Archive for the 'video' Category

GreenMonk talks batteries and sustainability with Dr Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on December 5, 2008
in Podcast, energy and video
. 0 Comments

I talked with Dr. Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power the other day about their new lithium-ion batteries.

Boston Power are a startup battery business but Dr Lampe-Onnerud is no stranger to lithium ion technology, holding as she does, close to 20 patents for Li-ion technologies.

Boston Power have launched a new series of Li-ion batteries which sound really intriguing. They charge faster than traditional batteries, they hold their charge longer, and while typical Li-ion batteries start to wear after 150 power cycles, the Boston Power ones only start to wear after 1500! This means a far longer lifetime for the batteries, reducing the need to keep buying replacement batteries as charged times decrease.

We also discussed on the call the increasing requirement for batteries for plug-in hybrids and in the near to mid future, the new market for home batteries to take in power when electricity is cheap and potentially sell it back or come off grid when electricity is expensive.

However, from a purely selfish perspective, the thing I want to know most is when will there be a version of this battery available for my MacBook Pro!!!

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Doug Neal on reducing the 98%

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on November 6, 2008
in Podcast and video
. 1 Comment

it@cork are holding their annual conference this year on the theme “Green IT: Reduce CO2, Raise profits”

We here in GreenMonk are sponsoring the event and as part of the sponsorship we are interviewing many of the speakers in the run-up to the conference.

In this interview, I chatted with Doug Neal, research Fellow at The Leading Edge Forum about his presentation.

We talk about how although IT is only responsible for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions, it can act as a huge lever on reducing the other 98%.

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GreenMonk interviews Stefan Engelhardt about SAP’s vision for Smart Grids

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on November 5, 2008
in Podcast, smart grid and video
. 0 Comments

One of the more interesting keynote talks at the recent SAP for Utilities conference in San Antonio TX was the one given by Stefan Engelhardt, SAP’s Head of Industry Business Unit Utilities.

In his keynote he discussed decarbonisation and SAP’s vision around Smart Grids and Smart Meters. I asked him if he’d be willing to come on camera to talk about some of these topics and he very graciously agreed.

With the vast majority of the world’s utilities using SAP’s software, they have their fingers firmly on the pulse of this sector. What was pleasantly surprising to me was the amount of interest SAP is seeing from their utility client companies in Smart Grids. As Stefan himself said in the interview:

For the next couple of years we see a clear trend towards the deployment of Smart Metering technology in the Utilities industry… and that means we have to adapt the existing business processes to this new technology

It was also fascinating to hear Stefan’s predictions around how Smart Grids will be rolled out gradually by utilities. Polling of smart meters by utilities will be ramped up bit-by-bit from maybe once a day to once every 10-15 minutes and this will have huge implications for the amount of data utilities will have to manage. Previously they may have collected 1 terabyte every 10 years. With smart meters reporting energy usage every 10-15 minutes they could be collecting 1 terabyte every month, or less!

With the roll-out of Smart Grids, utility companies will be able to publish energy prices in realtime based on supply and demand. This is important because electricity is more plentiful when renewables are contributing to the mix, so cheaper electricity should also track closely with Greener electricity!.

Utilities will now be able to offer new products like critical peak pricing for peak shaving in times of electricity shortage and even demand stimulation, to encourage people to consume electricity when supply is exceeding demand. This will encourage people to shift some of their loads to times when renewables are contributing more, thereby reducing the CO2 emissions associated with that load.

[Disclosure - SAP covered my expenses to attend this conference]

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Generation We video

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on November 2, 2008
in video
. 0 Comments


Generation WE: The Movement Begins… from Generation We on Vimeo.

I came across this video via Dominic Campbell on Twitter.

Despite the US bias there are a couple of interesting points in the video, the one that caught me was that the current generation is expected to have a shorter life expectancy than the generation which came before.

Here is a link to a full copy of the book mentioned in the video for download.

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Electricity 2.0: Using the Lessons of the Web to Improve Our Energy Networks - the video!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on October 26, 2008
in demand response and video
. 2 Comments

Many people have been asking me if there is a video of the presentation I gave at this year’s O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo available anywhere.

I asked the organisers but they said they hadn’t recorded it.

Then my good friend Andrea Vascellari came to the rescue. I knew he had attended the presentation but I was unaware that he recorded it.

He published the video above this afternoon so for all those who were interested, here you go…

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GreenMonk Interview with Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on October 10, 2008
in Podcast and video
. 2 Comments

I talked to Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist, Rob Bernard the other day. We discussed how large organisations can reduce their environmental footprint, using Microsoft’s own example; we discussed how Microsoft software is helping other companies reduce their carbon footprint and we discussed how Microsoft people and products are helping research into Climate Change.

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