IBM and its Business Partner Telvent announced that they have been selected by Hydro One, the largest distributor of electricity in Ontario (Canada), for a new smart grid project that will help transform the province's electrical system. Together, the companies will run simulations and tests to determine the smart grid technologies that have the potential to improve power efficiency and reliability.

Installed in the 1950s, many components of Ontario's current electricity distribution system have reached the end of their service life. More recently, technological advancements, provincial governmental policy, market forces and increased environmental awareness have added pressure to the demands on Ontario's electricity distribution system.

Echelon Corporation and Holley Metering Limited, a leading smart metering vendor in China have announced an agreement under which both companies will form a new joint venture company in China, Zhejiang Echelon-Holley Technology. ("Echelon-Holley"), to focus on the development and sales of advanced smart metering products for China. Echelon-Holley is committed to act in the best interests of the two companies' respective customers and agents.

Remote power systems numbering in the thousands can be found in all corners of the world. For the most part these systems are powered by dumb, dirty diesel generation, hardly a technology of relevance to the smart grid and the fundamental networking advantages of the microgrid platform. Nevertheless, once renewable distributed energy generation is added to the mix, then these remote microgrids begin to look like classic microgrids. In fact, the primary driver for remote microgrids over the next six years will be the integration of solar photovoltaics, a technology that will help reduce diesel fuel consumption. A new report from Pike Research forecasts that the global remote microgrid market will expand from 349 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity in 2011 to over 1.1 gigawatts (GW) by 2017, an amount that equals or perhaps even surpasses all other microgrid segments combined, whether in the planning stages or already deployed.

Burlington Electric Department (BED), a municipal department of the City of Burlington Vt., has selected Siemens for the sale and implementation of the eMeter EnergyIP meter data management (MDM) platform. BED and several other Vermont utilities worked together with the state of Vermont to secure Smart Grid Investment Grant funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The grant allowed BED to jump start its Smart Grid plans.

ThingWorx, the provider of the first application platform for the connected world is partnering with Carnegie Mellon’s Pennsylvania Smart Infrastructure Incubator (PSII). The ThingWorx platform will be used to gather and manage real-time information communicated by sensors and other connected devices tied to physical infrastructure. ThingWorx joins IBM and a host of innovative companies that are providing a range of technologies and tools to regional universities and institutions in an effort to blend traditional physical-infrastructure, such as transportation systems and buildings, with cyber-infrastructure- computers, networks, and sensors.

Itron and National Grid announced today that they are collaborating on a project to build and evaluate an advanced smart grid in Massachusetts utilizing a new generation of standards-based network technology.

The two companies will collaborate to field test the multi-application capabilities of the new Itron-Cisco IPv6 based smart grid solution, including advanced metering, home area networking (HAN) and distribution automation (DA). By leveraging the Cisco GridBlocks Architecture, the solution will deliver these applications over a common network infrastructure designed to eliminate the need for proprietary or vendor-specific integration of applications and devices.

Cinterion has announced that Chinese base Linyang Electronics is integrating Cinterion's tiny BGS2 in their smart metering products and power utilization management terminals. Cinterion's module provides secure wireless data communications for a range of Linyang products and services including load monitoring and control. These services help power companies and consumers conserve energy, automatic meter reading to simplify reporting and billing procedures, smart grid equipment monitoring and anti-theft and alarm applications to protect assets in the field.

Pacific Control Systems, the leading provider of cloud computing services for energy management, today announced the completion of its strategic acquisition of Infotility, a pioneer of Grid Agents.  The acquisition brings together two pioneers of using intelligent software agents, known as 'bots', to control and manage engineering systems. It will create a unique capability to deliver Smart Grid services in real time on a unified platform, one that has been long awaited in the industry.

Pacific Controls is the world's leading provider of remote energy management solutions for buildings and utilities, based on cloud computing and M2M technology. The company has developed intelligent Gbots to control and monitor a wide range of systems and processes in real time with no human intervention. Infotility is the leading provider of intelligent agent software for Smart Grids.

Space-Time Insight, the leader in situational intelligence solutions has introduced the Situational Intelligence Suite for Utilities at DistribuTECH 2012. The suite consist of a set of purpose-built applications that transform massive volumes of real-time, historical and predictive data into intuitive displays for rapid decision-making. Built on innovative geospatial and visual analytics software, the suite includes the first out-of-the-box domain-specific applications designed to visualize and analyze assets, resources and operating conditions, speeding time to value, and facilitating collaboration across departments. The first application in the suite is Smart Meter Intelligence, to be available this quarter.

Honeywell today announced a smart grid project that will help SSE plc connect up to 30 commercial and industrial buildings in the Thames Valley area west of London, and temporarily reduce electricity consumption when overall use spikes. This will help alleviate the potential for future transmission and distribution bottlenecks as the peak demand for energy grows. It will also enable building operators to decrease their energy use, utility bills and carbon dioxide emissions.