GE’s Power Conversion business has signed a turnkey contract with Denmark’s Lindoe Offshore Renewables Center (LORC), which tests renewable energy technology for the construction, commissioning, and handover of wind turbine nacelles with an output power of up to 10 megawatts (MW).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the United States Coast Guard (USCG) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work with each other on the development of hydrokinetic projects, which will generate power from waves, tides, ocean currents, and the flow of rivers.

Lafarge, Saint-Gobain, and Schneider Electric have signed of letter of intent (LOI) with Russia’s A_PRIORI Project to develop energy efficient houses. The pilot project, one of the first energy efficient houses in the Moscow region with energy consumption less than 35KWH/m2.yr, is scheduled to begin construction in May 2013. The second project to be realized in the framework of the Energy Efficient Houses is the multi-storey house, which is currently in pre-design phase.

The J.D. Power and Associates 2013 Gas Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study has given Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) a top business customer satisfaction ranking among large natural gas utilities in the Western United States.

Enexis and Kamstrup announced the deployment of the 150,000th smart meter of their collaborations. Enexis partnered with Kamstrup in 2009 because it was the only supplier able to both fulfill the Dutch standard for Smart Metering, NTA 8130, and deliver the meters on time. After Kamstrup secured the first pilot project of 25,000 meters, Enexis placed additional orders, which is now in excess of 150,000 meters.

Scientists at the Centre for Carbon Measurement (CCM) have developed new technology for measuring power quality in smart grids, an advancement that could save 839k tonnes of carbon and bring an annual economic benefit of £250 million.

The Illinois House Public Utilities Committee has passed legislation that clarifies existing language in the 2011 Smart Grid law. House Bill 2529 is meant to get Illinois’ electric grid modernization efforts back on track.

  Elster Solutions and Milsoft Utility Solutions announced the companies are delivering stackable answers for Elster’s Callisto grid performance system. Callisto helps utilities reduce their risk, lower the total cost of ownership (TCO), and achieve the exact functionality desired through its stackable and incremental modularity. The monitoring and notification capabilities built into Callisto give utilities the ease of operation they want for day-to-day activities.

Echelon has been awarded two contracts: a 20,000 follow-on smart meter order for a project in Basel, Switzerland and a 1,400 smart meter pilot in Vienna, Austria, for its advanced grid sensors, which also provide smart metering functionality.

  Bglobal has announced a restructuring of its business, which includes the launch of Bsmart Energy Solutions, which will provide businesses with the tools they need to measure and analyze their energy use and costs.

Terry Fry, Senior Vice President of Nexant’s Demand Management business solutions, has been reappointed to the Department of Commerce Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RE&EE) Advisory Committee.

The UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey supports extending a plan that helps consumers in the North of Scotland who are subject to the highest electricity distribution costs in Great Britain. The Hydro Benefit Replacement Scheme saves £50 million on energy bills across the region.

Itron reports that its smart meters installed in Mumbai have reduced water losses by half. Smart meter use in India’s most populous city eliminated half of the 700 million liters (150 million gallons) a day of water that is wasted or leaked by broken pipes

Pristine Sun has selected Upsolar to supply a minimum of 10 MW of its smart modules for solar farms in California. Upsolar’s smart modules combine the company’s PV modules with Tigo Energy’s optimized power electronics, which are integrated into the module’s junction box.

Ambient Corporation has announced that all of the company’s Smart Grid Node family is now certified on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. This marks the first time that a high-speed, high-bandwidth communications network is currently available to connect mission-critical utility and M2M smart grid applications.

The Canadian Smart Grid Standards Roadmap, published by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), recommends formation of a steering committee to promote smart grid standardization and advance policy objectives. The Roadmap development was overseen by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and the Canadian National Committee to the International Electrotechnical Commission (CNC/IEC).

Kamstrup has announced plans to open a branch office in Chile to develop new projects and provide better service to regional customers.

At the Ecobuild 2913 conference in London, ExCel UK Secretary of State Edward Davey addressed the progress of the country’s energy efficiency strategy.

The Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) has adopted high speed home networking standard G.hn into its Catalog of Standards along with G.cx, which specifies G.hn coexistence with other PLC standards.

Tests by the United States Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) confirms First Solar has set a new world record for cadmium-telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) solar cell conversion efficiency, achieving 18.7% cell efficiency.