Just one day shy of IBM’s (News - Alert) recent smart grid SAFE software release, Cisco (News - Alert) announced its Smart Grid Ecosystem, the company’s efforts to bring together service providers, energy companies and IT vendors to work towards the evolution of smart grids technology.

The consortium of companies will work to build a standards- and IP-based communications infrastructure for the developing smart grids. 

Marthin de Beer, senior vice president of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group, said that the company’s goal is to reduce the costs and complexities of using various smart grid communications. 

In discussing the new ecosystem and its adoption of IP-based communications, de Beer said that Cisco’s ecosystem platform aims to be at the heart of smart grid deployments. 

With roughly 30 businesses already jumping at Cisco’s new venture, companies like Oracle, Siemens and Verizon (News - Alert) will now be at the forefront of the smart grid industry. 

In May, Cisco entered into the smart grid space, at which time company officials said the introduction to smart grids could mean over $20 billion in business by 2015.

With power companies under pressure to increase efficiencies, reduce operating expenses and incorporate alternative sources of energy, combined with increasing government regulations, the advancement into smart grids is a smart move for these utilities.

“As a result, the energy sector is in the midst of an industry transition, perhaps the biggest we’ve seen in a generation,” de Beer said. 

Cisco and IBM have been two of the IT vendors most proactive in shifting into this smart space, partnering with local vendors, communities and power companies to initiative this movement. 

In order to ensure the proper approach for this ecosystem, Cisco has created a smart grid technical advisory board of power and utility companies to assist Cisco in aligning its ideas to meet the customers’ needs. 

Additionally, Cisco joined the ZigBee Alliance, an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard.