Clean Edge - The Clean-Tech Market Authority

Search News:

Print

Previous Story | Next Story

IBM Announces Smart Grid Software Platform for Utilities

IBM recently unveiled a new standards-based industry software platform and business partner validation program that it says will enable utility companies to operate more efficiently and accelerate the development of their smart utility solutions. A part of the IBM Smarter Planet strategy, the new Solution Architecture for Energy and Utilities Framework (SAFE) is designed to bring the capabilities of IBM software to power solutions across all areas of a utility company, including plant operations, smart meters and personal utility management.

IBM's goal is to help energy and utility clients implement business solutions in the areas of generation, transmission, distribution and customer operations to help deliver quantifiable results and support their strategic roadmap to achieve increased innovation, agility and competitive advantage--one business project at a time.

IBM also announced a validation process for IBM Business Partners providing energy and utility applications. IBM will work with business partners to ensure their solutions are enabled on the SAFE framework leveraging industry standards to facilitate simple integration and deployment of solutions. Validated applications from IBM business partners are reportedly easier and faster to implement for utility companies. IBM says that business partners including ESRI, SISCO, Retriever Communications and Trilliant are already validated on the SAFE framework.

Other IBM business partners - BPL Global, Coulomb Technologies, eMeter, Enterprise Information Management, Itron, OSIsoft, and PowerSense - have also reportedly committed to becoming SAFE- validated.

According to IBM, the SAFE framework is the software technology backbone that makes a wide range of utility solutions possible by helping the client to build a standards-based integrated platform for all of its operations across their value chain. This new framework utilizes elements of IBM's entire software portfolio including WebSphere, Tivoli, Rational, Lotus and Information Management products.

IBM's new framework offers technologies centered around seven key focus areas faced by every utility:

-- Asset, device and service monitoring
-- Asset lifecycle management
-- Informed decision making
-- Improved customer experience
-- Business process automation
-- Regulatory, risk and compliance management
-- Security solutions

IBM has been building its presence in smart grid for some time now. In February of this year, the company announced that it will design and deliver a nationwide smart grid for the island nation of Malta, and just last month the company revealed plans to work with Trilliant to improve utility integration of smart grid software.