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NATURE OF OPERATIONS	12 Months Ended
	Dec. 31, 2012
NATURE OF OPERATIONS [Abstract]
Nature of Operations [Text Block]	NATURE OF OPERATIONS (a) Description of Business Acorn Energy, Inc. (“Acorn” or the “Company”) is a Delaware corporation which is a holding company focused on technology driven solutions for energy infrastructure management. Through its majority-owned operating subsidiaries the Company provides the following products and services: • Sonar and acoustic related solutions for energy, defense and commercial markets and other real-time embedded hardware and software development is reported in the Company’s Energy & Security Sonar Solutions (formerly known as Naval and RT Solutions) segment whose activities are conducted through its DSIT Solutions Ltd. (“DSIT”) subsidiary. • Smart grid distribution automation products and services provided through the Company’s GridSense Pty Ltd. and GridSense Inc. subsidiaries (“GridSense”) which were acquired in May 2010 (see Note 3(b)). • Power Generation (PG) Monitoring  products and services are provided by the Company's OmniMetrix subsidiary which was acquired in February 2012 (See Note 3(a)). OmniMetrix's PG products and services deliver critical, real-time machine information to customers and provide remote diagnostics that give users real control over their equipment. • Energy and security sensor systems services which are provided by the Company’s U.S. Seismic Systems, Inc. (“USSI”) subsidiary which was effectively acquired in February 2010 (see Note 3(c)). The Company’s operations are based in the United States, Israel and Australia.  Acorn’s shares are traded on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol ACFN. See Note 20 for segment information and major customers. (b) Accounting Principles The consolidated financial statements have been prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”). (c) Use of Estimates in Preparation of Financial Statements The preparation of consolidated financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities as of the date of the financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting periods. As applicable to these consolidated financial statements, the most significant estimates and assumptions relate to percentages of completion with respect to revenue recognition, uncertainties with respect to income taxes, inventories, contingencies, purchase price allocations and analyses of the possible impairment of goodwill. (d) Amounts in the footnotes in the Financial Statements All dollar amounts in the footnotes of the consolidated financial statements are in thousands except for per share data.

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- Definition

The entire disclosure for the nature of an entity's business, the major products or services it sells or provides and its principal markets, including the locations of those markets. If the entity operates in more than one business, the disclosure also indicates the relative importance of its operations in each business and the basis for the determination (for example, assets, revenues, or earnings).

+ References

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef

-Publisher FASB

-Name Accounting Standards Codification

-Topic 275

-SubTopic 10

-Section 50

-Paragraph 2

-URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=6927468&loc=d3e6003-108592



Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef

-Publisher AICPA

-Name Statement of Position (SOP)

-Number 94-6

-Paragraph 10

-LegacyDoc This reference is SUPERSEDED by the Accounting Standards Codification effective for interim and annual periods ending after September 15, 2009. This reference is included to help users transition from the previous accounting hierarchy and will be removed from future versions of this taxonomy.

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