The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, City of San Jose and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) (NYSE: PCG) have created the Silicon Valley Smart Grid Task Force. The group brings leaders from industry, the public sector, non-profits and academia together to make recommendations on California’s energy efficiency efforts and the rollout of Smart Grid technology.
The task force will aim to better educate the public about smart grid technology and its importance in aiding California’s long-term environmental sustainability and energy efficiency goals.
As first steps, the Smart Grid Task Force will commission a study to investigate the economic impacts of smart grid technology.
The task force consists of member companies Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Nanosolar, Control4, Coulomb Technologies, Silver Spring Networks and OPower, among other leaders in energy and renewable energy.
According to the Department of Energy, an integrated Smart Grid would save an estimated $36 billion annually by 2025 in terms of energy-efficiency gains, greater use of renewable energy and distributed generation.
"As an organization that promotes cutting-edge industries, we feel Smart Grid is critical in establishing California as a leader in the nation’s transition to more efficient technologies," said Carl Guardino, Silicon Valley Leadership Group President and CEO.
CPUC Roadmap
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has published a "roadmap" to help utilities deploy mandated smart grid initiatives and monitor those initiatives’ progress.
The document focuses primarily on issues such as utility communications infrastructure, physical grid security, smart grid cybersecurity and project-deployment cost structures.
It also include a focus on "metrics that permit the assessment of progress," according to a release.
The CPUC said the roadmap is the culmination of more than two years of work with utilities, consumer advocates, technology companies and other parties to modernize the electric grid.
The roadmap document is available at the link below.
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