
EPRI releases open, standards based software, to connect smart homes to the smart grid
Automated Demand Response (ADR) is something we’ve talked about here on GreenMonk for quite a while now. And in other fora, back, at least as far as 2007. What is Automated Demand Response? Well, demand response is the process whereby electricity consumers (typically commercial) reduce their usage in response to a signal from the utility […]

The coming together of the Internet of Things and Smart Grids
I was asked to speak at the recent SAP TechEd && d-code (yes, two ampersands, that’s the branding, not a typo) on the topic of the Internet of Things and Energy. This is a curious space, because, while the Internet of Things is all the rage now in the consumer space, the New Black, as […]

Here comes the sun… IBM and solar forecasting
For decades now electricity grids have been architected in the same way with large centralised generation facilities pumping out electricity to large numbers of distributed consumers. Generation has been controlled, and predictable. This model is breaking down fast. In the last decade we have seen a massive upsurge in the amount of renewable generation making […]

The zero-emissions Nissan Leaf test drive
I love the idea of electric cars and have done for a long time. Recently, one of my best friends Ray Flynn, proprietor of Flynns Garage (a Nissan Dealership in Carlow, Ireland), contacted me to let me know he is one of only 15 Nissan dealerships in Ireland who have been approved to sell the […]

There’s gold in them thar bills!
Photo credit Urban Jacksonville
The output from smart meters is incredibly granular. Far more so than is obvious from the smart meter output graph above.
In conversations with Dr Monica Sturm (Director of Siemen’s Center of Competence, Metering Services) last November (2008) she confirmed to me that it is possible to identify individual devices in someone’s […]

Klaus Heimann espouses SAP’s smart utility of 2020 at International SAP for Utilities conference
I attended the 7th International SAP for Utilities event in Munich last week.
Having attended the SAP for Utilities event in San Antonio last year, I had reasonably high expectations from this conference and I wasn’t disappointed. At the San Antonio event SAP talked very much about the ‘State of the Now’ talking up their, […]