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IBM can be seen everywhere these days with its Smarter Planet advertising series, promoting the benefits of an inter-connected, thinking world. That is in part why a news announcement by Duke Energy caught my eye.
The utility – the third largest in the country – wants to fast track the development of a smart grid system, transforming the way it delivers energy to customers. It’s exactly the kind of thing IBM has been talking about in its Smarter Planet campaigns.
Problem is, the key partner on the project isn’t IBM – it’s Cisco.
The companies announced this week that Duke has signed a three-year partnership with Cisco to convert its existing electricity delivery infrastructure into an advanced smart grid, using two-way digital communication. The goal, of course, is to help customers reduce energy usage and energy costs by giving them more control over how much energy they use and at what price.
In addition, the smart grid will help bolster system reliability, detect power outages, and make it simpler to integrate solar and other future energy sources into the grid.
“Our goal is to rapidly transform the way electricity is delivered to, and used by, the 11 million people we serve in five states,” said Todd Arnold, senior vice president for smart grid and customer systems for Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke.
The newly created architecture will be based on Internet protocol standards, which will allow the network to more easily accommodate new and emerging communications technologies in coming years. The two companies will jointly evaluate a variety of smart grid communications hardware and software and Cisco will work with Duke Energy to develop and install home energy management devices.
That may, in fact, be where IBM fits into the picture. It certainly has the technology and software to bid on the project. But given Cisco’s recent decision to enter into the computer server market and compete head-to-head with IBM, this may be just another example of how these two technology giants will compete in the future.
Duke says it will launch a five-year mass deployment of smart grid technology later this year, beginning with more than 700,000 electric smart meters and 450,000 natural gas meters.
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