Duke Energy, an electric power company in the United States delivering energy to approximately four million U.S. customers, has joined the HomePlug Powerline Alliance’s Board of Directors.
The HomePlug Powerline Alliance, Inc. is a consortium with more than 70 member companies that creates specifications and certification logo programs for using the power lines for reliable home networking and Smart Grid applications. The Alliance functions to enable and promote rapid availability, adoption and implementation of cost effective, interoperable and standards-based home powerline networks and products.
“Powerline networking will play a key role in connecting home appliances and systems to the Smart Grid enabling intelligent management and monitoring for energy savings and efficiency,” said David Mohler, vice president and chief technology officer, Duke Energy. “HomePlug, as a base specification within the IEEE 1901 Standard, offers an interoperable standards based technology roadmap from low cost to high-bandwidth and next-generation solutions that will meet the needs of the robust home network that is necessary for the smart grid. We look forward to increasing our involvement with the Alliance.”
“The Smart Grid has been a key focus for HomePlug, with HomePlug’s Green PHY (GP) specification at the center of our smart grid efforts,” said Rob Ranck, president of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance. “Utility companies are key players in the roll out of the Smart Grid, and having a major utility like Duke Energy join our board of directors is a very exciting development for the HomePlug Alliance. We see them playing an integral role in shaping the future of the Smart Grid connectivity.”
Last month, HomePlug announced the expected finalization of the HomePlug GP specification for the first quarter of 2010. HomePlug GP is a low power, cost-optimized powerline networking specification targeting Smart Grid applications such as HVAC, smart meters, home appliances and plug-in electric hybrid vehicles. Major utility companies gave direct input into HomePlug GP technology, optimizing the specification for real world deployments. HomePlug GP is fully interoperable with HomePlug AV and the new IEEE 1901 Draft Powerline Standard.
The HomePlug Powerline Alliance is committed to working with the industry in support of Smart Grid interoperability initiatives. HomePlug worked with the ZigBee Alliance to enable application-layer interoperability between ZigBee wireless and HomePlug powerline devices.
The ZigBee/HomePlug Smart Energy Profile has been named in the United States National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Smart Grid interoperability standards roadmap.
HomePlug devices account for 75 percent of the world's broadband powerline communications market, and over 40 million devices have shipped to date. The Alliance works with key stakeholders to ensure all of its specifications are designed to meet the requirement for interoperability stated by service providers, utilities, equipment and appliance manufacturers, consumer electronics and other important stakeholders. The Alliance operates the powerline networking industry's largest Compliance and Interoperability Certification Program to ensure true multi-vendor co-existence and interoperability. The program has certified more than 190 products and will also begin certifying IEEE 1901 products in 2010.
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