Dave Elve, Vice President, Sensus

Dave Elve

What makes him powerful: For nearly 20 years, Elve has contributed to the global utility industry with technology innovation as a vendor, consultant and through active industry committee participation.  

His vendor background includes leadership roles at several high profile utility industry firms, including Vice President with Sensus, Vice President at Enspiria Solutions (a Black & Veatch company), Vice President at Cellnet (now Landis+Gyr) and Senior Vice President with Atos Origin, a $6.5 billion global IT services firm based in Paris. Elve's career began at Schlumberger Metering where he developed some early key AMI initiatives.  

As a consultant, Elve has worked with numerous utilities on their Smart Grid programs, including Sempra Energy, CPS Energy, Baltimore Gas & Electric, Pepco Holdings and NV Energy.

On a community level, Elve has been instrumental in educating and informing regulators, legislators, consumers and even media about the benefits of smart meters and the smart grid. Elve co-founded and is the President of the Smart Meter Manufacturers Association of America (SMMAA), a consensus-based advocacy group consisting of smart meter manufacturers representing roughly 99 percent of the installed base of electric meters currently deployed in North America.

"Our group is collaborating on top-of-mind subjects and creating a unified voice with the goal of moving the industry forward through policy. While our companies are competitors for utilities' smart meter business, in the area of public policy, we stand on common ground in our desire for well-reasoned smart grid regulation and incentives to advance the market," Elve told SmartPlanet shortly after the association launched.

To educate the industry, Elve is fixture at industry events, having presented at nearly 50 conferences worldwide, as well as serving as an advisory and/or program committee member for DistribuTECH, Autovation, GridWeek, Metering Americas and Smart Energy International.

Just one of many, but perhaps the most important, smart grid contributions of Elve's career is as the Founder and acting Executive Director of SmartGridSuccess.org, an independent and non-profit centralized information hub, which provides a forum for the positive messaging and case studies for the Smart Grid. Elve established www.smartgridsuccess.org to serve as a credible reference site that can provide an information toolkit to further the support of and investment in the smart grid.