When engineers built the national electric grid, their achievement made every other innovation built on or run by electricity possible – from the car and airplane to the radio, television, computer and the Internet. Over decades, all of these inventions have gotten better, smarter and cheaper while the grid has remained exactly the same. As a result, our electrical grid is operating under tremendous stress. The Department of Energy estimates that by 2030, demand for power will outpace supply by 30 percent. And this increasing demand for low-cost, reliable power must be met alongside growing environmental concerns.
Silver Spring Networks (SSN) is the first proven technology to enable the smart grid. SSN is a complete smart grid solutions company that enables utilities to achieve operational efficiencies, reduce carbon emissions and offer their customers new ways to monitor and manage their energy consumption. SSN provides hardware, software and services that allow utilities to deploy and run unlimited advanced applications, including smart metering, demand response, distribution automation and distributed generation, over a single, unified network.
The smart grid should operate like the Internet for energy, without proprietary networks built around a single application or device. In the same way that one can plug any laptop or device into the Internet, regardless of its manufacturer, utilities should be able to “plug in” any application or consumer device to the smart grid. SSN’s Smart Energy Network is based on open, Internet Protocol (IP) standards, allowing for continuous, two-way communication between the utility and every device on the grid – now and in the future.
The IP networking standard adopted by Federal agencies has proven secure and reliable over decades of use in the information technology and finance industries. This network provides a high-bandwidth, low-latency and cost-effective solution for utility companies.
SSN’s Infrastructure Cards (NICs) are installed in “smart” devices, like smart meters at the consumer’s home, allowing them to communicate with SSN’s access points. Each access point communicates with networked devices over a radius of one or two miles, creating a wireless communication mesh that connects every device on the grid to one another and to the utility’s back office.
Using the Smart Energy Network, utilities will be able to remotely connect or disconnect service, send pricing information to customers who can understand how much their energy is costing in real time, and manage the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources like solar panels, plug-in electric vehicles and wind farms.
In addition to providing The Smart Energy Network and the software/firmware that makes it run smoothly, SSN develops applications like outage detection and restoration, and provides support services to their utility customers. By minimizing or eliminating interruptions, the self-healing grid could save industrial and residential consumers over $100 billion per year.
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Redwood City, Ca., SSN is a privately held company backed by Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Northgate Capital. The company has over 200 employees and a global reach, with partnerships in Australia, the U.K. and Brazil.
SSN is the leading smart grid solutions provider, with successful deployments with utilities serving 20 percent of the U.S. population, including Florida Power & Light (FPL), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E) and Pepco Holdings, Inc. (PHI), among others.
FPL is one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S., serving approximately 4.5 million customers across Florida. In 2007, SSN and FPL partnered to deploy SSN’s Smart Energy Network to 100,000 FPL customers. It began with rigorous environmental and reliability testing to ensure that SSN’s technology would hold up under the harsh environmental conditions in some areas of Florida. Few companies are able to sustain the scale and quality of testing that FPL required during this deployment, including power outage notification testing, exposure to water and salt spray and network throughput performance test for self-healing failover characteristics.
SSN’s solution has met or exceeded all FPL acceptance criteria. FPL plans to continue deployment of SSN’s Smart Energy Network at a rate of one million networked meters per year beginning in 2010 to all 4.5 million residential customers.
PG&E is currently rolling out SSN’s Smart Energy Network to all 5 million electric customers over a 700,000 square-mile service area.
OG&E, a utility serving 770,000 customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas, worked with SSN to deploy a small-scale pilot project to test The Smart Energy Network and gauge customer satisfaction. The utility deployed SSN’s network, along with an energy management web-based portal in 25 homes in northwest Oklahoma City. Another 6,600 apartments were given networked meters to allow remote initiation and termination of service.
Consumer response to the project was overwhelmingly positive. Participating residents said they gained flexibility and control over their household’s energy consumption by monitoring their usage on in-home touch screen information panels. According to one customer, “It’s the three A’s: awareness, attitude and action. It increased our awareness. It changed our attitude about when we should be using electricity. It made us take action.”
Based on the results, OG&E presented a plan for expanded deployment to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission for their consideration.
PHI recently announced its partnership with SSN to deliver The Smart Energy Network to its 1.9 million customers across Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey. The first phase of the smart grid deployment will begin in Delaware in March 2009 and involve SSN’s advanced metering and distribution automation technology. Additional deployment will depend on regulatory authorization.
The impact of energy efficiency is enormous. More aggressive energy efficiency efforts could cut the growth rate of worldwide energy consumption by more than half over the next 15 years, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. The Brattle Group states that demand response could reduce peak load in the U.S. by at least 5 percent over the next few years, saving over $3 billion per year in electricity costs. The discounted present value of these savings would be $35 billion over the next 20 years in the U.S. alone, with significantly greater savings worldwide.
Governments throughout the EU, Canada and Australia are now mandating implementation of alternate energy and grid efficiency network programs. The Smart Energy Network is the technology platform that makes energy efficiency and the smart grid possible. And, it is working in the field today.