Smart Grid Library

The message in Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid” is a great example of a focused communications strategy.  Utilities and vendors of energy solutions and services that require figurative and literal buy-in of ratepayers and consumers need to create focused and layered communications strategies with them in mind.  Your success depends on [...]

I like ice hockey, but I rarely watch a televised game.  There’s too much living going on to spend it plunked in front of a TV.   That said, I did watch the two Olympics games between the US and Canadian men’s hockey teams because I figured they would be well-played games that would be an [...]

Microgrids are natural innovation zones for the Smart Grid because they have experimentation scalability and flexibility.  Smart utilities could create partnerships with academic and business campuses in their territories to deploy microgrids and study the most effective solutions for management of distributed generation.  Why distributed generation?  Because smart utilities should leverage the abilities of microgrids [...]

Back in September 2009 I blogged about six rules that tell you when you have a Smart Grid.  The third rule is:  You know you have a Smart Grid when the transmission and distribution portions of the grid are optimized for distributed energy generation/storage.  This rule becomes reality when microgrids are ubiquitous.  The Smart Grid [...]

New technologies challenge our ability to manage them.  Do you recall that many users of social networks like MySpace and Facebook were chagrined to discover that their personal information has achieved immortality on the Internet?  In many cases, users failed to appreciate the ramifications of their decisions about sharing information.  The harm in some cases [...]

The standard electric meter provides data about how much electricity is used over a defined timeframe, but smart meters provide additional details about consumption.  Do you know which home appliances use the most electricity?   For the vast majority of Americans, the answer is no.  There’s a quote that I’ll reword:  you can manage what you [...]

I was at the Smart Grid Summit in Miami last week where I presented a Smart Grid overview and moderated two sessions on Game-Changing Applications and Home Energy Management Systems.  Another session focused on the lessons that telecom companies can teach utilities, which aligns nicely with my discussion from last week.  Here are more observations [...]

As a telecom veteran, I sometimes get a sense of deja vu at Smart Grid conferences.  There are some strong similarities between the telecom industry of 25 years ago and electric utilities today.  I know how much the utility industry hates to hear that but it is true.  Here are the similarities and important lessons [...]

The Smart Grid industry is a veritable tower of Babel when it comes to terminology, jargon, and acronyms.  There are several reasons for this starting with the number of domains that comprise the Smart Grid.  The conceptual model for the Smart Grid maps out Generation, Transmission, and Distribution, plus Markets, Operations, Service Providers, and Consumption.  [...]

There are more signs that the brouhaha over PG&E’s smart meter rollout may do damage to other utilities’ plans for similar deployments.  News reports indicate that utilities and regulatory agencies in other states are closely watching the legal tangle devolve in California.  Consumer advocacy groups in California are concerned that smart meters are expensive, inaccurate [...]