Illinois’ largest utility, ComEd, is almost finished deploying advanced metering infrastructure to its customers. In fact, there are now more than 3.8 million installed smart meters in Illinois, feeding anonymized energy-use data – recorded in half-hourly kilowatt-hours – back from the grid. How to make use of this unwieldy flood of data and enhance the efficiency… Keep reading →
Over the past few years, Illinois has taken great strides to not only modernize its electric grid, but also to provide people and businesses with access to energy data. In February, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) approved the release of anonymous, aggregate energy-use data on a large scale, broken out in half-hour increments, 24 hours a day. Sensing… Keep reading →
Just how valuable is energy efficiency? To the customers of ComEd, Illinois’ largest electric utility, efficiency’s value is in the billions – $2.5 billion, to be exact. That’s how much ComEd customers have saved to date through the utility’s energy efficiency program, and thanks to a new plan under the Future Energy Jobs Act, more savings… Keep reading →
Significant market adoption attracts strategic utility investors Sunnyvale, Calif., November 3, 2015 – To further expand its HomeBeat™ consumer engagement product suite for home energy management and scale commercial deployment globally, Bidgely has closed a Series B round of funding for $16.6 million. The oversubscribed round was led by new investor Constellation Technology Ventures, the… Keep reading →
FERC found that a storage device using a utility’s distribution system in charging mode should share in the costs of the distribution system.
Imagine homeowners and businesses saving millions of dollars – and cutting pollution – without needing to do anything. Magic? No, but it does require electric utilities to take advantage of new technologies that better provide customers with just the right amount of voltage to their electrical outlets. Many appliances, including incandescent lighting, work just as… Keep reading →
Projects in Seven States to Help Communities Become More Adaptive With Microgrids WASHINGTON – In support of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and the Administration’s commitment to improve national power grid resiliency, today the Energy Department announced more than $8 million for microgrid projects to help cities and towns better prepare for extreme weather events… Keep reading →
We’ll let you be the judge of which is which in today’s good, bad and ugly smart meter round up, which will fill you in on everything from the latest opt outs, roll outs and left outs – to sabotage and another conspiracy theory.
ROLL OUTS Keep reading →
Illinois is using its upcoming smart meter rollout to promote itself as “a hub for the R&D, manufacturing, development and financing of smart grid and energy projects,” said Dr. Mohammad Shahidehpour, Director of the Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
“Illinois will now have the most comprehensive smart grid deployment in the U.S., and we can use our existing intellectual and human capital to ensure we serve as a model for the rest of the world.” Keep reading →
The trend to set performance benchmarks for utilities got another boost with an announcement Thursday by ComEd. The Illinois utility laid out the steps it will take to meet the performance metrics built into the state’s recent smart grid bill. (Which was passed only by overriding the governor’s veto.)
The 10-year $2.6 billion modernization plan requires the state’s utilities to prove they are making progress toward 10-year goals that include improving outages by 20 percent and the duration of those outages by 15 percent. As part of its plan, ComEd will install 10 “smart” electric substations over the next five to 10 years to better predict, find and resolve power outages. Keep reading →
