Network Stack | The Green Economy Post: Green Careers, Green Business, Sustainability

SMART GRID ROUNDUP: Grants for National Smart Grid Announced, Hacking the Smart Grid; Wind and Solar Power Drives Need For Smart Grid

By Chris de Morsella on April 23, 2009 1 Comment Biden, code development, Commerce Secretary, Department of Energy, embedded devices, energy appliances, energy management products, energy storage, Gary Locke, grant, Grants, grid monitoring devices, hacking the smart grid, high voltage transmission, intelligence, IOActive, Jefferson, Joe Biden, Joshua Pennell, Mo., monitoring, National Smart Grid, National Smart Grid Grants, nationwide electrical smart grid, network security, network stack, power storage, security, Security Focus, security threats, smart grid, smart-grid industry, smart-grid technology deployment; deployment of grid monitoring devices, smart-grid technology development grants, solar power, solar;, stimulus funding, technology viability. smart-grid technology development grants, Vice President Joe Biden, wind, wind power, wireless networking standard, ZigBee

Quite a bit is happening in the smart grid sector. In this post I quickly look at the breaking announcement by Vice President Joe Biden of more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funding for grants to drive the rollout of a nationwide electrical smart grid.

I continue to follow the hacking of the grid story and try to give some various perspectives on this issue and what is being done about it.

Finally I post on how the growing adoption of renewable energy like solar and wind will require the grid to evolve into a much smarter, robust system and to incorporate systems for storing transient excess energy.

Smart Meters Open Up New Software Sector

By Chris de Morsella on March 30, 2009 7 Comments carbon accounting systems, energy efficiency, firewalls, home energy controllers, network stack, networking, peak load, PG&E, smart appliances, smart grid, smart meters, software applications, software business, software development, software opportunities

Smart meters, which are meters that are hooked up to a network so that they can deliver information about current usage in a timely manner, are rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Smart meters will enable real time energy decisions in response to current conditions. They form a critical cornerstone of the smart grid; in fact in many ways they are the “smart” in the smart grid. This opens up a whole slew of new opportunities for smart software developers and smart entrepreneurs [no pun intended] to build the software applications and services to support and to add value to these new smart networked grids. What kinds of software opportunities exist in this newly opening sector?