President Obama restated his interest in designating utility workers first responders while he met with a utility executive group to go over restoration planning after major storms. Not only is it a useful and practical solution for speeding up response to outages, it also represents an opportunity for the industry to make its case for the money needed for grid modernization because of the widespread interest in restoration issues.

Navigant Research says that while the smart grid market is still immature, global smart grid investments will remain strong through the remainder of the decade. The white paper identifies 10 smart grid trends to watch throughout the year and beyond.

For a mid-size company, S&C Electric has heavyweight influence on the smart grid. Kyle Seymour, S&C's new CEO, and outgoing CEO John Estey spent some time with Smart Grid News recently and shared their thinking on strategy, what's coming next, challenges and competition, and opportunities. It's an interesting read.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has rolled out a proposal for moving to time-of-use pricing. While that's news by itself, it's even more interesting that the local newspaper is solidly behind making the change.

A U.S. DOE lab say the efficiency of air conditioners can be dramatically improved, so much so that it should be considered as a component of energy efficiency strategies in countries struggling with climbing power demand.

The Black & Veatch annual survey of utility executives is out. And while it may not reveal a lot of things we don't already know, it does confirm that yes, these truly are turbulent times for the industry.

Microsoft has updated its Smart Energy Reference Architecture with the release of SERA 2.0. It's a big document, but it covers a lot of ground, including forces shaping the industry, architectural principles, maturity models and relevant products. SGN's Jesse Berst shares some interesting highlights.

Microsoft's Smart Energy Reference Architecture 2.0 offers an overview of forces influencing the energy industry, architectural principles, maturity models and products.

Grid modernization is critical of course, but today's regulatory/financial model often bogs down those upgrade and improvement initiatives. IBM's Matt Futch shares his insights and lays out a case for why performance-based regulation deserves a closer look.

For the second time, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has vetoed legislation that would have allowed ComEd to raise electric rates for smart grid upgrades. He said utilities shouldn't be allowed to "take over and run roughshod over families and businesses in our state."

Cisco announced two new offerings Monday, a security architecture and a substation solution. SGN Chief Analyst Jesse Berst shares some insights on what that means for Cisco, utilities and other communications providers.

A new tool from one of our national laboratories will make the task of siting renewables a little bit easier for the Eastern Interconnection. No, it doesn't show where the NIMBYs live, but it does reveal the best places for renewables.

This report from Black & Veatch contains the results from its annual survey of electric utility executives, including the broad range of issues they are confronting.

See how marine and hydrokinetic technologies harness the energy of the ocean's waves, tides, and currents and convert it into electricity to power our homes, buildings and cities in this video from the Department of Energy.

The Energy Department says it will award $13 million to boost the performance of marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy systems. Click for a look at the kind of MHK projects the DOE intends to support.

A discussion at a recent conference revealed that there is considerable talk about changing the pay by the kilowatt hour for electricity model to, well, something else. Read the story to find out what utility execs and others are thinking.

Many utilities are deploying smart grid technologies. But apparently Florida Power & Light's "network first" approach and willingness to invest heavily when others were not has given it some major bragging rights. Find out why MIT Technology Review says the utility is the first to put a comprehensive, large-scale smart grid online.

Put on a hat and pour yourself a mint julep because it's post time for this week's smart grid derby. Our stable of winners includes Toshiba, selected to help TEPCO with its smart meter deployment, and Echelon, which has a gig in Zimbabwe. Click to see who else made the winners' circle this week.

The aging U.S. infrastructure - power grids, bridges, municipal water systems, etc. - may require astronomical sums to fix. But in an interview with AOL Energy, Colin Sabol of water technology company Xylem maintains that fixing leaky water pipes could offer a substantial economic return. Find out why.

New Jersey's largest utility wants to invest $446 million in solar. More than half of it would go to plant solar farms atop landfills and brownfields in the Garden State. Public Service Electric & Gas announced Tuesday it has preliminary approval from state regulators with a final decision due by month's end.