Showtime for Smart Grid Summit, Go Time for You

By Jon Arnold (ICP), Founder, Intelligent Communications Partners

This is my last article about the Smart Grid Summit, and hopefully I can persuade a few more of you to get off the fence and make some last minute plans to join us in Miami this week. I don’t need to tell you about the nice weather, and we’ll be indoors anyway. That said, I’m not the first person to say there’s a lot more you can do with Florida sunshine than get a tan. Solar energy is big business, and we’ll only touch on that during our renewable energy panel.

If there’s one message to convey here, it’s the sheer diversity of what smart grid covers. We could easily build a whole conference around solar energy – and an even bigger one around renewable energy. I can say the same about many other topics, such as electric vehicles, demand response programs, grid security, smart home applications, rural smart grid opportunities, wireless networking, personal privacy, customer service challenges, new business models, etc.

Coming back to renewable energy, I’d be remiss to mention that the market study I’ve been working on with my partners at Zpryme is ready to launch this week. We’ll be issuing a press release about it any day now, and if you’re interested in seeing the Executive Summary or learning how to purchase the complete study, please drop me a line.

Let’s get back to the summit. We’re covering all of the above topics and more in Miami, and you’ll be hard pressed to find another event in this space that provides this breadth of coverage. Over two short days, we’ll be packing a lot of leading edge content into the program, and I think you’ll find it time well spent.  We have panel sessions on all of these topics, and our speakers cover the gamut from vendors, utilities, telcos and systems integrators.

Aside from our panels, we have a strong mix of keynote speakers which alone could be worth your while to come. Kicking things off on Wednesday is Mark Armentrout of the Texas Institute, who will provide a strong perspective on where the smart grid vision is going. Later that morning, Dr. Massoud Amin will talk about the challenges utilities face in modernizing their networks. Widely regarded as the “father of smart grid,” Dr. Amin speaks from a distinct position of authority, and we’re very pleased to have him with us.

Later that day, we have two keynotes with joint speakers, with each addressing very different topics. The first pair has Roxy Podlogar of Green Energy Corp., along with Doug DePeppe of i2IS. This panel is an example of an emerging smart grid technology that we believe has a lot of promise to help utilities share data in a more secure manner. Following them is a special joint presentation to update us on NARUC’s Smart Grid Working Group. Representing NARUC – National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners – is Maureen Harris, commissioner of the New York State Public Service Commission and Orjiakor Isiogu, chairman of NARUC.

On Thursday, we start with Ken Rowen of PAETEC (News - Alert), a company that is well known to the ITEXPO crowd. They’re less well known to utilities, and that’s exactly the point here. We want the smart grid players to get a first-hand account of the opportunities that a CLEC like PAETEC is seeing in this space – and I think you’ll be surprised.

After lunch, our final keynote is from Sandra Manning, who is with the City of Tallahassee.  We’re quite happy to have a local municipality on the program, and Sandra will not disappoint. Sandra will share first-hand experience with one of the most advanced AMI deployments in the U.S., especially in terms of helping consumers understand how smart meters can truly help them benefit from smart grid.

Between our panels and keynotes, I believe there is something here for everyone who has an interest in smart grid. If anything, my intention is for our program to show how wide ranging smart grid is becoming. There is far more to consider than just helping utilities modernize their networks. As telcos learned with IP, smart grid will help them redefine their business, and make subscribers active participants in shaping the future of energy. This is definitely a new world – for both side of the equation – and our view is that there is no better place to see what the future holds than this week in Miami. It’s go time for us – will you be there?

Want to learn more about Smart Grid and technology? Then be sure to attend the Smart Grid Summit, collocated with TMC’s (News - Alert) ITEXPO East, taking place Feb 2-4, 2011, in Miami. The Smart Grid Summit is the first event of its kind to address the unprecedented opportunity coming from the intersection of two core building blocks of our economy – utilities and communications. This unique event is based on the joint vision of TMC and Intelligent Communications Partners (News - Alert) to create a new forum for and actively engage an entire community. To register, click here.

(source: http://smart-grid.tmcnet.com/topics/smart-grid-fa/articles/139862-showtime-smart-grid-summit-go-time-you.htm)