The Smart Metering Standardization Mandate M/441 was issued by the European Commission in March 2009 and accepted by the European ESOs – CEN, CENELEC and ETSI – in the same year. In June 2011, the Smart Metering Co-ordination Group completed the first part of its work issuing the Technical Report on Communication. This document specifies, among others, the functional reference architecture, the functional elements, the interfaces, the list of available and future standards, and high level use cases.

Canadians have long been leaders in electricity and grid development. But while the electricity grid has expanded and become more sophisticated to meet the demands of a growing Canadian population, the infrastructure holding it together is ageing, under stress and in need of modernization. It is estimated that Canada has to invest more than $10 billion annually over the next 20 years to modernize its generation, transmission and distribution systems.

Over the past 10 years, there has been tremendous growth in the number of individuals that consider themselves to be demand response and smart grid professionals, yet there has been no organization for these people to join as individuals. There is now.

The Demand Response Coordinating Committee (DRCC) was a 501 c (3) non-profit organization whose mission has been to increase the knowledge base in the US on demand response and to facilitate the exchange of information and expertise among demand response practitioners and policy makers. The DRCC later adopted smart grid as part of its charter as it recognized early that demand response and smart grid were necessarily intertwined, and that demand response was one of the primary ways that the smart grid would be “put into action.” Since the DRCC was formed in 2004, it has offered only corporate and organizational memberships.

Washington, DC, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- March 15, 2011 - The Demand Response Coordinating Committee (DRCC) has changed its name to the Association for Demand Response & Smart Grids (ADS), and with it is a change in membership structure to become a home for individuals that consider themselves demand response and smart grid professionals.

Over the past 10 years, there has been tremendous growth in the number of individuals that refer to themselves as demand response and smart grid professionals, yet there has been no professional membership organization for these people to be a part of. The ADS is intended to fill that gap, outlined executive director Dan Delurey, in a statement.

San Ramon, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- January 31, 2011 - The ZigBee Alliance and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) have entered into a collaboration on the development of ZigBee Smart Energy to support plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) and enable vehicle to grid (V2G) communication and power capabilities.

Morgan Hill, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- December 21, 2010 - The USNAP Alliance has announced the final release of its 2.0 Specification for enabling interoperable home area network (HAN) deployments.

Manufacturers of devices such as consumer appliances, thermostats, in-home displays, energy management systems and gateways can use USNAP communication modules (UCMs) to connect to a HAN using a variety of connectivity options such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, Z-Wave and FM radio, creating a universal HAN device ecosystem.

Piscataway, NJ, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- December 20, 2010 - The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Standards Board has approved the development of IEEE draft standard P1905.1, which will provide a common, protocol agnostic interface to increase the performance and simplicity of hybrid home networks that use IEEE 1901™ Broadband Over Powerline (BPL), IEEE 802.11™ wireless, IEEE 802.3™ Ethernet, and the Multimedia over Coax Alliance’s MoCA® 1.1 technologies.