La convergence entre Smart Grid et Cloud Computing illustrée par les récentes annonces de Lockheed Martin et EnerNOC. Cloud computing has been making inroads into the smart grid lately, in everything from smart meter management to smart city services integration. Monday brings two more bits of news on the smart grid-cloud front. First, Lockheed Martin has integrated its demand response technology with a cloud-based smart meter platform built for smaller cooperative utilities. Secondly, demand response provider EnerNOC is turning to Salesforce.com’s cloud to keep track of its customers. The two announcements represent two different entry points for cloud computing services into demand response and the smart grid more generally.
The Lockheed Martin announcement involves cloud computing for actual smart grid and demand response functions. In this case, Lockheed is integrating its SeeLOAD demand response platform with a smart meter data management cloud offering from the National Information Solutions Cooperative, an organization that helps more than 550 electric cooperatives and public power entities in the U.S. and Canada implement new technologies.
Using the cloud to manage smart meter data is a growing trend — witness meter data management startup eMeter’s deal to use Verizon’s cloud announced last month. But co-ops are an interesting new target market for these kinds of managed services, since they’re much smaller than the multi-million customer investor-owned utilities that tend to dominate the market.
