By Jeff St. John

General Electric (GE) has won a $2 million federal stimulus grant to work on a smart grid project – but it isn't from the Department of Energy.

By Michael Kanellos

The smart home is as old as Tomorrowland, but it now looks like it just might be around the corner.

By Ucilia Wang

A California state Senate committee agreed to raise a metering cap on Tuesday, but reduced it from the previously proposed 10 percent to 5 percent instead.

By Jon Kolb

Going forward, as the utility continues to focus primarily on regulated utility operations, positive investment factors for PG&E (PCG) including favorable decisions from the CPUC and FERC such as a CPUC authorized 11.35% ROE until 2010, long-term supply agreements, diversification into alternative power sources and infrastructure improvement programs such as the Cornerstone-Smart Meter-Tesla generating station, long-term supply agreements, diversification into alternative power sources and an increased dividend may be partially offset by risks including rising natural gas prices, increased purchased power costs, earnings dilutive stock issuances, and an over-leveraged balance sheet.

By Michael Kanellos

Secretive fuel cell startup Bloom Energy is working with Cisco Systems (CSCO) to integrate energy data from its devices into Cisco's platform to manage energy use in buildings, a source has told Greentech Media.

Water: A Defensive growth sector

Edison International (EIX) reported that earnings in the first quarter fell from $0.91 per share to $0.76. This result kept the GCFR Overall Gauge of Edison in the low-30's, a weak score but better than it had been.

Our analysis report reviewed the first quarter in some detail. In summary, lower energy prices, especially for natural gas, reduced Edison's costs for fuel, purchased power, etc., by 13.5 percent. Revenue fell only 9.7 percent, however, and this gap had the beneficial effect of increasing Gross Margin profitability by a substantial 3 percent, from 29.6 percent to 32.6 percent.

By Jeff St. John

Yet another partnership between two smart grid players has emerged – this one between smart meter maker Itron (ITRI) and smart grid communications provider Ambient Corp.

By Jeff St. John

German utility Yellostrom will work with Google on testing its PowerMeter home energy monitoring software – but it is also working with Microsoft, which has its own rival home energy platform, on its smart meters.

By Chris.McKhann:

Exelon (EXC) has attracted a large call spread as the utility company fights a negative tape Tuesday.

Where is General Electric (GE) putting its new US$100MM++ Advanced Manufacturing Technology & Software Center? Wayne County, Michigan!

CEO Jeff Immelt says that GE, among other companies, needs to “recreate” technology centers. Isn’t that the truth. The Michigan state government will provide just $5 million of incentives per annum over the next 12 years; seems like a good investment to me (rather than putting a few hundred million into the Ford Motor (F) V8 Essex engine plant across the river near Windsor).

In Part I of this series, I discussed some of the global trends in freshwater availability and drinkability. It is nothing less than amazing to me that somehow 6 billion people sustain life on the roughly 1% of the earth’s water that is not salt water or brackish water (comprising about 97.5%) or encased in polar and glacial ice (about 1.5%).

An important industry has developed around this fact to treat, clean, and transport this water from its various sources to where people drink it, shower in it, irrigate their fields with it, and use it in literally thousands of manufacturing and agricultural applications. Because of the limited supply, much of this “waste” water is then purified, cleaned, and recycled for use again. But we can only refresh, re-use, and recycle so much.

By Jon Kolb

Public Service Enterprise Group’s (PEG) future success will be driven by its improving nuclear operations, successful foray into alternative energy sources, the impact of the gas and electric rate settlement, and an ongoing share repurchase program.

By Ucilia Wang

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PCG) has inked a deal to buy solar thermal power from NRG Energy (NRG), which plans to use the technology developed by eSolar.

By Jeff St. John

The Department of Energy has issued its long-awaited guidelines for utilities and companies hoping to get a piece of the multibillion-dollar smart grid stimulus grant package – and security has emerged as a top concern for projects that want to get funded.

By Jeff St. John

Could the Department of Energy's rules for spending its $4.5 billion in smart grid grants be coming out today?

By Jeff St. John

The march of the telecoms into the smart grid space continues.

Cooper Power Systems announced Wedensday that it will use AT&T's (T) wireless data networks to link two of its distribution grid sensor devices – outage monitors and voltage sensors.

By Brandon Clay

Sometimes investors forget about stodgy and consistent stocks, but these should be prized characteristics. Take AGL Resources (AGL), for example. The company would hardly be considered “sexy” by the Wall Street crowd. AGL is a natural gas utility serving customers in six US states. Not very exciting, yes, but Georgia-based AGL is 153 years old. Any company with a century-and-a-half of longevity has staying power. Not coincidentally, AGL provides consistent dividends.

By Ucilia Wang

Lawmakers and utilities have talked a lot about how much they love energy efficiency measures – technologies and programs to encourage consumers to conserve, particularly during peak hours. But deploying them has been slow-moving.

If current trends continue, there is no doubt that there will be wars fought in the 21^st century over water. Not oil. Not ideology. Not theology. Water. Survival.

It takes somewhere between the three pounds of grain the National Cattlemen's Beef Association estimates and the sixteen pounds some environmentalists and vegetarians claim to produce a pound of beef. I believe the truth lies closer to the cattlemen’s numbers – all the ranchers I know, and I know plenty, graze their cattle where they consume vast quantities of weeds and natural grasses. What business person wants to buy grain, adding to their cost of doing business?