IBM plays sugar daddy to smart grid

Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM (NYSE:IBM) said it's making $2 billion available to jump-start IT projects, including the smart grid, because of the continued difficulty for partners to get project financing.

The $2 billion would come from the company's lending and leasing arm, IBM Global Financing, in the form of low-rate loans, deferred payments, and other forms of project financing. The money is tied to projects authorized under the U.S. stimulus plan, which set aside $4.5 billion for smart grid projects (see Germany, U.S., Australia inject stimulus spending into cleantech).

IBM has already established itself as one of the key players in smart grid technology by using its IT infrastructure to coordinate hardware and software by companies including as Silver Spring Networks, eMeter, and SynapSense

"The utilities contract with IBM to build smart infrastructure," Drew Clark, director of strategy for IBM's Venture Capital Group, told the Cleantech Group earlier this year. "Silver Spring would provide the router or switches, and we architect it into the network. EMeter provides the software. Itron or GE makes the meter. We, on behalf of the utility, pull the pieces together" (see IBM rides third wave of cleantech).

IBM says it is now working on more than 50 smart grid projects across the world, including a $3 million project announced in March in Australia (see Energy Australia taps IBM for $3M smart grid project) and one in Texas in February (see CenterPoint rolls out $640M smart meter project in Texas).

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