Smart Grid

“Energy storage is the only technology that can use energy generated during low cost off-peak periods to serve load during expensive peak periods, thereby improving the overall utilization and economics of the electric grid,” states a recent Massachusetts Energy Storage Initiative report that encourages the wide-scale deployment of energy to meet grid demands. Recognizing that […]

Smart buildings and smart grids only go so far in optimizing energy consumption in cities, the two need to be synchronized to complete the energy saving story. As much as 40% of total energy consumption in the US comes from buildings. While great strides have been made to develop smart building energy saving technology alongside […]

Microgrids have grown to over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) in capacity, with future projections reaching 20GW by 2020 and 100GW by 2030, that is according to Andres Carvallo, CEO of CMG, a consultancy that advises on smart grids and other infrastructure. Carvallo told attendees at the Smart Cities Week 2016 conference in Washington, D.C. last week […]

The Harmonization of the Grid & Buildings Markets has begun! States our recent report entitled Smart Buildings Meet the Smart Grid. Referring to recent developments in smart grids, distributed energy and their synchronization with smart buildings. As these worlds come together, a forest of skyscrapers looks over a sea of power stations, only separated by […]

The smart city and wider smart technology sector, like many new sectors, is made of many pioneering converts from its founding industries as well as a new generation of experts born into the field. Few, however, blur the lines between these two groups, and perhaps none more so than MIT professor Carlo Ratti. An architect […]

Buildings account for around 40% of total energy consumption, and consequently around 40% of carbon emissions. So as we strive to reduce our carbon emissions you would expect ‘net zero energy buildings’ (Net ZEB) to offer a significant step in reaching our objectives. Unfortunately, things are not as simple as that. Net ZEBs alone do […]

“How much energy will we need to power our cities in the future? Where will that energy come from? How will it be distributed, stored and accessed?” These are the questions asked by a new report published by Smart Energy GB, which reveals the changing future energy demands of eleven major British cities. The Powering […]

This summer, Con Edison and SunPower Corp. will partner on a $15 million pilot program to offer solar power systems with battery storage to more than 300 New York homeowners. The aggregation of hundreds of homes with solar power and battery storage will provide the utility with a cost-effective and innovative virtual power plant, providing […]