Smart grid

With millions of smart meters being installed, utilities find themselves atop a mountain of information but with a dearth tools to make sense of it all.

GridGlo is ready to dig into all that data. The start-up today announced that it received $1.2 million to build its business of providing applications and data collected from smart meters and other sources to utilities and software developers. Nonprofit research center CUBRC provided the funding and will create the algorithms for analyzing meter data.

GridGlo now has trial programs with six utilities in the U.S. with its services, which are built … Read more

Charging your hybrid or electric car may someday become as simple as pulling into the driveway.

Toyota Motor has invested in and has signed an agreement with WiTricity to collaborate on a wireless automotive charger that doesn't need any point of contact to charge a car's battery, Toyota said yesterday.

WiTricity has developed technology that could eventually enable a plug-in electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle to be charged by simply parking the vehicle in the vicinity of a car charger embedded with a special device.

The Mass.-based company has already been developing the technology for consumer electronics … Read more

Two of the world's leading technology standardization groups have signed an agreement to partner on vehicle-to-smart-grid standards.

The memorandum of understanding has been signed by the IEEE-SA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association) and SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers). It is essentially a first step to both organizations agreeing on future standards related to smart grids and vehicle electrification, including vehicle-to-grid communications, the organizations said today.

The immediate effect is that the two groups will share draft standards on any technology relating to smart grids and "vehicle electrification," with the opportunity for each to … Read more

Get ready for reliable electricity, and an automated world of electronics, appliances, and buildings, to become the new normal.

That's the main message in a report released today by GigaOm Pro and Pike Research.

Smart-grid applications in six key areas will change the way people use, buy, manage, and think about electricity, according to the report "Smart Grid Apps: Six Trends That Will Shape Grid Evolution" led by Clint Wheelock, Pike Research founder and managing director.

Those electricity-related applications focus on home energy management systems, electric vehicles, distribution automation, smart-grid analytics, building energy management systems (BEMS), and … Read more

Google and more than 80 other companies are collaborating with the Department of Energy to make it simple for drivers of electric vehicles to find parts and charging sites.

Via a partnership called the GeoEVSE Forum, the organizations are pooling their data to build a definitive database of all available EV charging stations in the U.S. regardless of the manufacturer or network, the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory said yesterday.

The GPS and mapping system database will also include all available electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) stations.

While the data will be organized using Google mapping tools, it … Read more

An Australian coal-driven power station plans to install solar reflectors on its property to augment its electricity generation process.

CS Energy plans to install 44-megawatts worth of solar on about 30 hectares of its Kogan Creek Power Station property in Queensland within the first half of 2011, and have it complete by 2013, the company announced Wednesday.

The $104.7 million project has secured the backing of the Australian government, with $34 million coming from the government's Renewable Energy Demonstration Program. CS Energy is spending $70 million. The remaining funds will be drawn from a $35.4 million Queensland … Read more

Two new housing developments in Breda, the Netherlands, will serve as a two-year pilot project to see whether a home decked out in smart-energy tech with access to multiple energy sources, not just the electric grid, is the answer to energy savings.

Through a partnership with Netherlands grid operator Enexis, power company Greenchoice, and housing developer Heja, more than 300 homes have been built incorporating the latest energy-saving technologies. The pilot program, called Jouw Energie Moment (Your Energy Moment), could determine how people in the Netherlands choose to handle home energy management and building design going forward.

The Meulenspie development … Read more

Toyota Motor has agreed to develop and deploy telematic services, including its smart-grid technology for running electric systems more efficiently, on Microsoft's cloud-based Azure technology.

Toyota wants to use the technology to give customers navigation and diagnostic services, much like General Motors' OnStar service. Toyota also envisions scenarios in which drivers would be able to turn on heaters or air conditioning at their home with voice commands from their car. "We'll boost the value of today's vehicles by making them information terminals," Toyota President Akio Toyoda said at a press conference today, which was Webcast.… Read more

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.--Disappointed with the uptake of its Hohm Web application for home energy efficiency, Microsoft is shifting the product focus to emphasize electric-vehicle charging, according to a company executive.

Microsoft launched Hohm almost two years ago as a free application for consumers to monitor energy use and get tips on how to improve efficiency. It has signed on fewer than 10 utilities which use Hohm to provide consumers with electricity data online and it has partnered to provide electricity monitoring using a home's Wi-Fi connection.

But despite those efforts, the reception from utilities and consumers has not … Read more