The creation of a smart grid of energy producers, distributors and consumers will undoubtedly be at the center of a sustainable future. Similarly using information and communications technology (ICT) to extend the benefits of urban living to outlying areas will become a much larger business opportunity.

Cisco is one company envisioning that the same principles of sustainability that will reshape the power grid will also be applied to essential services including health care, education, and municipal services.

IBM, AT&T, GE and Siemens also have designs on capturing a share of this market.

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Turning the country’s vast islands of proprietary utility networks and isolated power equipment into an intelligent grid that manages the power going into homes, offices and factories will take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars. IBM is partnering with veteran energy efficiency and grid communications company Trilliant to ensure that the companies’ grid hardware and software will speak the same language.

The agreement to integrate IBM’s Websphere and Tivoli products for managing enterprise data into Trilliant’s smart grid communications system provides utilities with and end-to-end system for collecting information and administering grid operations.

Trilliant, which currently has more than 200 utility customers, provides technology that can relay information about power consumption and network performance from smart meters in homes, to utility equipment out in the field such as transformers and substations, and then on to centralized (head end) utility servers. The company will build its management system using Websphere’s application server and the Tivoli network management suite.

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Happy Earth Day… I hope you rode your bike to work, ate only vegetables, brought your own cup to Starbucks and followed the instructions in the signature line of your boss’ email and didn’t print it unless it was truly necessary.

If you are new around here – I was a Marine officer before running off to Europe for grad school and dedicating my professional life to sustainability. One of my happiest associations is with that group of men and women (the Marine Corps), and I can continue to do so through the Marines’ Memorial Association here in San Francisco. I’m very happy to support bringing relevant discussions to this venue that satisfy both my interests (likely yours if you are on this site) and that organization’s values, so if you have some ideas that need a venue and a good audience, please send me a note and we can chat about putting events together.

That said, next week you might want to mark your calendar for an event there and another fantastic event down the street at the Hotel Nikko.

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