The Cisco® Home Energy Management Solution features a Home Energy Controller along with Cisco Energy Management Services that, when provided by utilities to their customers, are designed to help consumers securely and reliably gain insight into, and easier control over, their energy use

• Cisco's believes that networking technology can change how the world manages its energy and environmental challenges.  Cisco's vision is to enable an end-to-end, open standards-based, communications platform that supports new models of energy management.  By working with utility customers and an ecosystem of partners, Cisco hopes to help create an energy infrastructure for the 21st century that brings about economic as well as environmental benefits.

• As part of this vision, Cisco is announcing new demand-management tools that are a critical part of Cisco's Connected Grid offerings designed to address energy concerns and to help utilities more reliably and efficiently deliver power from generation to businesses and homes.

Solutions for the Home

• The Cisco Home Energy Management Solution for utilities features the Home Energy Controller (CGH-100), a countertop display that helps the consumer make more informed choices, as well as set policies and schedules for energy use, based on real-time household, historic and individual appliance consumption.

• Through the Home Energy Controller's LCD touch screen, the consumer has  insight into and control over peripheral devices that communicate with the HEC, such as thermostats, intelligent sockets and, ultimately, smart appliances like refrigerators and water heaters.

• The Home Energy Controller coordinates the variety of networks in the home and supports associated networking protocols, such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi and Encoder Receiver Technology (ERT).

• With the Cisco Home Energy Management Solution, utilities will be able to extend the benefits of their Smart Meter deployments by providing home owners with more detailed energy control and management, down to the appliance level.  Customers and utilities can coordinate on new pricing and demand-side management services, enabling home automation for energy management.

• Cisco is also announcing hosted Energy Management Services, which utilities can use to manage data from thousands of homes while integrating with their back-end applications.  These complement Cisco's existing service offerings to help utilities plan, build and run a converged communications infrastructure for automating the Connected Grid.

• The Cisco Home Energy Management Solution will be deployed by innovative utility customers such as Duke Energy, with which Cisco has a strategic collaboration to advance Smart Grid technology.

• Studies show that technology can promote better energy management by consumers.  IDC found that customers reduce overall energy use by 4 to 15 percent when they receive real-time feedback on power consumption. Also, according to a study by Zogby International, 74 percent of Americans are likely to change their energy use if they are given the technology solutions to do so.

• The Home Energy Controller is designed as a global solution but will be first available in North America beginning this summer.  It is part of Cisco's new Connected Grid portfolio, an end-to-end approach to the smart grid, within which substation automation technologies were announced in May to help utilities better manage electricity transmission and distribution. 

Axial Vector Energy Corp. may be one of the first green energy companies to have bridged the gap between the $3.4 billion smart grid energy program announced by the U.S. Department of Energy and home appliances when the Company unveiled its product which controls individual home appliances more efficiently using Bluetooth technology.

Dubbed the Genius Box, the appliance networking system monitors home appliances during peak hours to optimize their use. Axial Vector claims the Green Energy Genius Box is the "first of its kind in the world," but here in the United States AXVC may have struck gold.

Through the Recovery Act, the Obama administration had budgeted $3.4 billion in energy grants that were jointly announced by the U.S. Department of Energy and Treasury Department earlier this year. Nationwide, utilities are gearing up for updating and construction of smart grids to better manage the delivery of power during peak periods.

The Smart Grid Grant Program is the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history.

In March, one hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners had already signed up to receive funding through that Recovery Act-funded program. Yet Axial Vector Energy Corp. is the first to produce a networking system that bridges the gap between the Smart Grid system and home appliances -- without the aid of funding from the U.S. government -- though AXVC is gearing up to apply.

While AXVC sees strong demand for its Bluetooth networking appliance green energy product the Company is not overlooking the federal grant program either, having announced in late May that it had retained Washington, D.C.-based Liebman & Associates to help secure federal and state clean energy funding.

Liebman & Associates is one of the leading renewable energy lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and according to Axial Vector, has secured "$800 million from federal and state governments supporting clean energy projects" in the last year alone.

Axial Vector Chairman, Mr. Samuel Higgins, said the Genius Box is an "off the shelf network control box ready for home use now." Higgins stated that AXVC also expects to generate high margins, though he did not forecast sales figures.

For all the attention that the smart grid has gotten recently, actual deployments are only occurring with 8% of utilities around the world, but more than half of these haven’t even started yet, according to a survey released today by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). Rather than conclude the smart grid is a non-starter, however, Microsoft believes it’s an untapped market set that is set to explode.

The survey, a relatively small sample of 200 professionals across the globe in the electric, gas and water utilities, demonstrated that utilities are willing to adapt to the smart grid, but the magnitude of the changes required in business models to technology and everything else is overwhelming to most utilities, Jon Arnold, managing director for the Worldwide Power & Utilities Industry at Microsoft, concluded.

“There’s been a lot written about disruptive technologies in the past, but our survey results indicate that the implementation of the smart grid and all its components throws a wrench in the process of everyday life at utilities,” Arnold wrote in Microsoft’s blog. “And that’s not a bad thing, of course. Utilities are responding to limitations of an expensive grid infrastructure in the face of growing demand for electricity, political desires for a cleaner environment, and acknowledgement that a smart grid operating environment could benefit every utility company’s overall financial performance and efficiency.”

Read the complete article in connectedplanetonline.com

read in connectedplanetonline.com by John McDonald

As CAT-iq offers ultra low power solutions for smart grid we found this article relevant for you.

Creating a smarter grid is the “checkered flag” our industry has been eyeing for years — long before the term “smart grid” was coined. We’ve developed the technology and assembled the pieces, but deployment has been confined to local exits from the slow lane.

Now, with stimulus funding and increasing consumer awareness, it’s time to move smart grid into the express lane. We have a phenomenal opportunity to accelerate smart grid deployment, and we’ll need a strategic road map in place to optimize the integration of smart technologies into our infrastructure. We also need to shift gears from traditional “siloed” processes to a strategic, holistic drive toward energy delivery.

Driving holistic strategies
The strategic road map to a smarter grid starts with open, collaborative strategies from key drivers of smart grid solutions.

Read the complete article.

John D. McDonald, P.E., is an IEEE Fellow and past president of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES). He is also a member of IEC Technical Committee (TC) 57 and Working Groups (WGs) 3 and 10, the VP of Technical Activities for the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of CIGRE, and the past chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee. Additionally, Mr. McDonald is the General Manager of Marketing for GE Energy T&D.

This Kit offers a relatively easy and cost-effective way for homeowners and renters to get the security benefits of Internet-connected home monitoring, including mobile alerts. Designed for quick and easy installation by the user (D-Link claims that the system can be installed from scratch in about 30 minutes, using pre-set default settings) the system connects using the broadband router in the home. Once installation is complete, in-home activities and security options can be remotely monitored and controlled through a personalized Web portal account at mydlink.com. Alerts from wireless sensors around the home are instantly relayed by text, e-mail and voice-call to system owner. It’s also possible to set up alerts for designated contacts, or for activities at certain times of day.

Once the Starter Kit is installed, the system can be expanded with a number of high-end features that are available as optional accessories, including infrared motion detection, door/window contacts, keypad, personalized key fobs, fire, carbon monoxide, and water leak detectors. The system can be used for low security applications too, such as letting working parents when their kids get home safely from school, or even monitoring pets during the day. A home video option is available with D-Link IP cameras which can capture and record events with remote access to the images available through the Web site or via mobile phones.

A green companion to the Home Monitor is the D-Link Home Energy Monitoring Starter Kit. According to D-Link this Kit lets consumers measure the energy consumption of all electrical appliances in the home, turning the Home Monitor into the ultimate smart energy 'Green Machine'. Once the Energy Monitor is installed and linked to the Home Monitoring Starter kit, consumers can use the MyDLink portal to program devices to power-down when the home is empty, helping reduce carbon emissions and reduce utility bills by saving electricity.

The energy monitoring kit is equipped with two power-usage sensor adapters (additional sensors may be purchased separately) that plug into the home's wall sockets near where the electrical appliances are located. By plugging the appliances directly into the kit's sensor adapters, users can automatically download energy consumption data to their personal mydlink.com Web page where they have access to real-time power usage levels; daily, weekly and monthly breakdowns; cost conversions and graphical analysis.

These two kits make a smart package for homeowners interested in upgrading their security and energy consumption options with one integrated and expandable solution.

At the 2010 International CES, the HomePlug® Powerline Alliance, the world’s leading industry group for powerline network solutions, today announced expected finalization of the HomePlug “Green PHY” (HomePlug GP) specification in the first quarter of 2010. HomePlug GP is a low power, cost-optimized powerline networking specification targeting Smart Grid applications such as HVAC, smart meters, home appliances and plug-in electric hybrid vehicles. HomePlug GP has been developed with direct input from major utility companies like Consumers Energy, Duke Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison to help optimize the specification for real world deployments.

HomePlug GP has ample bandwidth to support critical functionality such as IP networking. Power consumption is estimated to be 75 percent less than an AV chip with similar cost savings projected. Certified chips and products are expected to ship in early 2011. Products based on HomePlug GP will be fully interoperable with both HomePlug AV products. The forthcoming HomePlug AV2 specification, designed for next generation broadband speed applications, maintains this family interoperability. HomePlug GP is developed as a profile of the IEEE 1901 powerline communications standard and will be included in HomePlug’s well-established Compliance and Interoperability Certification Logo program.

HomePlug devices account for 75 percent of the world’s broadband powerline communications market, and over 40 million devices have shipped to date. The Alliance works with key stakeholders to ensure all of its specifications are designed to meet the requirement for interoperability stated by service providers, utilities, equipment and appliance manufacturers, consumer electronics and other important stakeholders. The Alliance operates the powerline networking industry’s largest Compliance and Interoperability Certification Program to ensure true multi-vendor co-existence and interoperability. The program has certified more than 190 products and will also begin certifying IEEE 1901 products in 2010.

Network vendor seeks partners in bid to address renewable energy, smart metering, intelligent power grid markets.

Struggling equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks on Monday announced plans to enter the energy sector.

The network vendor said it plans to apply its telecoms expertise and seek partners in a bid to capture the rising demand for renewable energy, intelligent power grids and smart metering.

"When you look at what is required to manage power grids, or to make full use of unpredictable renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, as well as bring greater transparency to and flexibility to billing, the synergies with the core of our existing telecoms business are obvious," said Juhani Hintikka, head of operations and business software at NSN, in a statement.

The company at the beginning of November announced a massive restructuring plan which includes shedding as many as 5,700 jobs in a bid to save €500 million a year between the end of 2009 and the end of 2011.

From January 2010 the scheme will also see Nokia Siemens reorganise its five operating units into three: Business Solutions, Network Systems and Global Services. Its planned energy sector operations will form part of its Business Solutions unit.

This week the Department of Energy awarded $3.4 billion in stimulus funding to one-fourth of the 400 smart grid stimulus applicants spanning 49 states. The funding was the biggest single grant the DOE has given out in one day, but it’s not the end of its awards. There is still $7.2 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding set aside for broadband grant hopefuls.

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• Enables Internet connection via UMTS/3G USB-sticks
• IP-telephones can connect directly to the FRITZ!Box 
• New online memory option for data storage 
• Improved security and reduced energy consumption