Andres Carvallo elected to UTC's Smart Networks Council Board of Directors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 27, 2010

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Kristy Weinshel
202.833.6815
kristy.weinshel@utc.org

Fourteen Industry Leaders from Electric Utilities and their Technology Partners Join UTC's Smart Networks Council Board

Washington, D.C. - To reflect the utility industry's ongoing emphasis on the Smart Grid, UTC's Smart Networks Council Board recently held elections to expand the board beyond its original size to allow for more leadership opportunities. Chaired by Doug McGinnis, Principal Smart Grid Communications Architect, Exelon Corporation and Vice Chaired by Jeff Nichols, Director, Network and Communications Services, Sempra Energy Utilities the Smart Networks Council is an operating unit of the Utilities Telecom Council (UTC) that deals specifically with smart grid related issues. The newly elected Smart Networks Council Board members are:

• Mike Brown, Global Sales Manager - Utility Communications, General Electric
• Mark Burke, Vice President, Telecommunications & Smart Grid Architecture, KEMA Consulting
• Andres Carvallo, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, GridNet
• Carl Fulbright, Operations Manager, Black Hills Energy
• Erich Gunther, CTO and Chairman, EnerNex Corporation
• Chuck Hackney, Director - Telecommunications Services & Smart Grid Communications, CenterPoint Energy
• Dr. William F. Lawrence, CTO, Global Emerging Markets, Lockheed Martin
• Bruce Le, Telecom & Networking Engineering, Southern California Edison
• Marc Matsuura, Acting Manager of Smart Grid Planning and Director of Transmission Planning, Hawaiian Electric Company
• Mike Robinson, Customer Solutions Director, CISCO
• Matt Schnell, Telecommunications Supervisor, Nebraska Public Power District
• John Stewart, Senior Engineer, Tennessee Valley Authority
• David G. Wolfe, Director of Technology, Duquesne Light Company
• Dolly Wrona, IT Telecom Engineer, Northeast Utilities Service Company

These representatives will have two-year terms that will run through the Fall of 2012. They join the following representatives of UTC member companies that are currently serving on the SNC Board with terms expiring in the Fall of 2011.

• Richard Bertolo, Project Director - Distribution Business Development, Hydro One Networks
• Trent Bowers, Vice President - Technology & Solutions Adoption, Landis+Gyr
• Kshamit Dixit, Manager, Information Technology Security, Toronto Hydro
• Mark Gray, Group Manager of System Protection and Telecommunications Engineering, PHI Power Delivery
• Glenn Johansen, President, LightRiver Technologies
• Harlow Hagee, Senior Manager - Enterprise Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent USA
• Mike Koch, Senior Architect, Motorola
• Sol Lancashire, Telecom Architect, BC Hydro
• Craig Maternoski, Manager - Applied Technologies, Integrys Energy Group
• Doug McGinnis, Principal Network Architect, Exelon Corporation
• Jeff Nichols, Director - Network & Communications Services, Sempra Energy Utilities
• Joe Nowaczyk, Manager of Electronics Systems & Smart Grids, Salt River Project
• Mark Thompson, Director of Strategic Planning, Aclara
• Rusty Williams, Manager - Planning and Engineering, Southern Company Services

UTC's current Chairman of the UTC Board, Troy West, General Manager - Technology & Corporate Services, Cleco Corporation as well as William R. Moroney, President and CEO, Utilities Telecom Council are also members of the Smart Networks Council Board.

We are excited to see what projects the SNC Board tackles in the coming year. For more information on the Smart Networks Council, please contact us at 202.872.0030 or visit www.smartnetworkscouncil.org.

Smart Networks Council
UTC's Smart Networks Council is a special resource for all UTC members - led by utility representatives and including technology partners, law firms, consulting companies - working together to drive the development, advancement and application of advanced metering and distribution automation applications. UTC's Smart Networks Council is an independent operating unit of the Utilities Telecom Council.

Grid Net and Sprint Enable First 4G Smart Grid and Smart Home Solutions for Utilities

Grid Net and Sprint Enable First 4G Smart Grid and Smart Home Solutions for Utilities

Utilities can now offer truly secure, scalable, reliable, and standards-based Smart Grid Solutions

San Francisco, California — September 13, 2010 — Grid Net, a global leading provider of real-time, all-IP Smart Grid and Smart Home software platforms for any device and any broadband technology, today announced it is collaborating with Sprint to deliver a Smart Grid solution that leverages Grid Net’s software platforms to connect smart meters and smart grid routers via the Sprint 4G network.

Grid Net software platforms are designed to integrate substation automation, distribution automation, smart meters, demand response, and load management with electric vehicles, buildings, and homes to increase grid reliability, energy efficiency, renewable energy use, and customer satisfaction while reducing capital and operating costs.

Sprint, the first and only national wireless carrier to launch and market a 4G network in the U.S., will explore embedded WiMAX connectivity into Smart Meters and Smart Grid Routers with Grid Net. WiMAX, a secure, open IEEE standard, provides a low-cost yet robust and safe solution to wirelessly connect smart meters to the Smart Grid. The combined solution delivers outstanding security, powerful capabilities and compelling economics for utilities and their customers today. Also, WiMAX standards allow utilities to assign different class of services and set priorities in critical infrastructure applications assuring the quality of service for critical infrastructure.

“This collaboration with Grid Net underscores our commitment to developing the smart grid,” said Wayne Ward, vice president of the Emerging Solutions Group, Sprint. “Sprint offers cost effective and flexible IP network solutions for utilities and application developers in support of advanced meter reading, as well as the scalability of 4G network bandwidth and QoS capabilities, to meet today’s utilities needs and tomorrow’s demands. Sprint invests in technologies and processes that enable developers like Grid Net to have access to important capabilities unique to our network, such as location and presence, to enrich their applications.”

Grid Net provides an integrated suite of policy-based software products. The cornerstone of this suite is the PolicyNet SmartGrid Network Management System™ (NMS) that provides an intelligent, reliable, real-time, all-IP, cost-effective, secure, policy based network management system software platform, operated within the utility’s network operations center, that provides complete lifecycle management services for millions of Smart Grid devices. In conjunction with the PolicyNet SmartGrid NMS, the Smart Network Operating System™ (SmartNOS) and PolicyNet SmartAgent™ firmware, which runs embedded on smart meter devices, provides secure, policy-based intelligence, monitoring, reporting, and control for real-time, advanced smart grid management. The SmartNOS™ firmware has the ability to run single or multiple PolicyNet SmartAgents™ for the localized operation and enforcement of distribution automation, smart metering, demand response, home area management, electric vehicle management, distributed generation management, and energy storage management functions on any smart grid device on the network. All Grid Net products have been certified for the Sprint 4G network and are immediately available in the U.S. market.


Grid Net’s unique advantages include:

· Universal Management — first Utility NOC Network Management System to manage all electric devices (supports Ethernet, Fibre, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, and HomePlug)

· Massive Scalability — able to manage 10s of millions of devices from a single deployment of the PolicyNet SmartGrid NMS platform

· Complete Security — end-to-end security (from Utility NOC to Smart Devices) that is based on and is compliant with the US NIST, NERC CIP, and FIPS requirements and standards

· Instant Communication — real-time speeds (<100 milliseconds), or any interval, and 100% Internet Protocol support

· Open Standards-based Interoperability — support for multiple, heterogeneous devices (e.g. transformers, fault monitors, switches, volt/VAR controllers, meters, inverters, etc.) from multiple vendors

· Lowest Total Cost of Ownership — ten year TCO of a full smart grid powered by Grid Net software and smart device technology is cheaper than a dedicated multi-network implementation

“We are delighted to collaborate with Sprint, as it will accelerate the availability of truly secure, scalable, reliable, standards-based Smart Grid and Smart Home solutions for utilities and end-customers,” said Ray Bell, Founder and CEO at Grid Net. “Sprint is a key partner in our ecosystem of partners who are committed to delivering best-in-class Smart Grid and Smart Home technologies built using open standards to utilities and their customers across the US and the rest of the world.”

Sprint’s 4G network has been serving customers since 2008 and is available today to customers in more than 50 markets in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Seattle.

Why Energy Bills Should Look Like Your Cell Phone Plan?

Telecom and smart grid alliances should team up with—or at least learn something from—the cell phone companies when it comes to billing.

Convergys’ Kit Hagen, director of utilities, thinks the Maryland and Baltimore Gas & Electric Company negotiation was a good moment for smart grids.

“There’s a lot of spin around smart meters, both positive and negative. People just don’t understand them,” he said.

To this end, Hagen thinks this shift looks like what the cable and telecommunication guys went through when they changed from an analog network of a few data points to digitization on the network.

Cell phone companies like AT&T and Sprint used to run on analog, but now they run in real time. The cell phone companies figured out how to bundle their services in terms of minutes. Utilities need to follow suit.

Lisa Alexander, principal of the Van Denburgh Consulting Group, said energy launches should bundle packages like cell phone plans -- and offer daytime, nighttime and weekend minutes.

In the cell phone industry, it’s all based on minutes. That’s certainly not how the cell phone industry calculates their bandwidth, Alexander said.

But they’ve figured out how to translate that currency in minutes. But when time of use (TOU) and critical peak pricing tariffs are introduced, will customers change their behavior?

And then of course, there is the other problem. Most utilities don’t have permission to implement time-of-use pricing. Any proposed pricing plans are thoroughly scrutinized for fairness, how they would impact customers and other issues. Whipping up a cell-phone-like billing system is like asking Fed Ex to start carrying freight with untested aircraft out of random airports. There are rules and circumstances far beyond the utilities' control.

The customers like seeing two bills through a trial period, so they aren’t worried about being overcharged.

The bundles need to be easy to understand, said Christine Hertzog, managing director of the Smart Grid Library. “If it doesn’t make sense to Joe and Jane Ratepayer, then they can’t identify what’s in it for them,” Hertzog said. How could the energy currency could play out? For instance, you get a certain number of minutes in electricity, plus you get certain devices that you could have in your office or building.

Whether this type of bundling would appeal to consumers is another question. CenterPoint, the large electricity distributor in Texas, conducted a smart grid test with powerline networking, a broadband standard that would have also allowed Centerpoint to sell internet services. After it learned that customers really didn’t want to get internet from them or didn’t care, the company dropped powerline and went with a less expensive mesh for its meters.

However, several Australian companies are bundling energy and telecom together. It's a work in progress. Consumer feedback, hopefully, will help provide an answer someday soon.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-energy-bills-should-look-like-your-cell-phone-plan/

My friends at GreenTechMedia have nailed it on the head with this article. This is it. Move from Analog to Digital. From Proprietary Non-IP RF Mesh to Full-IP Broadband. Enable the emergence of converged retail service providers (phone, wireless, video, internet, energy, security, others). Provide customers with real-time services in a currency that they understand ($$$ or Time). And Australia is setting the bar. And who is driving the broadband smart grid trends there? Hmmmmm…… Oh, yeah……GRID NET.

Extending Narrowband Smart Meter Networks to 4G Smart Grid Network Infrastructure

You guys got to read this....................And it applies to any broaband technology.

Extending Narrowband Smart Meter Networks to 4G Smart Grid Network Infrastructure
By TMCnet Special Guest
Eedo Lifshitz, Director of Business Development, Alvarion

The Network as the Enabler of Smart Grid
The objective of smart grid projects is to modernize the grid in order to improve its reliability while reducing gas emissions and costs. These projects involve a host of devices and associated applications that will be deployed across the next two decades.

The communication infrastructure has a key role in enabling smart grid deployments and should be carefully designed in order to avoid bottlenecks and other issues as discussed in this article.

The smart grid, in many ways, replicates processes that we have already experienced in the IT industry and can learn from:

-Migration from centralized computing (= generation) to distributed computing (= distributed renewal energy generation)

-Shift from stand-alone PC ( = off-net substations and devices) to a network of computers ( = on-net substations and distribution automation devices)

-Convergence (News - Alert) of proprietary network protocols (LAT, DECNET, SNA, NOVEL, DNP) to a standard protocol (TCP/IP)

-Shift from narrow band text applications ( = mechanical meters) to high bandwidth GUI applications (= digital smart meters and panels)

-Increase in network capacity from a few Kbits to dozens of Mbits

AMI – The Initial Smart Grid Network
Smart metering is known as the first smart grid application and has become so for a variety of reasons. It allows the utility to establish a dialog with its consumers and help shave the peak consumption, which is a source of multiple issues. Providing electricity during a period of peak consumption requires utilities to use expensive fuels or buy power at a high rate. It also creates outages, which has a negative impact on their SAIFI and SAIDI indexes, and may create operation issues that result in OPEX (News - Alert) expenses and loss of revenue.

During the past two decades, such outages have increased by 124 percent in North America -- up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota. In the most recently analyzed data available, utilities reported 36 such outages in 2006 alone.

Due to the compelling benefits of smart meter deployment and the ease of measuring its deployment progresses, governments around the world have mandated smart meter deployments and have provided stimulus funding to support this effort.

The market for AMI (Advanced Meter Infrastructure) is expected to grow in North America at a rate of 10 million smart meters a year, beyond the 16 million smart meters already installed by 26 utilities in 15 states.

AMI networks were designed to support smart meter connectivity requirements which are typically characterized by low bandwidth and high latency. Good enough for smart metering applications but not necessarily for the next smart grid applications that require a 4G wireless network that supports real-time, quality of service (QoS), broadband and mobility.

The New Smart Grid Applications
It is hard to predict what “new” smart grid applications we should expect in the next decade, in the same manner that it was almost impossible to predict that Google (News - Alert), Amazon or eBay would happen, back in the early 80’s when the Internet took a shape and form while the main applications were text email and FTP.

Yes, we already know that some grid automation applications require low-latency and QoS that is not available by most AMI solutions. We also understand that bandwidth is going to be a requirement to allow for video surveillance applications that will help protect the grid assets and provide visibility to issues before the line truck crews arrive to the scene. Broadband may also be required in emergency cyber security situations, when the utility needs to instantly update software to millions of devices.

It would be reasonable to assume that a new market of reach-GUI applications using the in-home smart grid panels as terminals will evolve. The question is how much bandwidth will these applications require and will the smart grid networks that are being deployed today be able to support it.

Smart grid network requirements
The network infrastructure has a key role in the success or the failure of the smart grid project. Imagine what would be the value of commercial internet applications if the network infrastructure supporting it would not be reliable or have enough bandwidth?

The same goes for the grid applications and the network supporting it. The network must be reliable and secured, with the necessary performance capabilities, interoperable and scalable for future requirements.

WiMAX (News - Alert) is the only commercially available 4G network that can support all four requirements of low latency, QoS, mobility and broadband, and has become a standard de-facto for smart grid WAN connectivity in North America.

Extending AMI to 4G Smart Grid WAN
The initial smart grid network is typically the AMI that covers the “last mile” and supports the smart metering project. The second phase of smart grid projects is typically grid automation which is spread across the distribution grid and requires a 4G WAN (Wide Area Network), often described as the “middle mile.”

The line that separates the last mile and the middle mile is drawn by the utility and is impacted by the smart grid applications. Grid automation applications that require low latency and QoS or high bandwidth, must fall into the 4G WAN middle mile, while some monitoring applications with no special latency and bandwidth requirements may be located as part of the AMI last mile network.

Another approach, lead by GE, that has been successfully deployed in Australia and is in pilot phase in North America is to combine the last mile and middle mile into a single 4G WiMAX network, eliminating the concern of network latency or bandwidth limitations.

When selecting the two tier approach, last mile and middle mile, it is imperative to ensure a unified management of the two networks and maintain the ability to “move” the line that separate the two networks, according to the utility smart grid application requirements.

Conclusion
As the smart grid market begins to mature, utilities realize that AMI networks cannot be extended to support grid automation applications, which is the typical second phase of smart grid projects. 4G WiMAX is gradually becoming a standard de-facto in North America for smart grid WAN, providing backhaul to the current AMI deployments and connectivity to grid automation applications that require low latency, QoS, high bandwidth and mobility.

http://smart-grid.tmcnet.com/topics/smart-grid-fa/articles/98901-extending-narrowband-smart-meter-networks-4g-smart-grid.htm

Proprietary Non-IP RF Mesh is DEAD !!!

Cisco and Itron Join Forces to Deliver Next-Generation Smart Grid Platform Cisco’s standards-based IP architecture to power Itron’s market-leading smart meter system Solution Will Create a Consolidated Network for Utilities, Make Possible More Reliable Delivery of Energy to Homes and Businesses

LIBERTY LAKE, Wash., and SAN JOSE, Calif. — September 1, 2010 — Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI) and Cisco announced today a strategic alliance that will advance the transformation of the world’s energy infrastructure. Together, the two will deliver a definitive 21st century Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications platform to the smart grid market and help advance more consistent and reliable delivery of energy across the electric distribution system and into homes and businesses. Itron and Cisco—world leaders in smart metering and networking communications, respectively—will collaborate on solutions that will transition smart metering technology into an open and interoperable, enterprise-class network for utilities. Specifically, the two companies will develop a standards-based, highly secure technology for full IPv6 implementation of field area communications to support smart metering, intelligent distribution automation and interfaces to the customer premise. Such an approach will help ensure consistent and interoperable wired and wireless communications among the various components of the smart grid, enabling utilities to scale to meet the demands of increasingly empowered customers and highly distributed generation portfolios. “The alliance between Cisco and Itron represents a major step forward in the realization of a modern, more intelligent energy infrastructure. Together, we aim to enable standardization of the smart-grid architecture and help create an end-to-end communications platform. As a result, utilities will benefit from an energy grid that is more secure, scalable and reliable, as well as solutions that are easier to maintain and able to support future needs,” said Laura Ipsen, Cisco senior vice president and general manager for the Smart Grid business unit. When asked about the value of the alliance, Philip Mezey, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Itron North America, stated, “Our customers have reiterated that security, interoperability and open standards are critical to the success of their smart grid initiatives. We are creating the first enterprise-class utility networking solution to utilize the scalable, reliable, highly secure technology synonymous with the Cisco name around the world. At Itron, we are enthusiastic about this effort and its potential to enhance utility communication networks around the globe.” Terms of the Agreement Under terms of the agreement, Itron and Cisco will jointly develop the reference design that defines a standard for smart grid field area and smart metering network communications, utilizing the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IPv6). A key standard identified by the National Institute of Technology, IPv6 integrates network security into its framework; allows for simplified processing of data by routers and other network devices; and offers a wealth of extensibility options over the current and widely-used IPv4 implementation. Itron will license and embed Cisco IP technology within its OpenWay® meters as well as distribute Cisco networking equipment and software as part of its smart meter deployments. Itron will continue to provide the complete solution and maintain its customer relationships. “We want to respect the legacy systems that have been deployed thus far within smart grids while innovating for the future. Cisco believes that Itron’s current-generation OpenWay solution is an excellent candidate for future upgrades to a full IPv6 implementation,” said Paul De Martini, chief technology officer and vice president of strategy for the Smart Grid business unit at Cisco. “With a true smart meter platform providing full software upgradability, OpenWay will be a catalyst for launching this next-generation architecture.” “Itron designed OpenWay to be able to adapt to evolving market needs. The move to embed Cisco IP communications continues to deliver on our promise of interoperability and open standards for OpenWay,” said Philip Mezey, of Itron North America. “This enables an expanding set of smart grid applications into the future.”