Viewing posts tagged "General Electric"

Elster Gets Former Nokia Siemens Networks Vet as CEO

Big smart meter maker Elster Group has announced a new CEO – Simon Berensford-Wylie, the former CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks.

Perhaps the move will lead to new partnerships between the two companies. German company Elster has been seeing rapid growth in smart meter deployments, along with its big rivals Itron, Landis+Gyr, General Electric and Sensus, and also makes gear to manage other parts of the so-called "smart grid" (see Green Light post).

Elster has deployed six million smart meters and other devices around the world, and reported revenues of €1.3 billion ($1.9 billion) in 2008, compared to 2008 revenues of $1.25 billion for its main smart metering rival in Europe, Swiss-based Landis+Gyr (see Landis+Gyr Raises $100M).

Nokia Siemens Networks, on the other hand, has been ailing of late. The joint venture of Nokia and Siemens announced earlier this month that it would seek to lay off about 5, 670 employees in a second round of job cuts amidst tough price competition in the global networking market (see Bloomberg).

But smart grid communications – such as networks that link smart meters with utilities – are seen as a growth area for telecommunications and networking giants the world over.

The $3.4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants given out by the Department of Energy last month is expected to lead to 18 million smart meters installed in the next three years (see DOE's $3.4B Smart Grid Grant Program: The Winners).

And the European Union has set a 2022 deadline for every electrical meter to have some kind of two-way communications and control capability (see Green Light post).

A number of executives from utility, networking and energy giants have taken executive positions in smart grid startups such as Silver Spring Networks, Trilliant and GridPoint in recent months (see Green Light post).

250M Smart Meters, $3.9B Market by 2015, Says Pike Research

The world will have 250 million smart meters by 2015, representing a $3.9 billion market, according to a report from Pike Research released Monday.

But that growth – representing $19.5 billion in new meters installed, and an increase from about 46 million smart meters installed worldwide last year – will be uneven, according to Pike's executive summary of the report.

North America, which is set to overtake Europe as the fastest-growing smart meter market next year, will see smart meters make up 55 percent of its installed meter base by 2015, for example, while worldwide penetration of smart meters will be 18 percent by that time, Clint Wheelock, managing director, said in a news release.

The report also differentiates between "basic" smart meters capable of two-way communication of electricity consumption data, and "advanced" meters that can be remotely disconnected and, more importantly, enable so-called home area networks, or energy management systems within homes and businesses (see The Smart Home, Part I and The Smart Home, Part II).

Pike's report also noted that the big expansion in smart metering won't last forever. Government financial support - including the Department of Energy's awarding of $3.4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants last week - has broken utilities' traditional 15 to 20 year meter replacement cycle, Wheelock noted (see DOE's $3.4B Smart Grid Grant Program: The Winners).

Pike's report matches the views of other industry observers, who say smart meter makers like General Electric, Itron, Landis+Gyr, Sensus and Elster – as well as the companies such as Silver Spring Networks, Trilliant, SmartSynch, Grid Net and others seeking to provide networking and communications for those smart meters – are vying to establish their technologies in this big new round of deployments (see 8.3M Smart Meters and Counting in U.S.).

Silver Spring, Greenbox Go Back to Oklahoma

Oklahoma Gas & Electric on Tuesday named Silver Spring Networks and Greenbox Technology as partners on its smart grid plans – yet again.

Only this time, the utility plans to use the two for a full-scale deployment rather than a pilot project, as it did last year (see Smart Grid: Test Customers Give Thumbs Up).

And, of course, Silver Spring bought Greenbox last month, so the two will be working even more closely together, so to speak (see Silver Spring Swallows Greenbox).

The OG&E project announced Thursday calls for 42,000 smart meters from General Electric to be installed in Norman, Okla. Redwood City, Calif.-based Silver Spring will network the meters.

The project will also seek to recruit 2,000 to 3,000 customers to get "almost real time" information about their in-home energy use and electricity pricing.

That's similar to the pilot project Silver Spring and Greenbox did last year in Oklahoma City, and OG&E plans to use both technologies in their new project, Eric Dresselhuys, Silver Spring's vice president of markets, said Thursday.

The 42,000-meter deployment is part of a 771,000-smart meter rollout that OG&E just got $130 million in Department of Energy grant funding for on Tuesday (see DOE's $3.4B Smart Grid Grant Program: The Winners).

Details of that broader deployment were awaiting state regulator approval of the utility's request to raise customer rates to recover the remaining costs of the project, which is expected to total about $300 million, the utility said Thursday.

With $3.4 billion in DOE grants announced Tuesday - enough to deploy 1.8 million smart meters, one million in-home energy displays, 175,000 load management devices, 170,000 smart thermostats, 200,000 advanced transformers and 700 automated substation systems over the course of the next three years or so – expect more of these announcements in the coming days.

Smart Grid Investment Grants: The Also-Rans

For every one project that got a piece of $3.4 billion in Department of Energy stimulus grants on Tuesday, three projects didn't.

But while the 100 winning projects may have won on the technical merits, that doesn't mean the 300 that didn't make the cut are lacking in quality, DOE advisor Matt Rogers said in announcing the awards (see DOE's $3.43B Smart Grid Grant Program: The Winners).

Still, utilities with projects that didn't make Tuesday's list are likely weighing their options for how – or if – to continue without DOE funding.

Several utilities had asked for extra money to speed up ongoing smart grid projects. Those will likely continue, if not as fast as they could have.

Dominion Virginia Power, for example, didn't get $200 million to speed up its deployment of 2.4 million smart meters, and Austin Energy missed out on the $113 million it was seeking to help support its $230 million plan to build out smart grid systems across its service area (see Grant Watch: Austin Energy, Oncor Seek Millions More for Smart Grid).

Some utilities filed multiple requests that added up to more than the $200 million maximum. Some of those got only partial funding.

Atlanta-based Southern Co., for example, only got $164 million of the $362 million it had sought (see Green Light post). Pepco won $149 million, but had asked for $254 million (see Baltimore Business Journal).

Texas-based Oncor, which had sought a total of $317 million in three applications to support both smart meter and distribution grid automation projects, didn't get any grant funding (see Oncor Makes $317M Smart Grid Stimulus Pitch).

Other projects that didn't get grants haven't started yet, but were part of utilities' longer-range plans. Whether or not they can go forward or will have to be scaled back or shelved will depend on many factors, including how much funding they've already secured versus how much they'll have to ask state regulators to approve via customer rate hikes.

Pacific Gas & Electric, for example, didn't get the $42.5 million it had sought to boost its plan to deploy energy management devices to about 75,000 small businesses and homes in San Jose, Calif. (see PG&E Asks Cisco to Help Make 75K Businesses Energy Wise).

Still, the utility will move forward with a smaller-scale project with funding already approved as part of its $2.2 billion, 10 million smart meter deployment, PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno said Tuesday.

Other proposals that weren't on Tuesday's winners list include:

• Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities, which had sought grants of about $126.5 million, or up to half the cost of its $253 million smart grant plan.
• National Grid, a U.K.-based company with operations in the United States, had asked for $200 million for a smart grid program for about 200,000 customers in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
• St. Louis, Miss.-based Ameren Corp. has sought $185 million for two of its subsidiary utilities in Missouri and Illinois.
• Chicago-based Commonwealth Edison had asked for $175 million to boost its 141,000 smart meter deployment (see Green Light post).
• The Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago (BOMA Chicago) had wanted $93 million to create a "virtual generator" out of 260 office buildings linked for energy control (see BOMA Chicago's $93M Smart Grid Stimulus Pitch).

If You’re Selling a Company, Call Siemens

Siemens is the company that just can't resist.

The German industrial giant is considering purchasing solar cell maker Q-Cells, according to Reuters (via Forbes here.).

Earlier this month, Siemens bought solar thermal vendor Solel for $418 million. Earlier, it has bought an number of water companies and ramped up its investments in smart grid.

In a list of the top ten acquirers in greentech, we picked Siemens as number two, right behind General Electric.

This is a pattern you should get used to. Small, innovative startups often have tremendous technology, but they lack the capital, distribution networks and relationships to bring their ideas to fruition. Large conglomerates often fail to capitalize on the interesting stuff in their labs, but they do know how to buy stuff that seems to work and take it commercial. Thus, greentech will be a barbell market – a lot of small companies and a few large companies with not a lot of things in between.

As acquisitions spread, you can start to think of Silicon Valley as a farm system for conglomerates. That doesn't sit well with some: Didn't Silicon Valley win out over old-style conglomerates like Digital and IBM? Yes, but it doesn't mean it happens in every situation. Green startups are born to be bought.

And if Siemens isn't interested, start talking to Philips (two lighting acquisitions this year), Toshiba, TSMC, and Cisco Systems.

PG&E to Bakersfield: Weather, Not Smart Meters, Cause of Higher Power Bills

Pacific Gas & Electric says its smart meters aren't the reason Bakersfield customers are seeing higher power bills this summer. Instead, it's hot summer weather, combined with electricity rate increases, that are the cause, the utility says.

California State Sen. Dean Florez has found a host of Bakersfield residents who are complaining about big power bills they've gotten after their smart meters were installed. Those complaints have focused attention on PG&E's $2.2 billion, 10 million smart meter deployment, with the California Public Utilities Commission demanding that PG&E find a third party to investigate (see San Francisco Chronicle).

But PG&E has already tested many customers' smart meters – made by General Electric and Landis+Gyr and networked by Silver Spring Networks – and have not found any problems with how they're working, PG&E spokesman Denny Boyles said Wednesday.

Rather than malfunctioning meters, PG&E thinks the higher bills have come from its two rate hikes in the past 12 months, plus a hot summer that led to many Central Valley residents cranking their air conditioners to beat the heat, Boyles said.

Still, the complaints do point out a central issue for utilities deploying smart meters. While two-way communicating meters do offer the promise of linking home appliances, AC units and other systems to networks that could reduce power bills, those home area networks haven't gotten past the pilot stage yet (see Utilities Mull Price Points, Policies for Home Energy Management).

And that means most homeowners haven't seen direct proof that the meters are worth the rate increases they're paying to cover the cost of installing them — though in PG&E's case, those increases came years ago, Boyles noted.

Right now, PG&E smart meter customers can check their power usage at the meter, or log into a PG&E Web site to get updates, Boyles noted. In one customer's case, that website inaccurately reported power usage going up during a blackout – a glitch PG&E is correcting, he said.

But PG&E is looking at more complex and useful linkages between smart meters and homes, though the initial advances on that front may come to its small commercial customers first.

Those are the target customers for PG&E's proposed $85 million project to link 75,000 smart meter-enabled businesses with energy management systems. PG&E is seeking Department of Energy smart grid stimulus grant funding for the project, which includes Cisco and IBM (see PG&E Asks Cisco to Help Make 75K Businesses Energy Wise).

One of the project's goals is to give businesses advance notice of electricity prices that will change during the course of the day. Such time-of-use and peak pricing programs are a critical component of many utility smart meter networking plans, since they won't work to encourage customers to save power during peak demand times unless those customers can get pricing signals in a reliable and timely way.

In fact, peak pricing without some kind of forewarning to the customers could yield some even louder complaints about unfair power bills - not a pleasant prospect for utilities.