CURRENT, Qwest to integrate DSL into smart grid

GERMANTOWN & DENVER, USA: CURRENT Group, LLC and Qwest Communications International Inc. announced a new framework that allows electric utilities to integrate intelligent grid sensing with Qwest’s existing low latency, secure, high capacity DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) network to implement a Smart Grid.

This allows utilities to implement a high performance smart grid rapidly, cost-effectively and modularly with the speed, reliability and scalability of the existing Qwest network. CURRENT and Qwest already have proven the technology’s interoperability by utilizing CURRENT’s intelligent sensors and OpenGrid platform and Qwest’s DSL network as part of Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity in Boulder, Colo.

The CURRENT Smart Grid solution converts the traditional electric grid into an intelligent network by adding sensing, low latency communications and analytic software to the electric distribution system.

Smart Grid systems have the potential to be the single largest contributor to a solution for global warming available today, as the International Energy Agency reports that electric power generation produces 41 percent of total worldwide energy related CO2 emissions.

It is estimated that a Smart Grid could reduce CO2 emissions from electric power by up to 20 percent and a recent report from The Climate Group estimated that a Smart Grid provides the largest CO2 reduction of any IT technology investment in the world.

“Working with Qwest’s robust IP network, we have further reduced the cost of a Smart Grid and today, we introduce an attractive option for utilities interested in using the stimulus funding to implement a Smart Grid and manage the two-way power flow of the future,” said Tom Casey, CEO of CURRENT. “We are committed to providing utilities the most open, cost-effective and standards-based Smart Grid with options to achieve the optimal cost and performance under various conditions.”

“Our work to date proves that Qwest’s broadband network offers a cost–effective, rapidly deployable means of transporting the intelligence of the CURRENT Smart Grid solution,” said Neil Cox, Qwest’s executive vice president of Product Development and IT. “The CURRENT/Qwest model is an inherently green and ‘smart’ approach.”

Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity in Boulder, Colo., is the nation's first fully integrated Smart Grid community.

CURRENT and Qwest will offer similar solutions to additional utilities and municipalities.