Smart Grid Projects Save On Costs, Environment
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by: DanielStouffer | Total views: 65 | Word Count: 473
The retail sector, as well as other business enterprises and entities, are implementing smart grid projects in an effort to save on energy costs, move towards energy independence and become a positive influence on the environment by reducing harmful greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.
According to their particular infrastructure, a variety of smart grid projects can be introduced by business entities. For example, energy management software can be embraced to track and report energy usage, renewable generation -- wind power or solar panels -- can be studied, or smart meters can be introduced, which do a much better job of monitoring electricity use.
There is a greater push from federal policymakers, regulators and environmentalists for commercial and industrial sectors to move towards energy efficiency. The Obama administration has included billions in its economic stimulus plan to modernize the nations energy grid. Likewise, for profit and nonprofit entities are encouraged to tap into federal funding through federal and state initiatives to make improvements and enhancements to their energy infrastructure.
As part of the strong move toward electricity and energy efficiency, business entities and retailers are researching information technology. It is anticipated that information management will play a major role in the success of these initiatives and that companies will need to achieve interoperability throughout their infrastructure.
In order to leave a lasting legacy in energy independence, smart grid projects are being reviewed in several key areas. For example, business entities can track how that power is used and can control their own usage, they can implement the ability to lower their bills by allocating some of their usage to off-peak, they can drill down their energy usage to the device level, and they can better fulfill their needs through demand response.
The future health of our planet is at stake and we must act now to reduce pollutants, limit greenhouse gas emissions and water usage. Smart grid projects will help us in this fight as we reduce pollutants and control certain energy types that we know to be a significant contributor to global warming.
The US Congress has directed the Commerce Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create a Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap, due to be released in September 2009. This is a major document and will establish priorities in transmission and distribution, set building to grid standards for commercial companies, industrial to grid standards for industries, home to grid standards for consumers and will set business and policy issues in addition to addressing cyber security.
Energy management software will be one of the keys to provide companies with extensive information about their consumption as energy costs continue to rise. This will be a valuable tool to compare usage throughout their sites and locations, and by combining historical with real-time data, will be able to manage usage, control costs and implement energy efficiency projects.
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Daniel Stouffer has much more information on smart grid projectsand how a visit to www.verisae.com can be of use to you.
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