The technologies that will shape our energy future are in development today in private and public funded laboratories around the world. Follow R&D initiatives related to the electric grid in this section.
Results: 54 results found. You are on page 1 of 3 pages.
The Department of Energy this week announced $12 million in funding to speed solar energy innovation from the lab to the marketplace. It's the latest in a series of announcements we've seen in recent weeks that suggest there's more money filtering into energy projects, including up to $120 million for advanced research on batteries and energy storage. Click inside and we'll show you the money.
Industry heavyweights ABB and Nissan and others are partnering to test retired lithium-ion battery packs from Nissan Leaf EVs for commercial and residential energy storage applications. Click to read how the companies hope to get a second bang for the buck out of the batteries.
UCLA's Smart Grid Energy Research Center, established to develop and test new smart grid technologies, has a new partner – the Korea Institute of Energy Research. Read the story for what to expect from this international collaboration.
The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has a handy tool for keeping track of the more than 200 smart grid projects throughout Europe. It's a project inventory in interactive map format intended as a platform for sharing the results of research projects. Click inside for more on this convenient smart grid resource.
ABB will head up a team of high profile energy industry experts in a DOE-funded study of offshore wind grid interconnection along all U.S. coastal regions. The team will assess all things offshore, from technical and economic aspects to regulatory issues. Find out more inside.
Smart grid advocates (and what little there is of national energy policy) encourage going after energy efficiency full throttle, and IBM and ABB have taken up the cause. They're working jointly on a different approach to study and possibly develop a new high-voltage insulator capable of significant reductions in transmission line loss. Click inside for more.
If UK-based Sentec succeeds, next-generation meters will look more like smart phones for energy, with apps and all. In this latest installment of our Smart Grid Discovery Showcase series, SGN Chief Analyst Jesse Berst explains how this concept could insulate utilities against the smart meter obsolescence issue - and why Sentec's track record suggests a company that can make things happen. Don't miss it.
In this latest installment of our Discovery Showcase series, Jesse Berst has unearthed two killer simulation tools from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Both are available today, and one is a free download. Click inside to learn if they could be useful to your utility.
Discovery Showcase is our opportunity to share some of the emerging, let's say "edgier," technologies emerging as the smart grid evolves. For instance, a lot of incredibly smart researchers and scientists are very excited about graphene, a material that many are saying can revolutionize smart grid technologies. Read the story and let us know if you think they're onto something.
If renewables are our energy future, energy storage is going to play a leading role. But which of the multiple flavors of storage technologies will emerge as most reliable, most scalable and most cost-efficient? Click inside for a look at six intriguing contenders and three fresh research reports.
From our perspective, one of the best new programs to come out of D.C. in a long time is the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Born out of the Recovery Act, ARPA-E's mission is to focus on high-risk, high-reward energy research - the kind of R&D that could get our country back on track as a leader and innovator in the energy space. But with the budget shenanigans in Washington right now, can lawmakers be trusted to do the right thing? Join the discussion in our Tuesday Topic forum.
We are foolishly wasting years by putting new smart grid technologies through repetitive pilots one... utility... at... a... time. Instead, says Jesse Berst, the industry should share the cost of a testing facility that can put new gear through rigorous testing. He and his insider colleagues are debating the issue right now over at the SmartGridNewsTalk forum. Click inside for more.
While renewable energy projects and initiatives abound, solving the puzzle of how to efficiently integrate intermittent renewables like wind and solar into the electric power supply has been a chore for utilities and others involved in expanding the energy mix. Click to read about two very different approaches to the problem.
Would a structured program for sharing lessons learned and best practices from smart grid implementation experiences help others avoid pitfalls and costly setbacks? Joe Miller from the DOE/NETL Smart Grid Implementation Strategy team offers a pretty compelling argument that a formal Performance Feedback Program could make for a more efficient and effective smart grid transition. See if you agree, and weigh in on our quick poll.
Authors representing the University of New Mexico and the Electric Power Research Institute provide a detailed account of a project designed to deal with the challenge of intermittent power from photovoltaic installations. It's fairly technical, but an interesting description of the collaborative effort that used a demand response approach to the problem.
Local government officials have given the green light to ambitious plans for a northern Colorado hybrid energy and research park. The developer envisions integrated natural gas and renewable energy generation, data centers and facilities for research in energy systems integration, smart grid, energy storage and more.
A little computer chip could have a big impact on how we deal with peak demand – it's able to independently and automatically shut down smart appliances for a few minutes (or seconds) to help reduce stress on the grid. The technology, developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has been licensed to a tech start-up company that plans to incorporate it into an inexpensive electronic chip that can be easily be built into appliances.
Lux Research argues the best near-term opportunity for stationary fuel cells is to provide combined heat and power (CHP) in distributed applications. But not everyone sees it that way. Analyst Jacob Grose explains.
If the U.S. is to successfully handle the energy challenges it faces, the federal role in transforming energy policy needs a dramatic overhaul — and a much larger federal investment in energy R&D is essential, according to a new report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Last year the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was awarded $127.5 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to advance smart grid implementation. In this video, Jim Parks, the utility's Program Manager of Energy Efficiency and Customer R&D, discusses project elements, hype vs. reality, what's here today and what's needed for tomorrow, future potential, timelines and issues.
Germany's continuing renewable energy expansion has created an urgent need for innovative storage technologies to deal with the challenges of intermittent power supplies from the country's wind and solar sources.
The Energy Department and Secretary Steven Chu are all but guaranteed to have a tough time of it next year when a Republican-controlled House of Representatives goes after discretionary spending as a way to cut the deficit.
The Electric Power Research Institute has been conducting research on street and area lighting to try to find a brighter, more energy efficient source of illumination. And the R&D outfit is getting more than a little help from a pretty bright robot.
ABB and GM will work together on an R&D project to wring a little more life from EV batteries after their life cycle in vehicles is over. The companies will investigate the possibilities of using the batteries for smart grid energy storage.
While cyber security is a hot issue in Smart Grid circles, a U.S. Government Accountability Office study found that critical elements of a coordinated security R&D effort are missing. The report says the cyber security initiative needs a national R&D agenda and more coordination and leadership of R&D activities.
For years we've been expecting smart meter hardware prices to decline sharply. A California company we told you about earlier this year is promising a smart meter for as little as $20. Do you think it will happen? Will we see dramatic price drops in smart meters this year - or anytime soon? That's our Tuesday Topic this week. We hope you'll join the discussion.
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