new advanced digital meters in place in the northern and central part of Guam since the rollout began last October, the company has announced.

New Orleans, LA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 21, 2013 - In its latest round of funding for improvements to the generation and transmission facilities of rural electric cooperatives and utilities the U.S. Department of Agriculture has included more than $8 million for smart grid technology.

Bilbao, Spain --- (METERING.COM) --- February 20, 2013 - The ALIA2 large scale power storage project led by Iberdrola subsidiary Iberdrola Ingeniería has successfully completed its first stage, with the design and construction of a system based on lithium-ion capable of storing up to 150 kW.

The ultimate goal of this initiative, which was launched in 2010, is to build a storage system based on lithium-ion with a capacity of several megawatts/hour that will be capable of delivering an amount of power five times greater than the energy stored in only 10 minutes, and will be the most powerful and reliable system available on the market when it comes into operation.

Stockholm, Sweden and Rueil-Malmaison, France --- (METERING.COM)  --- February 21, 2013 - Vattenfall Eldistribution has contracted Schneider Electric with continued responsibility for the management of an automated metering infrastructure (AMI) of 615,000 smart meters through March 31, 2017.

The work includes the integration of an additional 150,000 meters to the Schneider Electric AMI Titanium platform. This unified AMI platform will support the management of 85 percent of Vattenfall’s meters as of January 2013.

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 19, 2013 - The EV Everywhere Grand Challenge was introduced in the United States by President Obama in March 2012 with the goal to become the first nation in the world to produce affordable plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) within the next 10 years – and now the Department of Energy has produced a blueprint to guide its investments in this Challenge.

Cambridge, U.K. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 19, 2013 - The first transceiver chip using the Weightless specification and operating over white space spectrum has been released by Neul Ltd.

Capable of tuning across the entire UHF TV white space spectrum (470-790MHz), the single chip solution draws very little power while delivering reliable, secure, long range wireless connectivity for next generation M2M applications using the Weightless standard.

Los Alamos, NM, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 18, 2013 - A Los Alamos National Laboratory quantum cryptography (QC) team recently successfully completed a demonstration of securing control data for electric grids using quantum cryptography.

The demonstration, said to be a first ever, was performed in the electric grid test bed that is part of the Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG) project at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) that was set up under the Department of Energy's Cyber Security for Energy Delivery Systems program in the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.

Farmington Hills, MI, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 18, 2013 - The NL-1 padlock seal has been introduced by Brooks Utility Products as a replacement to the traditional lead seals

Made from polycarbonate and stainless steel, the NL-1 is designed to last for more than 20 years. The unique design includes a locking mechanism and clear polycarbonate body that will immediately reveal evidence of tampering. The flexible stainless steel wire, available in any length, is molded directly to the seal for greater security and durability.

Bilbao, Spain --- (METERING.COM) --- February 15, 2013 - Iberdrola along with a consortium of 11 partners has launched the European Commission supported iGREENGrid project to investigate the impacts of mass-scale penetration of renewable energies on the grid.

The 3-year project has a budget of €6.5 million and is headed up by Iberdrola. Other partners include energy distribution companies ERDF (France), Enel (Italy), Gas Natural Fenosa (Spain), RWE (Germany), Energy AG Netz (Austria), Salzburg AG (Austria) and HEDNO (Greece), and the research institutions AIT (Austria), Tecnalia (Spain), RSE (Italy) and ICCS-NTUA (Greece).

Springfield, IL, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) ---     February 15, 2013 - The Illinois Senate Executive Committee has passed Senate Bill 9, which “clarifies existing language in the Smart Grid law enacted in 2011 to get the smart grid program back on track, and ensures the state’s economy and consumers reap the full benefits of improved reliability, job creation and investment in the state's infrastructure, while maintaining strong consumer protections.”

Gaithersburg, MD, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 15, 2013 - The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is to lead the development of a cybersecurity framework to reduce the cyber risks to power sector infrastructure and other critical infrastructure, such as financial, transportation and communications systems.

Istanbul, Turkey --- (METERING.COM) --- February 14, 2013 - Turkey will spend $5 billion on smart grid technologies by 2015 to modernize its electricity sector,U.S. Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone said in opening remarks at a U.S.–Turkey Smart Grid Workshop earlier this week.

“Turkey will benefit through reduced technical and non-technical losses on the grid, and thereby conserve energy and decrease the need for imports,” said Ambassador Ricciardone. “We think this will create opportunities for both Turkish and American companies.”

Gaithersburg, MD, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 14, 2013 - All smart grid equipment should be designed to ensure electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) to its intended operational environment and, in particular, immunity to electromagnetic interference, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel’s (SGIP) Electromagnetic Interoperability Issues Working Group has recommended in a new white paper.