Smart Grid Library

My mother is writing a book.  She learned how to use a computer, and has been diligently crafting her story chapter by chapter.  If only the local electric grid would cooperate.  A single power disruption of a few seconds wiped out an entire chapter of her book.  Now she is reworking a previous version and [...]

My blog dated April 19 focused on PG&E activities that seemed to be designed to kill the spirit and the objectives of the Smart Grid.  Since then, PG&E has admitted that mistakes were made in some meter installs (although my PG&E smart meter functions perfectly, thank you very much), the tariff change is wending its way [...]

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 [...]

The latest electric vehicle (EV) or plug-in hybrid EV (PHEV) announcements from Detroit deliver good and bad news.  While the Chevy Volt may not actually give the average driver 230 miles per gallon, it is certainly much better than the current fleet.  I’m pleased with that news.  However, recent announcements that GM and other manufacturers – [...]

I posed two questions last week to a number of Smart Grid-related groups organized within LinkedIn®.  The questions were:  “What do you consider to be the most important security challenges in protecting consumer data in a HEMS application, and what are the most important privacy challenges?” 
I asked this question because this n application will be [...]

My previous blogs touched on different aspects of the Smart Grid.  Now let’s talk about some of the common denominators of all solutions.  One is the fact that software will be a critical component to successful Smart Grid operations.  And not just any software – but open, standards-based, interoperable, and secure software. 
The National Institute of [...]