The Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition (DRSG) announced March 4 that seven new members have joined the group. The new members are Ambient Corporation, Johnson Controls, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, EnergyConnect, CALMAC, and EnOcean Alliance.
DRSG is the trade association for companies that provide products and services in the areas of demand response and smart grid technologies and practices. Through their membership in the group, Ambient, Johnson Controls, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, EnergyConnect, CALMAC, and EnOcean Alliance will help further DRSG's educational effort to highlight the benefits of modernizing the grid and of enabling customers to become empowered consumers of electricity. DRSG engages key players from across the broad spectrum of smart grid stakeholders, including utilities, state and federal policymakers, the media, and stakeholder groups.
"Smart grid and demand response have been receiving increasing attention lately as Congress and state lawmakers recognize the absolute importance of meeting energy and climate challenges by making the grid intelligent and interactive," said Dan Delurey, president of DRSG. "And as the visibility of smart grid increases, so has DRSG's engagement in Washington. In just the last two months, DRSG members have been invited several times by House Leadership to educate House Members and staff about the importance of such issues as reducing peak demand and providing electricity usage information to consumers. DRSG companies were able to tell Congress why the smart grid is necessary to achieve national goals for job creation, climate-change, international competitiveness, and energy reliability and independence."
Ambient Corporation, headquartered in Newton, Mass., designs, develops and markets Ambient Smart Grid communications technologies and equipment. Utilizing Internet protocol-based open standards technologies along with in-depth industry experience, Ambient provides utilities with solutions for creating smart grid communication platforms and technologies.
Johnson Controls is the global leader that brings ingenuity to the places where people live, work and travel. By integrating technologies, products and services, it creates smart environments that redefine the relationships between people and their surroundings. The company's team of 130,000 employees creates a more comfortable, safe and sustainable world through its products and services for more than 200 million vehicles, 12 million homes and one million commercial buildings.
Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs approximately 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2009 sales of $45.2 billion. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Md.
A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is one of the world's largest defense, space and security businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world's largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is a $34 billion business with 68,000 employees worldwide. In 2009, Boeing received Department of Energy (DOE) Smart Grid grants to partner with Consolidated Edison of New York and Southern California Edison on projects to increase grid reliability, reduce system demands and costs and increase energy efficiencies.
EnergyConnect delivers industry-leading demand response technologies and services to commercial, industrial and institutional energy users enabling them to manage their use of electricity in response to market prices or regional power shortages. The EnergyConnect technology platform provides a scalable, cost-effective, clean technology to enhance the grid's efficiency and reliability.
CALMAC Corporation specializes in Cool Energy Technologies. The company's patented products are represented by key partners in over 35 countries. CALMAC's core product is smart grid ready and provides a flexible, responsive solution for fluctuating power demands and intermittent energy resources. By storing ice at night to cool buildings during the day, CALMAC has shifted more than 2 gigawatts from on- to off-peak. Based in Englewood, N.J., the company's manufacturing facility produces over 2,000 Energy Storage tanks annually, and more than 3,500 customers have come to rely on CALMAC energy storage systems.
EnOcean Alliance, a consortium of currently 130 international corporations, shares the common goal of standardizing wireless control systems for sustainable building applications. The core technology of the Alliance centers around EnOcean's patented energy harvesting and radio-frequency technology offering self-powered wireless operation in the form of flexibly positioned, maintenance-free sensor solutions. The goal of the EnOcean Alliance is to standardize and internationalize EnOcean wireless technology through the creation of true interoperability.
About DRSG
The Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition (DRSG) is the trade association for companies that provide products and services in the areas of demand response and smart grid. DRSG works to educate and provide information to policymakers, utilities, the media, the financial community and stakeholders on how demand response and smart grid technologies can help modernize our electricity system and provide customers with new information and options for managing their electricity use.
Members of the DRSG Coalition include: Aclara, Advanced Telemetry, Ambient, Amplex, Boeing, Bridge Energy Group, CABA, CalAmp, CALMAC, Comverge, Conservation Services Group, Control4, Corporate Systems Engineering, CPower, Echelon, Eka Systems, Electrolux, eMeter, Energy Capital Partners, EnergyConnect, Energy Curtailment Specialists, EnergySolve, EnerNOC, Enfora, EnOcean Alliance, Enspiria Solutions, GE, Google, HomeGrid Forum, Honeywell, Ice Energy, Itron, Johnson Controls, KMC Controls, Landis+Gyr, LG Electronics, Lockheed Martin, Lutron Electronics, Midas Medici Group Holdings, Oracle, PCN Technology, Sensus, Silver Spring Networks, SmartSynch, Space-Time Insight, Steffes, Tendril, Trilliant Networks, Universal Powerline Association, Whirlpool, ZigBee Alliance, Ziphany. More information is available at www.drsgcoalition.org.