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Symantec’s Sustainability Story: It’s The Power Consumption, Stupid.

symantec commitment

I was lucky enough recently to meet Jose Iglesias, the guy spearheading Symantec’s sustainability efforts. I wrote the interview up over on Monkchips, but much of the content belongs here too. I like Symantec’s clear focus on energy. While others are broadening their sustainability story, Symantec is doubling down on managing energy more effectively, with a plan to take its expertise in reducing IT power consumption and start applying it to broader Smart Grid demand response.

Symantec’s Green IT story is very much an enterprise play and arguably a solid sustainability product strategy could help to increase visibility for some of Symantec’s enterprise tools. Thus for example – Symantec NetBackup PureDisk for storage deduplication could be used to cut the amount of storage and power. One challenge for Symantec is identifying and serving the new buyers in energy reduction. Most of the firm’s traditional practitioner purchasers are not tasked with reducing the energy footprint of the products they manage….

“We sell to admins, but few get compensated on energy savings”

To which I would say… not yet.

Smart Grid as Game Changer

One major opportunity for Symantec to change the account management game there is to parlay its IT experience directly into related spaces such as Smart Grid security and asset management. I knew before the briefing that Symantec is having some early success in the Smart Grid market selling, for example, cryptography. Security is a major issue overhanging smart grid and remains a key selling point.

I am not a fan of FUD though it certainly works. But let’s get real. In Europe for example we’re getting all excited about the need for smart grid standards to prevent tampering with our energy supply. Yet Russia could turn off a gas tap and we’d be screwed within weeks, no smart grid required. Whichever way you look at it – energy reduction is going to be very big business indeed. The tail is starting to wag the dog.

So Symantec has plenty of potential upside in Green IT near term, and smart grids longer term. If you’re interested in learning more about the company’s efforts and products in energy efficiency check out the Monkchips post, which also talk to the fact the firm needs to improve its sustainability reporting in order to have a stronger voice in the sustainability conversation. I know many of you are CSR reporting nuts…

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By monkchips – July 23, 2010

Friday Green Numbers round-up 07/23/2010

Green Numbers

Photo credit tiffa130

And here are this week’s Green Numbers:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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By Tom Raftery – July 23, 2010

GE’s U.S. Consumer Impressions of the Smart Grid survey

Results of GE Smart Grid consumer survey

GE published a U.S. Consumer Impressions of the Smart Grid [pdf] survey* recently.

I spoke to the general manager of Metering and Sensing Systems for GE’s Digital Energy business, Luke Clemente about the survey and he told me that the main points of the survey were:

  • 96% of Americans who are familiar with the smart grid are overwhelmingly positive about the technology and what it will do for the country
  • while only 2% thought that smart grid was not a smart investment by utilities and/or consumers
  • 80% of U.S. consumers are excited about upgrading the electrical network with smart grid so that their country can rely more on clean domestic energy sources
  • 78% think that the smart grid would help reduce the number of power outages and restore power more quickly when outages do occur
  • 74% understand that the smart grid will give them the info they need to make better decisions about electricity usage
  • 72% think the smart grid will help them save money on their monthly bills
  • 63% believe the smart grid will create new jobs in the energy sector
  • 66% agree they would buy smart appliances and other in-home devices to maximize their control over energy once smart grid rolls out in their community

In our follow-up conversation Luke said

One of the awareness issues which needs to be driven, is that it does cost more to generate electricity at two o’clock in the afternoon than it does at 2am. To the extent that we can shift our use of energy to less intensive times, that will end up driving better utilisation of the grid and better economics

Luke went on to mention the Department of Energy’s year-long study which showed that consumers, when given information on their electricity consumption, reduced their bills by 10% and reduced peak demand by 15%.

There are three crucial points here –
consumers have quite a positive attitude to Smart Grids
consumers will adjust their behaviour when given information related to their energy use and
that response is good for the grid (and by extension, for its users).

We have seen some instances where utilities failure to communicate effectively with their customers has led to blowback against Smart Meter and Smart Grid projects.

However, as this survey shows, overall consumer sentiment to Smart Grids is positive. Utility companies need to beware that they don’t squander this goodwill – right now it is theirs to lose.

You should follow me on twitter here.

* The survey was conducted in March 2010 by StrategyOne among a census representative sample of 1,000 U.S. consumers via telephone. The margin of error for the sample of U.S. consumers (n=1,000) is + 3.1% at the 95% level of confidence.

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By Tom Raftery – July 22, 2010

British Gas launch version 2 of their iPhone app – nice but non-inclusive!

British Gas iPhone app

British Gas announced recently that they had updated their iPhone app to version 2.

The original application, which was downloaded over 100,000 times, helped customers monitor energy use and submit meter readings to avoid estimated bills. In June alone over 18,000 meter readings were submitted using the app.

With the new version customers can

  • view their account balance
  • see their last bill amount
  • check when payment is due and
  • view graphs of their personal energy consumption of the past 24 months
British Gas iPhone app - electricity

British Gas iPhone app - electricity

Benjamin Braun, Head of Online Services, at British Gas said:

More customers already contact us over the web than by telephone and with these new features, we expect that our App will quickly become the main way that many of our iPhone customers will manage their British Gas account.

When I read this I wondered why, if more people are contacting British Gas over the web than by phone, they decided to develop an application for the iPhone. Why not a mobile site which works across all devices. I reached out to their spokesperson David Outhwaite and I asked him if there were plans to develop a similar app for competing platforms like Android or better yet a mobile website which would work across all platforms.

David replied that

Our focus has been the iphone as that is the device from which we receive the vast majority of contact to our website. No current plans [to develop for other platforms]

The fact that this application has been so successful for British Gas shows that people have an appetite for interacting with their energy related information. Consequently, I found David’s response very disappointing.

Although I do own an iPhone, and I like what British Gas are doing with this app, I feel they are doing their non-iPhone owning customers a huge disservice by not providing them with similar functionality. Especially when you consider that the iPhone OS only commands 14% of the mobile operating system market share, what about the other 86% of British Gas’ customers?

It wouldn’t be hard to develop a mobile site which served iPhones, Android devices, and other smartphones equally well.

Hopefully British Gas will have a change of heart and produce a more inclusive mobile site soon.

You should follow me on twitter here.

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By Tom Raftery – July 20, 2010

What is the best communications protocol for Smart Grids?

Communications tower

Photo credit urbanfeel

One of the key tenets of a Smart Grid is that you have real-time, two-way communications between the consumer and the utility company. To enable this a communications infrastructure needs to be rolled out. Before that can happen though, we need to examine the different communications protocols to find the most suitable one.

I was talking to Andy Slater, the EMEA Marketing Director for Sensus, the other day. Sensus are the company providing the communications platform for UK-based Arqiva’s Smart Grid pilot in Reading [PDF]. And their proposed Smart Grid communications infrastructure for all of Britain. While, in North America Sensus have 8 million end points rolled out across 225 utilities.

The Sensus solution uses long range radio to communicate with smart meters. This allows Sensus to achieve a 99.5% first-time connection rate during installations, according to Slater. This is higher than most other technologies (GPRS, WiMax, etc.) and so saves a considerable amount of money by obviating the need for a second call out or re-engineering.

When I mentioned that Power Line Communications (PLC) would, by definition, have as close as possible to 100% first-time connectivity, Andy countered that that’s all well and good for electrical meters but the Sensus solution also works for gas and water meters. He then went on to point out that PLC requires far more repeaters to boost the signal and that it is not suitable for high voltage equipment.

The other advantage which Andy mentioned is that for gas and water meters which are not powered, battery life is going to be an issue. GPRS and mobile solutions require a lot of power and their battery life may be as short as 5 years whereas Andy claimed because the power requirement of long range radio is lower, the batteries in their meters could last up to 15 years, thereby reducing service calls to replace depleted batteries.

Listening to Andy, you could be forgiven for wondering why any utility would go with a communications protocol other than long-range radio – so can anyone enlighten me – what is the best communications protocol for Smart Grids?

You should follow me on twitter here.

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By Tom Raftery – July 19, 2010

Friday Green Numbers round-up 07/16/2010

Green Numbers

Photo credit XcBiker

And here are this week’s Green Numbers:

    Smart Grids

  • GE announces $200M Smart Grid challange

    GE wants to spark a revolution in the way we create and distribute electricity, and seizing on a critical underfunding of grid investments by the U.S. government (a paltry $3.4 billion) the 2nd largest company in the world (as ranked by Forbes) wants to do something about it.

    GE is partnering with four major venture capital firms, including Al Gore-advised Kleiner Perkins, to issue the $200 million challenge to “…businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, and students to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world’s toughest challenges – building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21st century.”

    tags: ge greennumbers electricity $200 million challenge smart grid

  • Smart Grid Spending To Plateau at $35 Billion in 3 Years

    The smart grid has been a lumbering but steady and inevitable presence in the utility industry, with a speedy uptake in the number of start-ups interested in creating everything from energy storage technology to user dashboards for home energy consumption and a somewhat slower uptake in the number of smart grid pilot projects popping up nationwide. Less than two years ago it was expected to grow to at least $65 billion by 2013. Cisco has identified at least $20 billion in potential business opportunities around the grid, which the company says will be bigger than the Internet, and $3.4 billion of stimulus money was to be dished out to 100 projects. So why the projection from Pike Research that the spending will top off at $35 billion by 2013?

    tags: greennumbers smart grid investments spending

  • Trilliant Raises $106 Million of Capital

    Trilliant Incorporated, a leader in delivering Smart Grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, today announced that it has closed financing totaling $106 million from a global syndicate of industry and financial leaders.

    The financing round was led by two highly-respected financial investors, Investor Growth Capital (the wholly-owned venture arm of Investor AB of Sweden) and VantagePoint Venture Partners and two leading global grid-related equipment companies, ABB and GE. The financing, which was coordinated by Deutsche Bank, also includes a significant credit facility from a major venture credit provider as well as continuing financial support from existing investors MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures. The new investment will be used to finance Trilliant’s continued growth in North America and globally.

    tags: trilliant smart grid financing round investment greennumbers

    • Policy and Regulation:

  • Europe needs to reduce emissions by 30%

    An excellent article by the UK climate change secretary, German federal environment minister and French environment minister:
    Europe’s current focus on recovery from recession must not distract us from the question of what kind of economy we want to build. Unless we set our countries on a path to a sustainable low-carbon future, we will face continued uncertainty and significant costs from energy price volatility and a destabilising climate.\nThis is why we today set out our belief that the European Union should raise its emissions target. A reduction of 30 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 would represent a real incentive for innovation and action in the international context. It would be a genuine attempt to restrict the rise in global temperatures to 2°C – the key climate danger threshold – stiffening the resolve of those already proposing ambitious action and encouraging those waiting in the wings. It would also make good business sense….

    tags: europe eu low carbon emissions 30% 20% carbon greennumbers

  • Cutting UK central Government carbon emissions by 10%

    “The new Coalition Government has pledged to be the ‘greenest government ever’ and has committed to reduce carbon emissions across the central Government estate by 10% within 12 months. Launched at the end of May, our Central Government Carbon Management Service is already working with twenty one Central Government bodies to help them meet this challenge.”

    tags: uk govt greennumbers central Government estate Central Government Carbon Management Service

  • China to Invest $3.7 Billion in Smart Grid this Year Alone

    The state-owned electric transmission company in China, State Grid, has moved forward with establishing a set of industry rules, standards and favored technologies for the growing smart grid industry in China. But the aggressive move to establish industry standards has competitors in the nascent smart grid sector a bit concerned.

    tags: china smart grid state grid greennumbers

    • Sustainability

  • The Seven Triads of Sustainability

    Seven ‘Triads of Sustainability’ – where seven issues (participation, decision-making, partnership, governance, knowledge and information, continual improvement, and lifestyles) leading to sustainability are explained in detail with case studies . These triads are key ingredients that define and drive sustainability, particularly at the local level.

    tags: sustainability triads Seven Triads of Sustainability greennumbers

  • Eurosif – European Sustainable Investment Forum Remuneration Report

    Eurosif partnered with EIRIS for the Remuneration theme report.

    Research highlights and recommendations for shareholders and regulators include:

     - 29% of FTSE Eurofirst300 listed companies have some commitment to linking remuneration to ESG performance – although concerns exists around the extent to which performance targets are set as ‘soft targets’ thereby guaranteeing a minimum level of bonus
     - Financial institutions account for 23% of the FTSE Eurofirst300 index but only 16% of financial institutions have an ESG-linked remuneration system
     - Shareholders should engage with companies by voting against unacceptable remuneration packages and calling for and taking part in shareholder dialogue in determining remuneration policy,
     - Regulators should promote active dialogue between companies and shareholders by legislating for a binding “say on pay” vote and setting appropriate guidelines to promote good remuneration practices and disclosure.

    The report examines critical challenges and opportunities for companies in relation to remuneration, incentives and long-term sustainability.

    tags: remuneration remuneration report eurofirst300 greennumbers

  • Accounting rules could force businesses to disclose environmental impact

    Companies could be asked to publish details of their environmental and social impacts alongside their financial accounts under new rules being discussed with the organisations that set accounting standards.

    News of the initiative – which would mean that businesses have to account for the impacts they have on local water quality, plants and animals – emerged as a major report for the UN is published today. It warns that companies are causing vast damage to the “living fabric of this planet”, raising threats to society and their own profits, but also that the business opportunities to make money from improving the environment are forecast to quadruple over the next decade.

    tags: environmental impacts social impacts csr corporate reporting greennumbers accounting standards

  • AT&T Rolls Out Its 2,000th Alternative Fuel Vehicle and 1,500th Compressed Natural Gas Vehicle in Its Corporate Fleet – Yahoo! Finance

    AT&T today announced the deployment of the 2,000th alternative fuel vehicle and 1,500th compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle in its corporate vehicle fleet, giving it one of the largest CNG vehicle fleets in the U.S. These milestones are part of a $565 million planned investment announced in March 2009 to replace more than 15,000 fleet vehicles with alternative fuel models through 2018. Currently, the AT&T corporate fleet includes more than 75,900 vehicles.

    AT&T anticipates purchasing approximately 8,000 CNG vehicles over a five-year span, at an anticipated cost of $350 million. AT&T expects to spend an additional $215 million through 2018 to replace 7,100 fleet passenger cars with alternative fuel models. According to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), AT&T’s alternative fuel vehicle initiative will:

    – Save 49 million gallons of gasoline over the 10-year deployment period.
    – Reduce carbon emissions by 211,000 metric tons – the greenhouse gas equivalent of removing 147,929 passenger vehicles from the road for one year.

    tags: at&t att cng compressed natural gas vehicle fleet greennumbers

    • Renewables

  • Africa’s Largest Wind Farm Opens in Morocco

    Earlier this week, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI officially inaugurated a wind farm in the town of Melloussa.   With 165 turbines and a production capacity of 140 megawatts, the farm is touted as Africa’s largest wind farm. Besides significantly reducing CO2 emissions, the farm is expected to save over 125,000 metric tons of oil annually.

    tags: morocco wind farm greennumbers

  • Germany targets switch to 100% renewables for its electricity by 2050 | Environment | The Guardian

    Germany could derive all of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2050 and become the world’s first major industrial nation to kick the fossil-fuel habit, the country’s Federal Environment Agency said today.

    The country already gets 16% of its electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources – three times’ higher than the level it had achieved 15 years ago.

    “A complete conversion to renewable energy by 2050 is possible from a technical and ecological point of view,” said Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Federal Environment Agency.

    “It’s a very realistic target based on technology that already exists – it’s not a pie-in-the-sky prediction,” he said.

    tags: germany electricity renewable energy greennumbers fossil fuel

  • 10 Myths About The Gulf Oil Well Blowout And Offshore Drilling

    Is shutting down offshore drilling more risky than carrying on? What about jobs that real families depend on? Do we have to choose between dolphins and employment? What are the real issues in the Gulf? Here’s 10 Questions that were fielded by Andy Sharpless, the CEO of Oceana at a recent TedxOilSpill conference. We’ve let Andy speak in his own voice here unedited.

    tags: Andy Sharpless TedxOilSpill oilspill offshore drilling greennumbers

  • Gulf Oil Spill Investigation Now Includes Tens Of Thousands Of Abandoned Wells

    A lead congressional committee investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has broadened its inquiry, now checking if tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells are leaking or even being monitored for leaks.

    tags: salazar oilspill Gulf of Mexico oil wells gas wells abandoned oil wells greennumbers

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

You should follow me on twitter here.

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By Tom Raftery – July 16, 2010

Friday Green Numbers round-up 07/09/2010

Green Numbers

Photo credit trindade.joao

And here is this week’s Green numbers:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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By Tom Raftery – July 9, 2010

NightWatchman Server Edition v2.0 helps tackle virtual server sprawl

Grassy server room!

Photo via Tom Raftery

In a bid to help companies tackle server sprawl, 1E launched v2.0 of its NightWatchman Server Edition yesterday.

1E’s NightWatchman software comes in two flavours – the desktop edition to allow for central administration of the power management of laptops and desktops (including Macs) and the server edition.

The power consumption of desktop computers, which are often only used 8 hours a day, (and may need to be woken up once a month at 3am for an update) is relatively straightforward to manage. On the other hand, the power management of servers is quite a bit more complex. Servers are, by definition supposed to be accessible at all times, so you can’t shut them down, right?

Well, yes and no.

Not all servers are equal. Up to 15% of servers globally are powered on, and simply doing nothing. This equates to roughly $140 billion in power costs and produces 80 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Nightwatchman helps in a number of ways. First, its agent-based software quickly identifies servers whose CPU utilisation is is simply associated with its own management and maintenance processes (i.e. the server is unused). These servers can be decomissioned or repurposed.

NightWatchman goes further though and it uses its Drowsy Server technology to dynamically drop CPU and fan speeds on servers when they are not under pressure, and ramp them back up once more as soon as the server starts to be used. 1E estimates an average 12% energy savings per server due to Drowsy Server alone.

This latest release of NightWatchman Server Edition addresses virtualisation and virtual server sprawl.

Because virtualisation software vendors have made virtualisation such a trivial task there is now a growing issue of virtual server sprawl. NightWatchman v2.0 can now identify unused virtual servers to allow for them to be deleted or put to work freeing up server resources (and software licenses!).

Even more interesting though, is that 1E are publishing in the Customer Spotlight section of their blog, a series of posts from CSC detailing the journey of installing and using NightWatchman Server Edition within CSC to reduce energy consumption.

It is one thing to hear from the vendor just how good their product is. It is another thing completely to have someone like CSC detail the rollout of the software across their North American server infrastructure. This is a blog I will be following with interest.

You should follow me on twitter here.

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By Tom Raftery – July 8, 2010

Is daytime cleaning Green?

Daytime cleaning

Photo credit Senator Mark Warner

I have noticed several companies mention in their sustainability reports a shift to Daytime Cleaning and I wonder if this is a good thing.

On the face of it, daytime cleaning seems very obviously Green. The California EPA is saving $100,000 per year in energy costs by not having to light its headquarters by night for cleaning staff, for example.

However, by shifting cleaning services to daytime, you are also shifting the energy utilisation of the cleaning staff to the time of peak demand. At this time the electricity generation mix is at its dirtiest with all the fossil fuel generators in the mix. Adding demand during peak load is not a good thing.

During the evening/night however, energy demand falls and consequently at this time there is a higher percentage of renewables in the mix. As a result electricity consumed during off peak hours has a lower environmental impact.

It would depend from area to area and on the energy provider involved but shifting to daytime cleaning is not necessarily an environmentally sound practise and may, in fact do more harm than good.

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By Tom Raftery – July 7, 2010

GreenMonk: the blog is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache