News

DR & EE to become major smart grid players

+PG&E, Austin Energy Show off their programs

When temperatures soared into the high 90s last August, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) issued an alert to encourage conservation efforts among homeowners and businesses. As the state's main overseer of California's electric grid, CAISO was concerned that record use of air conditions would threaten the state's energy supply.
Following up on the conservation request, Pacific Gas & Electric called its demand response programs into effect, asking its customers to reduce demand during peak afternoon hours. The call for action was a huge success. California residents and businesses reduced energy use by nearly 1,000 megawatts on the steamy afternoon of Aug. 2, helping to maintain grid reliability across the state.

Read more here - http://www.intelligentutility.com/magazine/article/307997/dr-ee-become-major-smart-grid-players 

 

IPKeys Technologies Teams with Connexx Energy on OpenADR 2.0 Driver Software for Niagara AX


EATONTOWN, NJ. January 8, 2013 – IPKeys Technologies, an expert in Smart Grid communications technology and Connexx Energy, Inc., a subsidiary of Lynxspring, Inc. and leading developer of open technologies for building automation and energy management solutions today announced that they will partner to deliver an OpenADR 2.0 a-certified Virtual End Node (VEN) driver for the Niagara AX® platform. Through this solution, IPKeys Technologies and Connexx Energy will provide an OpenADR 2.0a-certified driver for Niagara AX®, permitting rapid deployment of standards-based AutoDR solutions to the Niagara community and enabling the collaborative facility-grid relationship necessary to make Smart Grid a reality.

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OpenADR Continues to Move the Smart Grid Forward

Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR)—the standard for open automation of building electricity demand response and price communications—has gained considerable attention since it emerged from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Demand Response Research Center in 2008. This non-proprietary DR interface facilitates open, standardized communication that enables power providers and managers to securely communicate wholesale and retail price and reliability, as well as DR program information, with customers using existing electronic communications. Developed as an effective means for DR service providers to maintain grid reliability and for customers to benefit (and profit from) demand reduction, OpenADR is now becoming an integral component of the U.S. and international Smart Grid.

OpenADR 1.0 was developed as a non-proprietary open communication specification by Berkeley Lab researchers and industrial partners for U.S. markets. In 2009, they donated it to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), where it became the basis for the formal international Energy Interoperation 1.0 standard. In 2010, OpenADR 1.0 became a U.S. Smart Grid standard supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Today it supports more than 250 megawatts of automated DR in California alone, and cleantech market intelligence firm Pike Research predicts that it will be used in nearly 170,000 sites by 2018.

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Z-Wave Alliance to Demonstrate Interoperable Smart Grid Solutions at Grid-Interop; Live Demos of Active Demand Response via Z-Wave and OpenADR for the Smart Grid-Smart Home Connection

The Z-Wave Alliance, a consortium of global companies that oversees the world's largest interoperable ecosystem for wireless home control products and services, will be conducting demonstrations of demand response solutions for the Smart Grid at the Grid-Interop Conference, to be held in Irving, TX, December 3-6.

The Alliance demonstration will showcase live OpenADR feeds bridged in real time to commercially available Z-Wave products that will automatically change states based on OpenADR requests. Alliance Members BuLogics and Echo Labs will demonstrate hardware and software solutions for these Smart Grid applications. In addition, Alliance Member Universal Devices will participate in a panel discussion on Demand Response Systems.

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Fujitsu Is First Japanese Company to Join OpenADR2.0A Interoperability Test

Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc. (FLA) and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., today announced that Fujitsu is the first Japanese company to demonstrate a system compliant with the OpenADR2.0a specification(1). The demonstration is part of the interoperability plug-in event at Grid-Interop 2012, the largest Smart Grid interoperability event in the United States, held in Irving, Texas between December 3rd and 6th, 2012. Grid-Interop is an annual forum organized by the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC), which was formed by the U.S. Department of Energy to promote interoperability in the Smart Grid space.

Demand Response (DR) technology has attracted significant attention as it provides an effective mechanism to maintain balance between supply and demand throughout a smart city. DR works by prompting users to curtail electricity consumption when a utility is nearing its generation capacity. Fujitsu completed development of a Demand Response Automation Server (DRAS) prototype that is compliant with OpenADR 2.0a, the international DR standard, and is the first Japanese company to perform interoperability testing with other vendors' products at Grid-Interop 2012.

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Berkeley Labs Advances Open ADR

December 5, 2012 by Energy Manager Today Staff

In 2002, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory introduced its non-proprietary Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) – the standard for open automation of building electricity demand response and price communications.

According to Berkeley Lab, although OpenADR 1.0 was developed for US markets, it is now becoming an integral component of the international Smart Grid, as well.

The demand response (DR) interface facilitates open, standardized communication that enables power providers and managers to securely communicate wholesale and retail price and reliability as well as DR program information with customers using existing electronic communications.

In 2009, the OpenADR developers donated it to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), where it became the basis for the formal international Energy Interoperation 1.0 standard. In 2010, OpenADR 1.0 became a US Smart Grid standard supported by the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Today it supports more than 250 MW of automated demand response in California alone, and cleantech market intelligence firm Pike Research predicts that it will be used in nearly 170,000 sites by 2018.

Read more . . .

 

Powerit Solutions Raises $5.5M for Industrial Demand Response

Who says heavy industry doesn’t like full automation and cloud-based services?


KATHERINE TWEED: DECEMBER 5, 2012
Powerit Solutions has completed a Series C financing round, raising $5.5 million. The industrial demand response company will use the funds to expand its work with strategic partners, launch its cloud product and integrate its Spara EMS into industrial automation and smart grid platforms.

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Universal Devices’ ISY994i Z Series Energy Management and Automation System Now OpenADR 2.0a Certified

OpenADR certification of Universal Devices’ ISY994i Z Series energy management, monitoring and automation system validates its capacity to provide customers with participation in cost-effective, standardized and interoperable automated demand response (ADR) events.



(PRWEB) September 18, 2012

Universal Devices announced today that its ISY994i Z Series energy management, monitoring and automation system is one of only four products to receive OpenADR 2.0a certification.

OpenADR 2.0a certification confirms for Universal Devices’ customers, which include utilities, ISOs, regulators, control suppliers, electricians, building operators and other commercial interests, that the company’s ISY994i Z Series is a proven system that fully supports their cost-effective participation in standardized, interoperable automated demand response (ADR) events.

Additional key customer-facing features of the Universal Devices’ ISY994i Z Series include:

  • Out-of-the-box support for both OpenADR 1.0 and the new 2.0a standards
  • Highly-secure: support for TLS 1.2 and client/server authentication
  • Native support for Zigbee, INSTEON, A10, and X10 protocols and products
  • Native support for multiple energy monitoring products and portals

“We designed our ISY994i Z series to be an affordable, standalone and complete energy management, monitoring and automation system,” commented Michel Kohanim, CEO of Universal Devices. “We’re pleased to have received OpenADR 2.0a certification, and we support the organization’s mission to deliver customers, utilities and energy service providers with automated demand response solutions that use standardized, quality assured and proven products.”

More information on the OpenADR Alliance 2.0a certified ISY994i Z Series energy conservation, management, monitoring and automation system is available on the Universal Devices website at http://sales.universal-devices.com/commercial/isy-994i-z-series/.

For business-related inquiries, contact [email protected]. For sales, marketing and media inquiries, contact [email protected].
About Universal Devices

Known as “The Intelligent Devices Company™”, Universal Devices, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of affordable, autonomous, Internet accessible, automation and energy management products and solutions. The company provides solutions for both residential and commercial customers, and offers full featured and completely free Java SDK, Web Services SDK (WSDK), and REST interface for developers who wish to create applications or integrate the ISY with an existing application or a portal. Learn more at http://www.unversal-devices.com.

 

Can Auto DR Meet the Needs of Renewables?

LBNL lays out the needs and challenges facing the demand response industry.

Katherine Tweed: August 31, 2012

About a year and a half ago, we wrote about the challenges of integrating renewables with demand response. It’s still tough stuff, but new research is digging in and providing a roadmap on how to get there.

States with high renewable portfolio standards -- and California in particular -- are looking at how to balance all of their new, intermittent wind and solar power. One study found that California would need up to 5,000 megawatts of regulation and other ancillary services to meet its goal of 33 percent renewables by 2020.

Additional ancillary services could be met by traditional generation -- but there will be a need for other options, especially cost-effective ones like demand response, the art of turning down power use to balance the grid. That's cheap -- about one-tenth the installed cost of grid-scale battery storage, for instance, and pretty competitive with its natural competitor, natural-gas-fired peaker plants.

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