Comverge reportedly announced it has signed a multi-faceted deal with a Virginia-based energy provider for a comprehensive five-year program. The agreement includes: 117 mega watt commercial and industrial virtual peaking capacity contract; an agreement to supply more than 150,000 advanced metering infrastructure enabled energy management devices for a residential demand response program; and, a license to utilize Comverge’s Apollo Demand Response Management System software to manage both the C&I and residential demand response programs.

 

“The rollout of such a comprehensive demand response program from one of the nation’s largest energy producers confirms the utility industry’s growing investment in demand side management and momentum toward the smart grid vision of the future,” said Michael Picchi, interim president and CEO of Comverge.

 

The AMI and intelligent monitoring of electric supply aspects of the deal are in keeping with nation-wide current trends. A recent market research analysis report indicated that eight million smart meters have already been deployed in the U.S. and the associated residential energy management market segment is almost guaranteed to sustain significant growth, and the deployment of so many feet – with more in the pipeline, and the U.S. government extending its full support –  is the first step for REM towards deploying Smart Grid technologies and AMI on a broad scale.

 

The report claimed that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has allotted $11 billion, of the total $63 billion towards energy, for smart grid initiatives till end 2010, and the public, private and consumer factors are all driving this growth.

 

A smart grid has Internet connectivity so that signals can be sent and received for each and every connected and authorized device. In a broader sense, the smart grid concept creators envisaged that the entire grid would work more efficiently, accommodate wind and solar power, possibly lower electricity bills by optimizing electricity flow, and constantly reduce the carbon footprint.

 

Comverge, which provides comprehensive smart grid, demand management and energy efficiency solutions, claims that participating commercial, industrial and residential customers can get a real time visible feel of power consumptions and accordingly take decisions to reduce load at times of peak electrical demand via its VPC contract.

 

The company stated that it will begin detailed project planning for both projects now, and once it has gotten regulatory approval by the Virginia State Corporation Commission, it can commence implementation most likely in early 2010.

 

“The selection of Comverge’s Apollo platform as the software of choice for both the residential and C&I programs further validates Comverge’s foothold as the industry’s most comprehensive demand response and smart grid solutions provider servicing all customer classes.”

 

Officials at Comverge claim that their company has gotten a hardware/software deal where its AMI-enabled, dual mode digital control unit, allows customers and the energy provider alike to more actively monitor their energy consumption, and its Apollo software platform, which will allow for seamless integration of future smart grid developments.

 

The Department of Energy has decreed that smart grids must facilitate: self-healing from power disturbance events; enabling active participation by consumers in demand response; operating resiliently against physical and cyber attack; providing power quality for 21st century needs; accommodating all generation and storage options; enabling new products, services, and markets; and optimizing assets and operating efficiently.

 

It is eventually anticipated that smart grids will migrate towards and become a part of the recently found expression, “The Internet of Things,” which envisages that all devices and objects all over the world will eventually be connected together by an Internet network. This system even includes books, cans and, well, anything and everything, and allows, for example, a person setting out for home from work to remotely activate water heating to have a warm, low carbon footprint bath on arrival and can even request a home aid robot to prepare a snack of sorts. The Internet of Things sees every individual being surrounded by at least 1,000 to 5,000 “connected” objects, and the Internet itself should be able to encode and track 50 to 100,000 billion objects simultaneously.