An image of IBM's LEED Gold-certified cloud data center in Raleigh, North Carolina
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – IBM (www.ibm.com) and Cable&Wireless Worldwide (www.cw.com) announced on Monday that they will collaborate to develop a UK Smart Energy Cloud in support of the UK’s Smart Meter Implementation Programme, which aims to rollout more than 50 million smart meters in the UK.
According to the press release, UK Smart Energy Cloud will provide a complete overview of energy usage across the country and assist with implementation of a smart grid.
The companies claim that their new cloud will enable the gathering of data multiple times a day, from any smart meter in the country and store it in a secure UK based hosted cloud environment. Data will be sent to energy retailers for assessment, to ensure more accurate bills for consumers.
“As we start the journey towards a low carbon economy smart meters will drive a wave of change in the energy system and are set to become an increasingly important part of the nation’s critical infrastructure,” Laurence Carpanini, director of Smart Meters and Smart Grids, IBM UK & Ireland said in a statement. “With this collaboration, we can provide the UK with a flexible, intelligent solution based on proven technology. We can support the national Smart Meter Implementation Programme and help communities become smarter, more connected and in turn, more sustainable.”
The new solution will not require energy retailers to make expensive upfront investments in hardware, systems, people or the communications network, ensuring the switch between retailers will become more transparent.
“We believe a collaboration of this kind is the most natural approach to achieving an end to end solution for a complete smart metering roll-out and making smart grid a reality. The challenge is for smart meters to reach the entire UK population and this will require a combination of enabling solutions, such as GPRS, radio and Power Line Carrier to make sure it’s cost effective. However, it is the network connecting it all and intelligent data management, that is central to the smart agenda’s success,” Matt Key, managing director of enterprise at C&W Worldwide said in a statement. “This alliance offers us exciting opportunities to work together on developing innovative solutions to create a smart grid, the next era of energy distribution in the UK, and support the Government’s long-term environmental strategy to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.”
IBM says its UK division is currently advising three of the six largest energy retailers on transforming their business in preparation for smart metering. IBM has been involved in more than 150 smart grid programs worldwide.
In early March, IBM announced it has invested $38 million in a new IBM Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Data Center in Singapore.
Recently, UK web hosts have been stepping up their green hosting efforts. Last week Manchester-based UK Grid (www.ukgrid.net) traded its company vehicles for electric cars. iomart Hosting (www.iomart.com) announced it is the headline sponsor for this year’s 2011 UK Green IT Awards (www.greenawards.co.uk).
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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