Fri, 5 Mar 2010 13:01:00 EST

The Department of Energy awarded a $72 million loan guarantee to Sage Electrochromics to build a smart window that uses electronically controlled inorganic coatings to save energy.

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 20:37:00 EST

A new U.S. energy technology agency is focusing on scaling up and deploying existing clean energy technologies while funding research on disruptive technologies for the future.

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:03:00 EST

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has formed a Smart Energy Study Group with CSR, Broadcom and Emerson Electric as the initial members of the group.

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:23:00 EST

In an effort to break through electronics-industry logjams, U.S. government policy makers are launching a blog to consumers for comment on a range of questions about smart electric grids including issues about gateways and networks that speak to systems engineers.

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:24:00 EST

Intel researchers are exploring nanoscale materials that could be used to create ultracapacitors with a greater energy density than today's lithium ion batteries as part of work in a new lab dedicated to work on microgrids.

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:01:00 EST

The IEEE has launched a new Web site that consolidates information about smart electric grids from it various societies. The portal is one of many activities from an IEEE smart grid initiative coordinating the organization's work on the transition to digital, networked power systems and services.

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:27:00 EST

It remains to be seen whether the multinational initiative called Green Touch, announced today by Alcatel Lucent's Bell Labs, can succeed in rolling back or ameliorating one of the negative and destructive aspects of human communications activity.

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EST

The U.S. Department of Energy is evaluating dozens of proposals from universities and others seeking $100 million in grants to train tomorrow's engineers and technicians for as many as 30,000 new jobs that could be needed over the next few years as today's electric grid transitions to a digital network.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:50:00 EST

Pending regulations in Europe for a carbon footprint label on every product means that it's not enough to inform consumers your electronics product's power consumption level. You need to tell them the quantity (in grams) of carbon-dioxide emissions associated with manufacturing, transporting and recycling of your product.

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:37:00 EST

The U.S. government fueled significant work on smart electric grid this year, but the hard work of making the transition to a digital power network is just beginning, according to Steve Widergren, a principal engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently named to head a broad new smart grid standards effort.

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 12:16:00 EST

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has announced the results of an Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) initiative that began in 2001 and its targets for 2015. The company said it planned to reduce its use of water and its "carbon footprint" by 50 percent by that time.

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 15:58:00 EST

The U.S. government will provide more funds for battery research and accelerate some green technology patent applications as part of a set of announcements made days before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Thu, 3 Dec 2009 14:31:00 EST

What I learned in my ten-day marathon applying for an economic stimulus grant for smart grid training.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:01:00 EST

The U.S. government is grappling with one of the first big snags in the wake of awarding $4 billion in grants to build a smart electric grid—how to find a standard that would let consumer appliances plug into an intelligent power network.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:57:00 EST

The U.S. government has announced a second and final round of economic stimulus grants aimed at accelerating the transition to a smart electric grid with Boeing and two up-and-coming battery makers among the winners of a total of $620 million in grants from the Department of Energy to 32 projects mainly organized by electric utilities.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:19:00 EST

In between takes of guest appearances on TV's "30 Rock," Nobel prize winner and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore swept into Silicon Valley Thursday to stump for the smart electric grid and help hand out awards to technologists honored for their work in social justice.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:33:00 EST

Cisco Systems is looking for a few good power engineers—including a chief technology officer for its new smart grid business unit.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:25:00 EST

Google, Honeywell, Intel and Panasonic are among the companies elected to a seat on the board of a broad new group chartered to help manage the evolution of smart electric grids.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:10:00 EST

The smart grid promises to be in some ways similar to and even bigger than the Internet, according to veteran venture capitalist John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers who helped fund Google and Amazon.com but now focuses on green technology.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:24:00 EST

Electric utilities need to cut a path to open smart grid networks and China's burgeoning energy sector could lead the charge, said an executive from a large electric utility as the U.S. Department of Energy is gearing up to release details on a second round of grants for smart electric grids.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:24:00 EDT

Proposals from chip designer Intellon Corp. and white goods giant Whirlpool were among a broad group of 100 projects selected Tuesday to share $34 billion in federal funds to accelerate deployment of smart electric grids.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:00:00 EDT

Eighteen million homes—13 percent of all U.S. households--will get smart electric meters within three years as part of $3.4 billion in U.S. government grants to upgrade the country's aging electric grid announced by President Barack Obama in remarks at one of the country's largest solar farms in Arcadia, Florida.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:59:00 EDT

Seeking to differentiate itself in a competitive market, SP AusNet, a utility company in Australia, has agreed to install by December 2013 more than 680,000 smart meters riding a WiMax network as part of a government plan to deploy more than 2.5 million smart meters over the next four years in the state of Victoria.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:20:00 EDT

The Universal Plug and Play Forum has set up a smart grid task force aiming to set standards for how home networked devices monitor and manage electricity consumption and promote UPnP technology as a part of emerging smart grid standards worldwide.

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 13:23:00 EDT

Spared the worst of the recession, IMEC researchers talked about advances in wireless, medical, solar and MEMS devices as well as their work in CMOS scaling at an annual press gathering.