Europe’s first smart grid centre opens at GE UK headquarters

2 December 2009

The first smart grid demonstration centre in Europe has opened in the UK. Located at the UK headquarters of power giant GE Energy, the centre was inaugurated by UK Energy Minister Lord Hunt, who said that there was the need for ‘a concerted effort’ in Europe to build smarter electricity grids.

Visitors to the centre a start-to-finish view of the smart grid system, showing utilities, government and consumers the variety of energy-management and carbon reduction technologies currently available.

The UK government has laid out targets to install smart meters at every home in the country by 2020

Magued EIDaief, managing director, GE Energy UK, said, ‘With increasing global demand for energy and on the eve of the Copenhagen climate change talks, now is the time to re-think how we deliver smarter, cleaner and more efficient electricity.

In addition to participating in the global dialogue to plan a better energy future, GE has been building and testing real-world solutions that are ready to deploy today,’ he added.

GE Energy is also involved in smart grid deployment at home. The company recently partnered with smart grid provider Silver Spring Networks to handle a smart grid programme for US utility OG&E. GE will provide the 42,000 smart meters to measure electricity use and transmit the information to OG&E for billing and service monitoring. The information will be communicated via Silver Spring Networks’ smart energy IP-based network.

Copyright © 2009 NewNet

Tags: energy efficiency

This story was published on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Europe, companies, energy efficiency. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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