This week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) took a major step toward elevating the status of the Smart Grid, a network concept that marries IT, telecommunications and electrical distribution. The goal is to make energy distribution far more efficient than in the past.

The NIST move is big because it can channel the energy, so to speak, from initiatives and research that is ongoing in the field. The agency, expressly relying on funding from the economic stimulus package, aims to do three things. It will “further engage” stakeholders such as utilities, vendors and others; it will launch a process to create necessary additional standards and it will develop a testing and certification plan for equipment and systems.

The move by NIST, which can be seen as delivering on campaign promises by the Obama administration, is buttressed by smaller recent pieces of news from vendors and service providers. For instance:

On March 17, AT&T announced that it and vendor SmartSynch established a suite of service plans to utilities to offer to residential customers.

On April 16, SmartSynch said that Texas-New Mexico Power is using the SmartSynch/AT&T SmartMeter in a 10,000 unit point-to-point residential trial in the utility’s Texas market. The project follows trial deployments during the past 14 months in the Texas communities of Clifton, Lewisville, Texas City, Dickinson and Brazoria.

On March 30, Hughes Network Systems, a broadband satellite company, introduced a service for electronic utilities. Hughes Utilities Solutions will provide real-time communications and monitoring of smart grid data to and from transmission and sub-station facilities.

On April 1, Verizon Wireless and Itron announced a joint marketing agreement. Under the agreement, Verizon Wireless will use Itron’s OpenWay Cell Relay for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) applications. The platform, which is designed to efficiently collect, measure and manage data, now is certified to run on the Verizon Wireless network.

The Time for Smart Grid

Smart grids generally consist of three elements, says Jeff St. John, an analyst who follows the sector for Greentech Media. The first sector is in-premise gear that controls energy use and provides other meter and monitoring services. The second element is the equipment that links the premise to a local collection point. The third puzzle piece is the backhaul to the central office. Different – though sometimes overlapping -- sets of vendors work in each area.

Perhaps the most interesting sector right now is at the premise. St. John says that gear that reports from the home is segmented into two basic categories. Automatic meter reading (AMR) focuses on one-way transmission of data. The use of AMR is a tremendous advantage over the alternative, which is the dispatch of meter readers to every home and business. The next step is the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which will enable the advanced applications that can save money and help the environment.

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