
Utilities should open up API’s to their smart meter data
The world of utilities is changing with the roll out of smart meters. One of the biggest changes will be the wealth of data that utility companies will suddenly be flooded with. As we noted in a previous post on GreenMonk, Centrica has: 18 million residential accounts and one million business accounts. Right now they […]

Utility at What Cost?
Dan Gillmor is critical of the NYTimes decision to require Facebook login for verified identity, which brings with it greater access to services in their online offerings. News organizations that use Facebook for login to comments and other features are unbelievably short-sighted. Which, of course, is absolutely nothing new. Normally I would be at the […]

SAP announces two new energy management products
I attended the International SAP for Utilities event in Mannheim recently and was surprised when in his opening keynote, Klaus Heimann introduced two new SAP energy management products. The first is a customer portal for Utility companies which helps utility companies roll out online self-service sites for their customers. This is being made available for […]

GigaOM’s GreenNet 2010
Last week I had the opportunity to attend GigaOM’s GreenNet 2010 event, which was looking at how energy solutions are powering a new wave of innovation in Silicon Valley.
I was pleased to see that Katie had focused a good amount of the agenda and speaker slots for talks given by regulators and public utility officials. […]

Are utility companies ready for full smart grids?
In the Smart Grid Heavy Hitters video interview series I have been publishing here on GreenMonk, one of the questions I ask all interviewees is, “What is a Smart Grid?” Almost all the interviewees talk about an infrastructure capable of full end-to-end, two-way communications. That is, communication from utilities down to the appliance level in-home, […]

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 […]