The British Electrotechnical and Allied Manufacturers Association (BEAMA) welcomes the Government’s plans for installing smart meters in UK homes and small businesses.  Dr. Howard Porter, chief operating officer (COO) of BEAMA, made remarks on the subject at the group’s recent Smart Electricity Systems Conference.

“It is particularly refreshing to see the clarity of thinking presented in the ‘Smarter Grids: The Opportunity’ document,” said Porter, referring to the Government’s roadmap to a sustainable future.  “The paper provides a roadmap to 2050 with increased future interaction between the distribution network and energy users.”

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General Motors Corporation (GM) is investing $246 million to
build electric motors and hybrid components at its Baltimore
Transmission plant in Maryland, making it the first high-
volume electric motor manufacturing site in the United States
to be run by a major automaker.

Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the
U.S. wind industry had a record year in 2009, installing 9,921
megawatts (MW) of new wind turbines. But U.S. wind power
growth is being rivaled by even faster growth in China.

President Obama has announced three actions to boost U.S.
biofuel production, including the final rule implementing the
expanded Renewable Fuel Standard, which calls for 36 billion
gallons of biofuel by 2022, and a report that establishes a
roadmap for achieving that standard.

Xcel Energy has asked the Colorado PUC for permission to initiate a pilot pricing program for Boulder’s SmartGridCity to test customer acceptance of three different electricity pricing options. If approved by the PUC, the pilot would be launched in April of this year.

Take a look at this Home Dashboard for Energy management from Intel. Intel will release a product like the one in this presentation in 2010 according to www.webpronews.com.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXAqGC4Myh0

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbPqiz7IZ-o

Fluke Corporation will receive a $1.4 million to create a new calibration technology, the first step towards creating a standard to enable consistent measurement of electricity flowing into the Smart Grid including power from renewable resources such as wind and solar.

The project is being financed through a grant from the United States Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),which supports research in areas deemed critical to national importance and was funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

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IBM introduced its new POWER7 system on February 8 that it says will support the most demanding smart grid applications.  POWER7 is built around technologies unique to the smart grid industry and is designed to handle an immense number of transactions and analysis of those transactions in real time.

POWER7, with its built-in advancements in virtualization and efficiencies, also allows for customers to manage other applications and services at lower costs.  The system is built around the UNIX platform that has been around for more than 40 years.  The market for UNIX products is estimated to be worth $14 billion.

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Abu Dhabi, UAE, 21 January 2009: The UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, spoke at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday to highlight the UK’s leading role in meeting the global challenge of combating climate change with renewable energy.