By Jeff St. John

Demand response – turning down power at factories, offices and homes to save energy and meet utility peak demands. It's the "killer application" for the smart grid, according to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, capable of saving up to 188 gigawatts of power, or about 20 percent of the country's overall peak energy use (see FERC report).

By Jeff St. John

So GridPoint bought another company on Monday. What else is happening in the world of smart grid?

By Jeff St. John

Smart grid plays are one of the green energy plays currently being boosted by stimulus grants. The difference between smart grid systems and other renewable energy plays is that the former are already easily implemented as compared to solar and wind, which currently have large technological and distribution barriers to overcome. Tuesday, President Obama named the utilities that will benefit from $3.4 billion in stimulus grants to implement smart grid systems.

Can You Name Today’s Two Best Green Energy Pure Plays? How about EnerNOC (ENOC) and Comverge (COMV)?

By Jeff St. John

Is demand response in it for the long haul?

Demand response service providers like EnerNoc and Comverge – which curb power consumption at homes, offices and industrial sites, often during peak periods – say yes. After all, for years they've been gathering together utility customers, installing devices and networks to turn down key power-using devices, and delivering reliable "negawatts" of power not used to mitigate the peak power demands that make up a significant portion of utility's overall costs.

At the end of each trading week, Hillbent scans for the equity market for potential anomalies which exhibit extremely oversold and overbought conditions. Past observations have revealed that such candidates may experience reversal corrections to the upside or downside once the market reconfirms that their fundamentals remain solidly intact or relatively poor. From a contrarian perspective, these lists may also serve as a precursor to changes in institutional sentiment and underlying fundamentals.

(The purpose of this report is not to provide specific recommendations, but instead serve as a time-saving reference tool and starting point for investment ideas as the upcoming trading week unfolds. Of course, the results generated are not always perfect and users are strongly encouraged to perform their own due diligence on these names. Note that overbought and oversold conditions are based upon proprietary algorithms and quantitative models instead of conventional technical analysis indicators. As a supplement to this report, please refer to our ETF Trends Report to determine if market direction trends support a bullish or bearish investment bias over short-term, intermediate, and long-term timeframes.)

By Jeff St. John

Comverge (COMV) on Thursday reported second-quarter revenues of $13.3 million, up 39 percent from the same quarter last year - a sign that providing "megawatts" for utilities facing peak power is still a service that's growing in demand.

By Jeff St. John

Comverge (COMV) has landed another deal that calls for it to turn down homes' energy use during peak demand times with pagers at first, and with smart meters later on.

By Michael Kanellos

CPower raised $10.68 million in April and Wednesday the company said it got an additional infusion of cash from Intel (INTC) Capital.

By Jeff St. John

Cutting electricity use is still a growing business for demand response provider EnerNoc Inc. (ENOC), which on Monday reported $42.4 million in sales for the second quarter of 2009, a 79 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year.

Q2 2009 Earnings Call

July 27, 2009 5:00 pm ET

I've been writing about the smart grid and its potential since before I joined AltEnergyStocks, in 2007, although at the time, I wasn't using the term: I mostly called it "Smart Metering." Now, Smart Grid is a central part of federal stimulus plans, and the term is firmly ensconced in the popular lexicon. GE even created a Super Bowl ad around the Smart Grid (video).

It was far past time to create a Smart Grid category in our Alternative Energy Stock List, but now we've done it. The companies in the Smart Grid Stock List were previously categorized as both Energy Efficiency Stocks and Electric Grid Stocks. Now, they are in the Smart Grid and Electric Grid categories, but only in the Energy Efficiency category if they also have a more conventional energy efficiency business. The broader Electric Grid category contains both Transmission and Distribution companies, like the ones in my Transmission Shopping List, as well as companies more narrowly focused on the smart grid. A few of the IT companies which have been moving into smart grid (such as IBM, Cisco, and Google) are in the Smart Grid category, but not in Electric Grid.

By Michael Kanellos

Smart grid. You can't even pick up USA Today without reading about it. The technologies for modernizing the grid and automatically controlling appliances, lights, homes and businesses will likely reduce the need for building coal fired plants. And smart grid will probably be cheaper and quicker than building wind farms and solar panels.

By Michael Kanellos

A fight over control of the home (and office) seems to be taking shape.

It may not have made as many waves as the Michael Jackson story, but last week, after the House passed the cap-and-trade bill, the media response was overwhelming. Not that anyone should be surprised. This is a huge issue.

However, it seemed that much of the earliest coverage stirred up an awful lot of hostility and opposition. And it was everywhere. From the most conservative blogs to the most liberal social media sites - those who oppose any kind of effective climate change legislation were not pacing back and forth in the waiting room. They were hitting up every possible media outlet to express their opinions and outrage.

By Jeff St. John

Comverge (COMV) and Itron (ITRI) say they've got a technology combo that gets them a step closer to an integrated commercial solution for one of the big promises of smart meters – hooking up homes with devices that can turn down electricity use when utilities need it the most.