Balancing benefits of consumer access to their own consumption data with the costs anticipated by the various approaches was stressed by UTC comments filed in DOE’s request for information on data access, third party use, and privacy. UTC noted that the innovative deployment by energy utilities of smart meters and smart control systems will create a smart energy grid that will unlock the value of what has been called the Energy Information Economy. Smart energy grids will create an environment in which consumers will have greater abilities to manage their own energy usage and utilities will have new tools to affect grid-wide energy efficiencies never before possible. The key to all this is data. How to provide secure access to it for customers and their agents is the crux of this RFI’s questions and the focus of UTC’s responses. Read more »

Today, UTC filed comments in response to the Department of Energy’s request for information on the communications needs of utilities and other critical infrastructure industries (CII) for smart grid and other CII communications. In its comments, UTC concluded that utilities and other CII would need access to 30 MHz of spectrum in a frequency range below 2 GHz to meet their current and future communications needs. These conclusions were based upon data from utilities collected by UTC in response to the RFI. UTC explained that this spectrum would accelerate the deployment of smart grid and other CII communications by enabling utilities to deploy wireless systems that are a key technology option, particularly for their Tier 2 distribution and Tier 3 access layers of their communications networks. UTC further explained that commercial telecommunications service providers would be able to support some applications, but that the majority of utilities would rely on their own private internal communications systems to support mission-critical applications, such as teleprotection systems. Finally, UTC emphasized that the need for access to spectrum is urgent, now that utilities are in the process of deploying smart grid and otherwise upgrading their communications in order to meet increasing demand and promote infrastructure security. For further information, contact the UTC Legal/Regulatory Department.