In the relatively near future, you can expect to see some announcements about Intel getting its chips into  smart grid equipment like intelligent meters.

That's the word from Joe Jensen, general manager of the Intel Embedded Computing Group. The company has been working with a few companies on experimenting with Intel chips in smart grid equipment, he said.

The smart grid deals are part of an overall effort within Intel's embedded processor division to expand where possible. The company already sells chips that are incorporated into wind turbines. Some wind turbines have up to 16 processors that track everything from power output to the pitch of the blades. If the blades don't adjust to wind speed, they can shear off.

"A lot of the processing goes into preventing them from going into self-destruct," he said. "They vary the blade pitch constantly."

Intel is also working with General Electric and Grid Net to promote WiMax, the long range communications protocol, as a smart grid communication standard. The company earlier announced a three-year collaboration with the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC). The SGCC will run grid simulations on Intel servers, she said, as well as jointly set up a lab to experiment with ways to incorporate embedded chips technologies into transmission equipment. The SCGG controls the grid that covers 80 percent of mainland China.

Smart grid seems in many ways an ideal fit for Intel. A tremendous amount of power is wasted due to grid inefficiencies, so the opportunity is large. Second, improving grid efficiency largely revolves around hardware and software.

Why use Intel chips? The basic architecture is familiar to software developers and the same software will work on a wide variety of chips.

"You can have one code base," he said.

Be honest. Five years ago, would you have believed that the entire future of the tech industry in the United States would depend on your local or regional utility?

Chances are, utilities probably never crossed your mind then. Utilities were viewed as functionaries, institutions that delivered large amounts of power and water. The real work of the world was being done by the graphic designers for social networks.

Now, of course, utilities are some of the biggest customers in the world for solar panels and smart grid technologies and can also provide incentives for things like energy efficient appliances and thin clients that can have a tremendous impact on a company's bottom line.

So what are they looking for and how should you approach them? Jonathan Livingston, who once ran PG&E's emerging technology group and now heads up Livingston Energy Innovations, says that startups and other companies that want to woo utilities need to be patient. A big part of his job, he says, is serving as a cultural anthropologist.

First, utilities are conservative in part because they live under tight regulation and oversight. "There is a whole set of behaviors that have evolved from being scrutinized," he said.

Reliability and safety are also paramount concerns. If the power goes out, or an accident occurs, the utility is potentially faced with financial liabilities and a huge black eye.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle in green building is credibility. Contractors and architects simply don't want to try new materials. And who can blame them? Buildings have to last three decades or longer and parts or components can't easily be swapped out if something goes wrong. Lawsuits are also endemic to the industry. In California, liability can continue for a decade. (Before becoming a writer, I represented major property developers.)

Trusting a startup, therefore, is akin to asking for more holes in your head.

Hycrete, though, is building up a case list of projects that it says will demonstrate how its product -- a concrete additive that waterproofs concrete -- cuts costs. The cost cutting comes because Hycrete's chemicals effectively replace the need to wrap a foundation or other concrete structures in plastic. (Hycrete CEO David Rosenberg will speak at our Green Building Summit on June 11.)

"We can cut 30 to 60 percent of the cost (of waterproofing) on just materials alone," said Aaron Ayer, who recently joined the company to run marketing.

It can also speed up a project by one to four weeks. Membranes, he added, also rip.

Can Hycrete make its case? I don't know, but it will be a signal that many in the industry will watch. The company was one of the first green building (and green chemistry) companies and it has already landed some notable deals. So remember those numbers and see what the company says later.

CPower has raised $10.7 million in a second round of funding to help it expand its demand response services.

New investor the Mayfield Fund led the round, and was joined by previous investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Expansion Capital Partners, Schneider Electric Ventures, New York City Investment Fund and Consensus Business Group. New York-based CPower previously raised $17 million in September 2007.

CPower, which was founded as ConsumerPowerline in 2001 and changed its name in 2008, has gathered a portfolio of about 2,200 megawatts under management, most recently landing a 200-megawatt demand response contract with Maryland utilities Allegheny Power, Delmarva Power and Light Company and Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO).

That puts it in a roster of demand response competitors including EnerNoc (NSDQ:ENOC), Comverge (NSDQ:COMV), EnergyConnect and Constellation NewEnergy in terms of power under management. These companies help customers take part in utility or grid operator programs that pay for the promise to cut energy use when they're facing peak loads.

That makes demand response aggregators providers of "negawatts" that help utilities avoid the need to build coal- or gas-fired "peaker" plants (see EnerNoc Harvests Power in Maryland). Most demand response companies work with commercial and industrial clients, though a few like Comverge also participate in residential demand response programs (see Demand Response: The Home vs. C&I Debate).