Category Archives: Smart Grids
Massive urbanisation requires smart cities
By 2050 the population of the world will be an estimated nine billion people – two billion more than today and three times more than in 1950. The many inefficient political, economic and social (silo based) systems which are in … Continue reading
Alternative energy production
At the recent WCIT2010 Conference in Amsterdam Dutch Professor Nico Baken announced that, courtesy of our sun, the world has 175,000TW-h of energy at its disposal for the next six billion years. One million units of kilowatt is equivalent to … Continue reading
The UK’s election pushing green energy and smart grids to the fore
In the run up to the 6 May election in the UK, both of the principal parties have announced their policies on climate change and energy. Both acknowledge the perilous state of the UK’s energy markets, given the lack of … Continue reading
Smart grids – potential for disruptive business models
Most of the discussion that is currently taking place in relation to smart grids is based on linear developments moving forward. However the reality is that a rather disruptive development will take place that could seriously undermine the current electricity … Continue reading
Combining the ONT and smart meters
In my recent blog on utilities and the NBN I mentioned that the ultimate prize would be a combination of the ONT (Optical network terminal: the network interface device used in fibre-to-the-home applications, which operates as a demarcation point between … Continue reading
Next: Smart Energy
The Copenhagen Summit was the first global event where countries came together to address a common cause. This in itself is an enormous achievement – a beacon to illuminate future global policy-making. True, the conference itself may have been a … Continue reading
Using electricity infrastructure to roll out broadband
The FCC proposal in its recently launched National Broadband Plan to share infrastructure is a very smart initiative indeed. Sharing infrastructure makes a lot of sense. Without it the business model for universal high-speed broadband will not stack up – … Continue reading
Smart grids the way to smart communities
This will be a crunch year for smart grids. By the middle of the year the outlines of the country’s first smart grid project should become visible, and over the next three years important lessons will be learned for a … Continue reading
Smart Grids – the Intelligent Energy Revolution
The communications revolution is shifting the national and global focus towards e-health, e-education and smart grids. Increasingly we are seeing governments around the world undertaking national broadband initiatives as awareness grows that broadband infrastructure can also be used by other … Continue reading
Smart Grids and Copenhagen
Despite the disappointing results of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, one thing is very clear – all over the world people want their leaders to take action. This issue should not be driven by politics; it should be driven … Continue reading