Summer may be a time put things off a bit, but things continue to develop for our next Smart Grid Summit. Oct. 4 may seem far away, but it creeps up quickly, especially as we enjoy the warm weather. Of course, I'd be remiss to not make the uncomfortable connection between these seemingly unrelated ideas. While I enjoy the summer heat as much as anyone, nobody enjoys the power outages that seem to come with the territory lately. In fact, the power has gone out again here as I'm writing this article, and thankfully I have a full battery charge that will see me through until it's done.

I also wrote about this earlier in the week, and it really underscores the need for the energy sector to modernize and take advantage of the technologies that have helped reinvent the communications sector over the last few years. Given the regulated nature of utilities, consumers don't give much thought to energy until the lights go out. That's happening a lot lately, and for many of us, having the AC running is just as important as keeping the lights on, so this issue is really top of mind now.

Rather than go on about a topic we're all being impacted by, I'll use this as a nice segue to the focus of my article - our event and the latest smart grid awards program. This is one of the nice extensions to our summit and it was successfully launched earlier this year. We received a strong slate of submissions for our first Product of the Year program, and ended up with a pretty impressive slate of award recipients. Today we launched the 2010 Smart Grid Excellence Awards program and I can't think of a better time to recognize this sector for the good work that's being done.

For this program, we've revamped the scope, and broadened it beyond point products. While there is a wide range of smart grid products out there - both for infrastructure and in the smart home - we felt that a single award should reflect the bigger picture. Our view is that the smart grid market hasn't matured enough yet to warrant multiple award categories, although that will likely change by next year.

As such, the current focus on "excellence" allows us to consider the best in smart grid from any source. With communications technologies constantly evolving and becoming further connected to smart grid networks, excellence can just as likely come from a physical product - sensors, switches, meters, etc. - as it could from software or a hosted application.

Coming from the worlds of IP and IT, the underlying outcome for us is innovation. This was the force that transformed telecom, and there's no question that today's consumers are better served and operators have lower cost structures. We think the same could - and should - happen for energy, and for that to occur, innovation must be a key driver. That's really the heart of our 2010 awards program, and we want to be agnostic about the source. So long as there's real innovation coming to smart grid, we're not concerned as to whether it's hardware or software, or whether it's network-based or running in the cloud.

Perhaps even more important, we're not setting parameters on where the innovation is coming from. As we saw with telecom, the most important - and greatest number - of innovations have come from outside the industry. Innovation often does not come from within, especially in sectors that are regulated and/or highly concentrated in terms of market power. We think utilities are a prime example of this, and we've already seen many outsiders who have made a positive difference to smart grid. It won't be long until you'll be using an iPad app to turn down the thermostat, and we're really just beginning to see what's possible when innovation flourishes.

That's enough of a preamble, and now I need you to take action. If smart grid innovation speaks to you, your next step is to read more about the awards program, and then consider applying if your company meets the criteria. We're expecting a great response, so my advice would be to get on this right away - early bird submissions are due by July 28, and the final cutoff date for entry is Aug. 18. If things turn out well, I'll be meeting you in LA when we announce the award winners.