If you are a smart grid company trying to land a contract or trial with a major utility, Daniel Weiss of the Angeleno Group has two words of advice.

Be Big.

Bonus piece of advice: Have a large, existing revenue stream.

Utilities are notoriously conservative, he told an audience at the Smart Grid Innovation Symposium sponsored by Innovation Center Denmark (in Menlo Park, Calif., of all places). The paramount concern of a utility is reliability. It outweighs considerations about cost, technology, innovation or other performance metrics. Thus, they really prefer dealing with established, old-line companies.

An exec who runs the advanced metering program at a publicly owned utility "referred to a publicly traded billion dollar company as 'a very small company that we are reluctant to do business with,'" Weiss recalled.

"You can imagine the perspective when they look at a company who has done $20, $30, $50 million in venture financing," he added.

Maybe there's no Moore's Law in grid either.