Smart-city companies don’t need just products and services, though. They also need to communicate their message effectively to potential partners, customers and other stakeholders. In a fast-evolving sphere like smart cities, visibility and brand awareness can prove almost as important as the solutions themselves.

In its latest brand insight report, “The Greenbang Smart Matrix™ – Smart Cities: How brands compare on marketing vs. capability in the smart-city space,” Greenbang has identified a number of disconnects and opportunities between what companies do and what they say they do.

The report answers such questions as:

• Which companies are leading in smart-city capabilities?
• Which are leading in visibility?
• Why aren’t the companies with the greatest capabilities necessarily the ones with the greatest visibility?
• What can the most solutions-heavy companies do to improve their smart-city visibility?
• How can the higher-visibility firms benefit from their smart-city brand advantage over competitors with greater capabilities?
• What communications strategies are important for building a smart-city brand?
• What other strategies can help boost a company’s visibility in the smart-city sphere?

Targeted at smart-city product and service providers, technology integration companies, utilities, ICT firms, planners, consultants and academic institutions, “The Greenbang Smart Matrix™ – Smart Cities” report examines some of the top companies looking to make a mark in the smart-city space today, and identifies which are succeeding in communicating their offerings while others are falling down.

Among the firms featured in the study are IBM, Buro Happold, Siemens, GE, Accenture, SAIC, Alstom, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, ABB, Black & Veatch, Oracle, Samsung, Cisco, Philips, SAP, HP, Home Depot and Autodesk.

The study also offers recommendations on how lagging firms can make more noise, build communities and more effectively convey their smart-city message to customers and others.

Click here to order now.

The report answers such questions as:

• Should dedicated wireless spectrum be allocated to UK utilities for smart-grid systems? If so, why?
• Is the lack of spectrum allocations slowing or hindering the development of smart-grid systems in the UK and the broader EU?
• What future drawbacks could the smart grid face without a dedicated spectrum for utilities?
• To what degree is an optimised smart grid dependent on a dedicated spectrum allocation? And is there an ideal range for spectrum allocation?
• Does the EU need to adopt a continent-wide spectrum allocation and, if so, what would be the benefits? Would there be any benefits to each country/market establishing its own spectrum allocation?

“Enabling the UK’s smart-grid future” also concludes with five key lessons for policy-makers. The report is aimed at decision-makers at utility companies, smart-grid technologies and services vendors, ICT service providers, wireless communications companies, energy management companies and investors.

While the UK’s utility regulator awaits input from stakeholders before releasing its final package of smart-metering measures in early 2011, the nation’s communications regulator has yet to make a decision on whether to allocate either dedicated or lightly licensed spectrum for wireless smart-grid communications. Companies that best understand where the situation lies today, and where it could end up in the near future, can enjoy opportunities for building a smart-grid customer base ahead of the pack.

Click here to order now.

Greenbang will also be hosting a free webinar on “Analysis of the feed-in tariff 2011″ from 2 to 3 pm GMT Wednesday, March 23. Attendance is limited to the first 100 who register, so be sure to sign up soon. Online registration is available here.

In just six months since the tariff was introduced, over 10,000 solar photovoltaic (PV) installations were recorded, with the majority consisting of domestic installations. This has led to an increase of twice the installed capacity over 2009 in this period of time, demonstrating the positive effect the feed-in tariff has had on the UK solar market.

Other technologies supported by the scheme (wind and hydro-electric) are catching up in terms of installed capacity, though greater regulations and planning slowed the initial response.

The key period of growth is within the first two years as this is the period when the tariff rate is at its highest.

The feed-in tariff works by offering owners of renewable energy systems of up to 5 megawatts in size money for the electricity produced and also exported to the grid. There are different tariff rates for each technology according to the relative expense of the systems, with solar PV installations receiving the most due to the high cost per kilowatt-hour associated with the technology.

However, the renewable energy market has not been able to tap the feed-in tariff’s full potential, says Raphael Raggatt, the report’s lead author.

“There is a need to increase the skills base, especially for the small-scale wind and hydro markets in order to gain the most from the critical first two years of the scheme,” he says. “It is vital that companies invest heavily in R&D in order to reduce costs in line with annual tariff reductions after the first two years.”

The feed-in tariff has had the least impact on the UK’s anaerobic digestion (AD) market, as many in the industry believe the tariff at 9p/kWh is too low and the ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) offer a better deal for the larger installations. Raggatt says the government should look at the effectiveness of the FIT policy on the AD market in the first review after the initial two-year growth period and look to increase the rate to ensure all of the technologies are set to benefit from the scheme.

One of the main industries to benefit from the FIT is the agricultural industry, which, with large areas of land, can exploit each of the relevant technologies supported by the scheme. Raggatt adds that, in these challenging economic times, the feed-in tariff is kick-starting the UK to moving toward a greener economy, which could spur economic and employment growth if exploited well enough.

To explore the in-depth analysis on the renewable energy market reaction and what is expected to happen in the next decade due to the feed-in tariff, read more about the report or purchase and download a copy at Greenbang FIT Report.

Click here to order the report.

With mandates in place for smart meter rollouts across the European Union, the market has significant prospects for growth if government goals are to be met. Greenbang Research forecasts that will require deploying between 133 million to 145 million new smart meters by 2020, which equates to a total market of $24 billion to $26 billion.

After the success of Greenbang’s UK Clean Tech Start-up Company Index last year, we are again looking for new Clean Tech companies with innovative ideas and technologies. We are researching for a report on Clean Tech Companies that have passed through University incubators. Do you know one of these? Contact us at: rowan@greenbang.com

To learn more or to request a questionnaire, please write to Dan Ilett at Greenbang (dan@greenbang.com).

If not, we’d love to hear from you: for more information and a directory questionnaire, please write to Dan Ilett at Greenbang (dan@greenbang.com).

If you’d like your company to be mentioned in the directory, please write to Dan Ilett at Greenbang (dan@greenbang.com) and ask for a directory questionnaire.

“A Decade of Living Dangerously,” the institute’s 10th business continuity management report, find that, while more organisations than ever (52 percent) now have business continuity plans, the number of managers who say continuity is important dropped to 64 percent, down from 76 percent in 2008.

Of greatest concern to the organisations surveyed were the threats of electronic attacks (58 percent) and disease outbreaks such as an influenza pandemic (57 percent).

“Against the backdrop of increasing economic pressure, the need for business continuity has never been greater,” writes Bruce Mann CB, Director of Civil Contingencies Secretariat, Cabinet Office, in the introduction to the report. “If British businesses are to remain competitive in our ever-changing economic and environmental climate they must ensure the availability of their services, a constant state of readiness and the flexibility to respond to any eventuality.”