Although this time of the year is known as the silly season there is clearly some smart thinking going on.

I came across this article published yesterday about ‘Smart Grid 2.0: ‘The Soft Grid’. The ‘Soft Grid’ referred to here is an emerging market segment described as the ‘countless new applications needed to improve the generation, distribution, consumption and monitoring of the Grid’. (Contrast the ‘smart grid’, which, generally speaking, refers to infrastructure hardware.) The potential of this ‘intelligent software’ is noted and comparison to Apple’s approach to the third-party development of applications for its products is made.
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Technorati Tags: Smart Grid, soft grid, software

Smart Grids really are the talk of the town. Yesterday, at Ofgem’s ‘Powering the Energy debate’,
they were referenced throughout, not least as a crucial mechanism to aid UK Plc’s transmission to a low-carbon economy and also secure the security of supply.

Then, today, a new report published by the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Information Technology and Innovation Fund, makes the case for £5bn worth of investment in smart grid technology as part of the ‘UK’s Digital Road to Recovery.’ To quote the report, the smart grid is ‘intended to be a revolutionary network, much like the Internet, that will deliver power more efficiently and more reliably than our existing grid.’

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Technorati Tags: Smart Grid