Akash Singh

Abstract: The cloud is everywhere in the business world, and it’s no different for utilities and companies making energy efficiency upgrades. From building management systems to home energy systems to meter data management, cloud-computing platforms have started to become a dominant force in smart grid in the past year. To meet the needs of utilities that want well-integrated back-office software at a price they can afford, nearly every company is putting up a cloud offering. Early last year, Verizon announced a partnership with eMeter to offer cloud-based meter data management for utilities. The service leverages Verizon’s IP network to deliver scalable meter data management. The partnership with Verizon is a strategic decision to make it easier for utilities to jump into managing their data without the huge upfront capital costs. Ecologic Analytics, which was snapped up by Landis+Gyr earlier this year, has a hosting service, while Itron is working with IBM, SAP and Teradata to set up a meter data warehousing and analytics system for Southern California Edison. Aclara, which controls many of the consumer engagement sites for utilities, has also long been using the cloud. Although a system hosted in the cloud could offer greater flexibility for large utilities such as SCE, it is also a chance for the munis and co-ops to get more robust MDM offerings at a lower cost. For utilities, the savings can be significant. Hardware has typically been the bulk of project cost in the past, but Palo Alto found that the meter data management cost was estimated at 40 percent of the AMI implementation, or about $6 million total. Nearly every smart grid vendor has said that the muni and co-op market is a focus for 2012, now that the stimulus funds have all been doled out and very large investor-owned-utility smart grid contracts are few and far between.