It may be low price, but it seems that the pace has picked up for acquisition of generating assets from merchant generators. According to an SNL Energy article, Q2'10 power plant M&A update, August 3, by Jesse Gilbert, "The total capacity of plants announced in deals in the first half of 2010 totaled 58,708 MW, surpassing the full-year total of 56,398 MW announced in 2009."  Today, one more deal was added to the mix.  Constellation Energy announced that it signed an agreement to purchase Boston Generating's New England fleet for approximately $372/MW.  For regulated utilities, the acquisition of generation is seen as one way to reach growth, especially if they are constrained by regulators in the pursuit of rate increases.  But what does it take to make good on the promise of growth?

I just returned from vacation and my home energy monitor is still working - collecting and displaying my home's energy consumption and cost data.  At least the thing's reliable.  I still can't use Google PowerMeter effectively (see my previous blog post) and that issue won't be addressed until next month when my web bridge device arrives in the mail.  So what do I do now?

Marcus, Rick, Sam, Jay and I got together one day to name all the vendors now supplying home energy management systems.  Seems like home energy management is to the residential consumer, as Starbucks was at one time to the coffee consumer.  Lots of products are out there to help the utility provide energy efficiency and demand response opportunities to their customers.  So we decided to put together a little ditty, to the tune of "I Am A Model of the Modern Major General" for your summer entertainment.

ACEE just released a study concluding that smart grid technology in itself is not enough to lower energy consumption.  The premise is that customers need to be presented information that will help them take actions to reduce consumption.  Recommendations were for online or in-home displays of consumption and benchmarking with customers in their neighborhood.  It is true that there is currently limited deployment of in-home displays.  In a study we conducted in the fall of 2009, IDC Energy Insights found that only 6.6% of utilities were deploying in-home displays.  Another 14% were piloting these devices.  Utilities are, however, taking steps to present consumption data to their customers.  Take for example, Austin Energy, which made a commitment to display data one of their top priorities.   So, we agree that it requires people and process, but there are other pieces of technology that utilities should be integrating to make real reducations happen.

Well sort of...  My home energy monitor has now been dutifully collecting data once every twelve seconds for a week now.  The display tells me how much energy I'm currently using (2.84 kW at this exact moment), how much it's costing me ($8.14/day), and how much I've used in the last day, week and month.  For instance I've used 25 kWh in the last day and 200 kWh in the last week.  Not bad.  But what I'd really like is some more sophisticated graphing and analytics.

I don't have a smart meter and probably never will.  My utility just built a new coal-fired power plant and regularly sends me bill inserts trying to disprove global warming theories and convince me that carbon cap-and-trade will destroy our economy (I'm not making this up).  The point here is that my utility will also never provide me with any home energy management technology.  As a result, I just bought and installed an ENVI home energy monitor.  The product was developed by Current Cost in the U.K. which claims to be the largest provider of in-home displays with over 1 million units sold.  The product is distributed in the U.S. by PowerSave.  I chose it because it doesn't require a smart meter - it collects data through two CT clamps that you attach to your home's main cables - and because Current Cost is a Google PowerMeter partner.  Over the next few months I will be chronicling my experience with my new home energy management technology.

Please note that THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT EVALUATION OR ENDORSEMENT.  It's simply my personal experience.

The utility industry has been talking about the fact that lines are blurring between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) for the last few years and especially since the smart grid has taken off.  Now ABB is accelerating that convergence in its acquisition of Ventyx.  Most immediately, the deal will provide some cross selling opportunities for ABB to further extend its penetration into North America and for Ventyx products to move faster into markets outside of North America.  The promise of the acquisition long term is that it will support the new energy economy vision which includes integration of renewable generation, demand response, and distributed energy resources into the grid.  Whether the company will succeed in that endeavor will depend on how well ABB can combine real-time systems with transactional applications.