PCN Technology is now releasing its newest Grid MicroCircuits™ product. Based upon the company’s core open standards patented conductive media technology, this product delivers advanced IP Enabled (TCP/IP) Ethernet functionality on existing serial twisted pair RS-485 networks.
(Reference: San Diego Union Tribune, Onell Soto)
A San Diego company says it has found a novel way to communicate through electricity lines, allowing it to transmit video to billboards, payment information to gas pumps and data about the operation of an electric grid to power companies without radio waves or additional wires.
Grid MicroCircuits™ converge energy and communications within the utility, industrial, and commercial sectors. Grid MicroCircuits™ are open-standard products providing the Operating Systems Solutions for Communication, Networking and Energy Applications for Utility & OEM products and systems including:
- Network Control, Communication and Stabilization for Energy Infrastructure
- Renewable Generation Applications (e.g., solar inverters and wind farms);
- Meters, sensors, smart appliances & products;
- Transportation systems, Battery Intelligence, Charging and infrastructure; and
- Industrial products, building automation and control systems
(Reference: www.renewableenergyfocus.com)
The GridWise Alliance has released two reports detailing the most important metrics associated with measuring and understanding smart grid success.
“These reports can be used as additional tools for state commissioners and investment decision-makers as they consider both public and private investments in smart grid,” says Katherine Hamilton, President of the GridWise Alliance.
(Reference: Dallas Environmental Policy Examiner/Caroline Calais.)
Although electrification undoubtedly was the most significant engineering achievement of the 20th century, the U.S. electric power infrastructure - the grid – is quickly running up against its limitation. Bigger TVs, bigger houses, more air conditioners and more computers coupled with population growth have since 1982 increased our demand for electricity so much that it, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, exceeds transmission growth by almost 25% per year.
This is bad news, especially as spending on research and development within the electric industry – the first step towards innovation and renewal - is among the lowest of all U.S. industries. In fact, since 2000 only 688 additional miles of interstate transmission has been built, and America’s century-old grid consists today of around 300,000 miles of transmission lines and 9,200 electric generating units with 1,000,000 megawatts of generating capacity. It is estimated that system constraints and power quality issues cost American business more than $100 billion each year.
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