Australia taps IBM for $100M smart grid, city initiative
Australia on Friday announced that it is partnering with IBM for a $100 million "Smart Grid, Smart City" initiative that's intended to kickstart development of the nation's first commercial-scale smart grid.
The deal, officially between the Australian government and the EnergyAustrialia consortium (of which IBM is a member; it also includes GE Energy, among others), stipulates that Big Blue will be responsible for distributed generation, smart metering and demand management solutions on the continent.
The goal is to let residents see real-time data and analysis of electricity usage in households, down to the individual appliance level, with the hope that the knowledge will cause behavioral changes.
The project also aims to improve the power grid's performance by giving local energy transmission and distribution companies more control via sensors, meters, digital services and analytic tools.
This three-year project will begin immediately across five sites in Sydney and the nearby Hunter Region; specifically, focus will be on Newcastle, Scone, Sydney's Central Business District, Ku-ring-gai and Newington.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com