Smart Grid Companies

Several companies are gearing for global deployment of Smart Grids.  Smart grids are becoming a necessity due to the fact that power generation is no longer restricted to large utility companies, but is generated by smaller sources including solar, wind, and thermal.  Balancing and making the most of such a distributed generation of power requires of a grid that can autocontrol itself, that is, the smart grid.  Some of the companies in that are investigating, developing, and producing equipment and instrumentation, and setting their service workforce for the smart grid are in the following list:

General Electric: General Electric is positioning its Digital Energy division in the Smart Grid sector to be a lider by acquiring companies with relevant technology.  GE has technologies that a development strategy that encompases endusers as well as energy providers.  On the end user sector, GE has smart meters and home appliance technology interconnected through wireless technology.  On the energy provider sector, GE is developing relationships and technology in generation, transmission, distribution, and infrastructure.

Siemens: Siemens is positioing itself as a premier global smart grid infrastructure provider.  Its development efforts focus on distribution management and its e-mobility platform which will provide electric transportation (electric cars and pods) charging stations in an efficient manner and using smart grid technologies.

Itron: Itron is the leader in smart meter deployment with just under 10,000 (year 2011) units in 5 continents.  Itron's expertise is in just about every type of metes, including gas, water, and electric utilities.  Itron's strategy into the smart meters industry involves the use of open architechture that can be more easily adapted by utility companies that would distribute them among end users.

Toshiba: Toshiba signed its commitment to the smart grid market with its acquisition of Landys+Gyr which was the leader of smart meters and was moving aggresively into the US market at the time of its acquisition.  Toshiba has also been involved in large deployment tests in Japan in the distribution sector.  Due to the 2011 natural disasters that occured in Japan, the importance of a reliable and smart grid is likely to enphasize Toshiba's foothold in the smartgrid investment.

Oracle: Oracle has started positioning itself developing technology for small subsets of the smart grid, called microgrids.  The networking technology and intelectual property owned by Oracle is likely to provide it an advantage in the microgrid technologies.  Microgrids can be as small as a local network of solar panels, bateries, and charging stations for cars within a single building.

Google: Google started effots in the smart grid industry with its google powermeter application, but later retired it as it refocusis on its core competencies.  Although retired, Google's entry created awareness of the smart grid, as it is positioned to affect electricity consumers.

Cisco: Cisco Systems has put effort in gearing some of its industrial solutions to the future needs of the smart grid stakeholders.  Cisco provides products and services in the areas of networking, security, and automation for smart grid installations.

IBM: International Buisiness Machines has geared a considerable effort towards serving the utility company market in securing the smart grid.  Their security effort is vertically integrated across the generation and distribution side of the smart grid.  The high end of the vertical integrated software services by IBM serves the CSIO (Chief Security Information Officer) by providing dashboards that summarize all aspects of the smart grid secuirty,