Smart Grid Progress: DOE Announces First Standards, Raises Cap on Stimulus Funds

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Compared with standards for the Internet or mobile communications, developing standards for the smart grid is much more complex because there are so many different industries and technologies involved. As Steve Widergren, the Smart Grid Interoperabilty and Standards Coordinator for the DOE, explained to us recently: “The smart grid is very heterogenous, and anyone acting like it’s homogeneous is vastly oversimplifying it.” To meet the needs of that complexity, the DOE is expected to name at least 100 more standards that will make up the smart grid over the coming weeks and months.

At the same time that the DOE announced these standards, it informed the group that it would be raising the maximum cap on the stimulus funds for both smart-grid grants and demo projects. This is something that utilities, and tech companies like Google, have been calling for across the board. The DOE is raising the max cap for the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program from $20 million to $200 million, and for the Smart Grid Demonstration Projects from $40 million to $100 million. The GridWise Alliance responded by saying it welcomed that decision.

While these decisions are just the first steps in developing standards, allocating funds, and rolling out smart-grid technology, these early choices will have a big impact on the future of the industry. As Cisco said this morning, the smart grid will be the biggest network build-out of the decade, and standards are the building blocks that will determine which companies will make money and which ones could be left out in the cold.

http://www.reuters.com/article/earthToTech/idUS13523317120090518