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Treasury Dept says SGIG awards to corporations are tax free

BREAKING NEWS: LLCs could be taxed, demo grants left in dark: Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) awards to corporations will not be taxable income, the US Treasury Dept declared yesterday, resolving a question that has held up the $3.4 billion

KEMA touts microgrid trial in Netherlands city of Hoogkerk

Hoogkerk, a suburb of Groningen in the Netherlands, yesterday officially began operating a microgrid and calling itself "the

Privacy advocates warn smart-grid, appliances could reveal secrets

Ensuring consumers' privacy on the smart grid requires California's PUC to first define what data warrants protection, said the Center

California ISO DR market plan wins some kudos

Parties in California were generally pleased with the ISO's proposal to implement a proxy demand response program, they said in FERC

CORRECTION

Consumer advocates mainly care about rates and injustice, Future of Privacy Forum Director Jules Polonetsky made clear to us yesterday

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Landis & Gyr opens office in Russia . . . Echelon reaches big meter-sales milestone . . . Zucco leaves ABB to help grow Tantalus

Privacy advocate details weaknesses in smart grid, utility leadership

Recent talks between privacy experts and smart grid firms have yielded a lot of agreement -- and that's bad, a leading privacy expert told us Monday. "People weren't really getting the points of potential disagreement," said Jules Polonetsky, director of the

Obama goes to OPower to tout smart grid software firm, jobs

President Obama Friday hailed OPower as a torch carrier in the creation of clean-energy jobs in the US. "It was a phenomenal day for us," CEO Dan Yates told us yesterday. "He spent a good

FCC chair confident of broadband goal

The US can meet the goal of home broadband use by 90% of Americans by 2020, up from 65% now, by starting with recommendations contained in the National Broadband Plan being developed for Congress by the FCC, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday at "America's

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Alaska utility teams with Tendril for test . . . On-Ramp, Nuri help connect hardest AMI . . . FutureDash software integrates with Google . . . GridWise hails new FERC nomninee

New Mexico, Japan team up to share with us details of 4 projects

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: While other news outlets are reporting a deal between a Japanese government agency and the US state of New Mexico, the Japanese agency shared details with us alone yesterday on the identities of Japanese firms that will take part

Texas regulators to soon pick independent AMI tester

The PUC of Texas will hire an independent contractor to test some of the smart meters being rolled out by Oncor in Dallas/Ft Worth, CenterPoint in Houston and AEP firms in West Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, Terry Hadley, spokesman for the PUC, told us yesterday. Over 900,000 meters were installed in Texas

NARUC letter asks Geithner to resolve ARRA taxability question

NARUC Thursday asked Treasury Secretary Geithner to clarify whether grants under the Broadband Technologies Opportunities program -- created by ARRA, the source of funds for the smart grid investment and demo grant programs -- are subject to federal income tax

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DRSG's new members include some big names . . . Comverge reports Q4 revenue boost

Arcadian Networks CEO describes 'secret sauce' for smart grid win

Arcadian Networks, a three-year-old start-up in Valhalla, NY, has an ambitious goal. "We want to make sure the dream folks are selling about the smart grid becomes a reality," CEO Ed Solar told us in an interview Friday. Backed by $90 million from Goldman Sachs, Tel Aviv-based Clal Industries and founder Davidi

Applied Materials CEO reflects on smart grid's 'other' big problem

If interoperability is the smart grid's main problem, as virtually all experts agree, scalability was referred to as another key hurdle at a recent industry event. Institutions such as the Center for American Progress and MIT should be chartered with drawing a roadmap for the development of a modern utility industry

GroundedPower offers 'real time' feedback in Massachusetts trials

Some businesses and schools and about 250 homes served by six municipal utilities in Massachusetts are preparing to engage in "town challenges" meant to induce power savings via goal setting, task selections, rewards, social networking and comparative results shared among the towns, GroundedPower CEO Paul

4 stories in 90 seconds

Silver Spring, Landis to do Australian trial . . . Smart appliance market pegged at $15 billion . . . Wired reports on smart grid hacking panel . . . GPS-maker buys Irish software firm

Avista's in-depth Pullman pilot includes automated outage fixing

If Boulder, Colo, has the Smart Grid City, can Pullman -- a university town of 27,000 in eastern Washington -- create Smart

Glendale, Calif confirms being first with SGIG contract in hand

As expected, the city of Glendale, Calif, Wednesday became the first Smart Grid Investment Grant recipient to actually sign a contract