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When will we have full Smart Grid deployments?

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electric cables

Photo credit mckaysavage

Despite a lot of talk and some high profile trials the day we have ubiquitous full Smart Grids is still a long way off.

I attended the Smart Grids Europe conference in Amsterdam this week.

It was a great conference, I met a ton of interesting people and had some fascinating conversations.

I can’t help feeling a little deflated though.

I’m a huge advocate of Smart Grids. I gave my first international talk about Smart Grids and demand side management (Demand Response) at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen back in early 2007. We are now a full three years later and many utility companies have yet to roll out smart meter pilot programs.

Others are rolling out smart meters more because of pending of legislative requirements than because of any desire help reduce people’s energy footprints.

In fact, after talking to more utility companies, I suspect that smart grids may not proceed beyond smart meter deployments in some regions. The recent Oracle survey of Utility CxO’s confirms this view

utilities executives put improving service reliability (45 percent) and implementing smart metering (41 percent) at the top of the list [of Smart Grid priorities]

So why the apparent passive aggressive response from the utility companies?

Well, they have to keep the lights on. To paraphrase the old saw, they do not want to ‘fix’ their grid, if it ain’t broke! And, let’s be fair, the idea of investing large sums of money to help their customers use less of their product isn’t one which sits comfortably with them. That’s understandable.

And no utility wants to have the kind of customer blowback that PG&E saw with their botched smart meter rollout in Bakersfield.

But there is a huge global imperative for Smart Grids – the Smart 2020 report said:

Smart grid technologies were the largest opportunity found in the study and could globally reduce 2.03 GtCO2e , worth ?79 billion ($124.6 billion).

How then do we square that circle?

We could legislate for them but a better approach would be to change the landscape in which the utility companies operate such that there is a business case for full smart grid deployments.

I suspect the best approach would be the introduction of a carbon tax. This is something we need to do anyway (and the mechanisms for doing so are a topic for a separate post) but if there were a tax on CO2 production, it would be in utility companies (and their customers) interests to cut back on energy consumption.

Even if there were a strong business case for smart grids, given the glacial speeds at which utility companies move, I suspect it is going to be many years before we see full smart grid implementations.

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Friday Morning Green Numbers round-up 03/26/2010

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Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

Here is this Friday’s Green Numbers round-up:

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

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Smart Grid Heavy Hitter series – Chris King, Chief Regulatory officer, eMeter

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eMeter provide software for utilities who are rolling out Smart Grids to help with Meter Data Management and real-time pricing visibility. Chris King is their Chief Regulatory Officer and he and I had a great chat recently about Smart Grids.

We talked about:

  • Chris and eMeter’s definition of a Smart Grid
  • Why eMeter need a Chief Regulatory Officer
  • Regional differences in regulation of Smart Grids and
  • A recent survey that showed 55% of utilities have yet to start Smart Grid rollouts
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Rich Lechner talks about Smart Buildings and a Smarter Urban Infrastructure

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I had a great chat about Smart Buildings the other day with IBM’s VP Energy and Environment, Rich Lechner.

Why are smart buildings important? Well, as Rich says, in the US buildings are responsible for about 70% of the energy consumption and for about 40% of the greenhouse gases emitted.

When you combine that with the fact that 3.5bn people are living in cities today and that that number is rapidly increasing you start to see why making buildings smarter needs to be a very high priority.

The chat with Rich was great because, as with all my interviews, it was unscripted and Rich talked knowledgeably and compellingly about the kinds of ways we can make buildings smarter, and gave the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas as a case study of what can be achieved.

The interview was so good, I split it in two rather than cutting any of it out – here’s part 2:

[Disclosure] – These videos were sponsored by IBM.

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Can corporate social responsibility affect your company’s bottom line?

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Nestl? share price drops

Your company’s share price can be negatively affected if you fail to behave responsibly in your business practices.

I have written here a couple of times about environmental risks companies could potentially face. This first time I wrote about this it was in reference to FaceBook’s decision to source the power for their new data center from a utility which uses coal-fired power primarily.

I followed that up with a post about how the EPA, the SEC and institutional investors are becoming more interested in environmental risk, asking companies to report on risks which may impact on a business’ sales, properties or even their reputation.

The importance of this has been driven home forcibly over the last couple of days as GreenPeace launched an international campaign targeting Nestl?. Why? Because it turns out Nestl? is purchasing palm oil from companies whose plantations cause deforestation of Indonesian rainforests with all the attendant knock-on effects this has (massive CO2 emissions, indigenous communities destroyed, and devastation of the Orang-utan’s habitat to name but a few).

As part of the campaign, Greenpeace launched a report called Caught Red Handed [PDF] outlining the connections between Nestl?, their suppliers and habitat destruction in Indonesia. As part of the launch campaign, Greenpeace had people on the ground at Nestl? offices in Orang-utan costumes publicising the report and they posted a spoof video on YouTube.

Unfortunately Nestl?, decided that instead of fixing their supply chain, that they should go down the censorship route. They quickly contacted Google and had the video removed from YouTube. Nestl? didn’t reckon with the Streisand effect though and in very short order the video was posted on vimeo and promptly re-posted on many other sites.

Nestl?’s lawyers quickly abandoned the take-down option realising they’d merely be playing a game of whack-a-mole if they continued. The storm of publicity which ensued even spread as far as CNN and within 24 hours Nestl? was forced to backtrack . The video is now back up on YouTube.

Nestl? censoring comment on FaceBook

As these things do, the debate took place on FaceBook and Twitter too with many people calling for a boycott of Nestl? products! In a classic social media shot to the foot Nestl? warned people:

we welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.

Now, in any social media forum (or any forum for that matter), threatening people with censorship is definitely not a way to win friends or influence people. And predictably this threat inflamed an already upset audience. The censorship threat went viral and Nestl?’s reputation went into freefall.

The end result, as you can see at the top of this post, Nestl?’s stock price fell too.

This was eminently preventable.

And it is a clear demonstration of the need to be fully aware of all the potential risks in your supply chain.

If Nestl? was utterly transparent and ethical in its business practices, then it couldn’t have been ambushed by Greenpeace.

If Nestl? had ensured that its supply chain was completely free of controversy it would have avoided the pr storm, the reputational damage and the financial losses from loss of sales and the fall in its share price.

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Friday Morning Green Numbers round-up 03/19/2010

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Green numbers

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

Here is this Friday’s Green Numbers round-up:

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

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Smart Grid Heavy Hitter series – Kevin Meagher, CTO EDSA

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EDSA are an interesting company. They are 25 years old, they are privately held and they focus on power analytics. I had an opportunity to have EDSA’s CTO, Kevin Meagher, on the show so I jumped at it to find out more about their smart grid solutions for micro-grid integration.

Kevin and I had a great chat, we talked about:

  • Kevin and EDSA’s definition of a Smart Grid
  • The importance of micro-grids to the smart grid
  • EDSA’s micro-grid management software and their target customers
  • The changing face of energy generation with the likelihood of community microgrids coming together to do energy arbitrage
  • Trends in energy storage systems and
  • Differences in roll outs of micro-grids in varying geographies and regulations and incentives affecting them
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On Open Data, Open Source, UK Libel Law and Evidence-based Sustainability

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?When the facts change, I change my mind.? What do you do, sir?? – John Maynard Keynes

As is often the case, someone asks for a written answer to a question, but then fails to use the material. The great thing about blogs is that they make it very easy to make sure such content isn’t wasted. So here are some thoughts on the GreenMonk? mission and sustainability more broadly.

We set up Greenmonk with the explicit intention of lobbying for open data and open source for better environmental outcomes.

Too much of science today has been privatised, or else unhelpfully politicised. Private sector companies hide evidence that doesn’t suit their goals. The right to kill a piece of research is quite common. It happens in the industry analyst sector too- some IT vendors demand the right to kill research they disagree with before signing a contract with a firm. Needless to say RedMonk doesn’t sign up to these contracts.

As we have seen in East Anglia however climate scientists can also massage figures to suit models they’re putting forward. Its not just private firms that have an agenda.

But science should be about open shared peer review of the data, and associated theories. Without open, uncensored science we can’t solve the world’s pressing environmental problems.

In the UK, libel law is regularly abused to shut down dissenting voices. Its not just randy footballers that try and abuse the law. Pushing back against the status quo are organisations such as Sense About Science, which is backing the National Petition for Libel Law Reform.

I just want to make it clear – science needs to be open to peer review, whether privately or publicly funded. Organisations such as the IPCC needs to be about science first, and lobbying second.

So that’s science and open data. What about sharing the source code?

Makers and doers are often “hackers” working on shared problems with shared tools. Homecamp, for example, is a group of people working on home automation to reduce home energy footprints- some of the people in the community work in sustainability related firms such as CurrentCost and pachube but by no means all of them. We need to hack to experiment with this stuff- before it can be packaged and rolled out to the mainstream.

Tim O’Reilly talks about Alpha Geeks as leading edge indicators of the future. Generally they are open source oriented, because they like to get their hands dirty and make things.

The data needs to be open, the source code needs to be open, the barriers to entry need to be lowered – if we are to build a low emissions, low pollution future. Real science is an architecture of participation.

disclosure: Thomas Dolby cover link courtesy of wikipedia.

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Is there really any need for baseload power?

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No nuclear waste

Photo credit wonderferret

The electricity grid may not need “baseload” generation sources like coal and nuclear to backup the variability of supply from renewables.

Jon Wellinghof is the Chairman of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC is an independent agency that amongst other things, regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil – for more on FERC’s responsibilities see their About page. Chairman Wellinghoff has been involved in the energy industry for 30 years and appointed to the FERC as a commissioner by then president Bush in 2006.

Last year, shortly after being appointed as Chairman of the FERC, Mr Wellinghoff announced that:

No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States….

Wellinghoff said renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands. Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive, he added.

“I think baseload capacity is going to become an anachronism,” he said. “Baseload capacity really used to only mean in an economic dispatch, which you dispatch first, what would be the cheapest thing to do. Well, ultimately wind’s going to be the cheapest thing to do, so you’ll dispatch that first.”…

“What you have to do, is you have to be able to shape it,” he added. “And if you can shape wind and you can effectively get capacity available for you for all your loads.

“So if you can shape your renewables, you don’t need fossil fuel or nuclear plants to run all the time. And, in fact, most plants running all the time in your system are an impediment because they’re very inflexible. You can’t ramp up and ramp down a nuclear plant. And if you have instead the ability to ramp up and ramp down loads in ways that can shape the entire system, then the old concept of baseload becomes an anachronism.”

This was quite an unusual contention at the time (and still is) and despite the Chairman’s many years working in the sector it was, by and large, ignored – even by the administration who had appointed him to the Chairmanship. In fact, the Obama administration has since announced financial backing for new nuclear power plants.

However, a study published last week by the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research backs Chairman Wellinghoff’s assertion. In a study of North Carolina’s electricity needs it concluded backup generation requirements would be modest for a system based largely on solar and wind power, combined with efficiency, hydroelectric power, and other renewable sources like landfill gas:

“Even though the wind does not blow nor the sun shine all the time, careful management, readily available storage and other renewable sources, can produce nearly all the electricity North Carolinians consume,” explained Dr. John Blackburn, the study’s author. Dr. Blackburn is Professor Emeritus of Economics and former Chancellor at Duke University.

“Critics of renewable power point out that solar and wind sources are intermittent,” Dr. Blackburn continued. “The truth is that solar and wind are complementary in North Carolina. Wind speeds are usually higher at night than in the daytime. They also blow faster in winter than summer. Solar generation, on the other hand, takes place in the daytime. Sunlight is only half as strong in winter as in summertime. Drawing wind power from different areas — the coast, mountains, the sounds or the ocean — reduces variations in generation. Using wind and solar in tandem is even more reliable. Together, they can generate three-fourths of the state’s electricity. When hydroelectric and other renewable sources are added, the gap to be filled is surprisingly small. Only six percent of North Carolina’s electricity would have to come from conventional power plants or from other systems.”

With larger and more inter-connected electricity grids, the requirement for baseload falls even further because the greater the geographical spread of your grid, the greater the chances that the wind will be blowing or the sun shining in some parts of it.

So, is there really any need for baseload power any more, or is this now just a myth perpetuated by those with vested interests?

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Energy and Sustainability show for March 15th

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We had a couple of snafu’s on the show today. At the beginning of the show we had some calendaring confusion and a couple of people watching last week’s show thinking it was the live one!

Then I had a close call at the end of the show when I thought I had stopped broadcasting but left the camera and mic on inadvertently! While it is true I uttered an expletive, at least I didn’t do a Nellgate on it!!!

Here is the chatstream from the show:

Tom Raftery :
Hi everyone

?16?:?33
monkchips :
have i been watching last week’s show?
nice

?16?:?34
yellowpark :
hahaha

?16?:?34
monkchips :
well change the recurring calendar entry then …
?
16?:?34
Tom Raftery :
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/313715,11-siberian-tigers-starve-to-death-at-chinese-zoo.html
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/chile-earthquake-moved-entire-city-10-feet-to-the-west
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2010/03/the_challenges.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62E14Z20100315
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/10/spain-barcelona-snow
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/juanita-goggins-dead-once_n_495498.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/nokia-moving-into-kinetically-charged-cell-phones-files-new-patent.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20000430-54.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=GreenTech
?
16?:?43
Joe :
some sense from the auto industry at last…
?
16?:?43
MikeTheBee :
Hi Tom, oh, no date display today?
?
16?:?43
Tom Raftery :
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/new-charging-method-could-mean-exponentially-faster-battery-recharge-times.php
http://www.nytimes.com//2010/03/12/opinion/12chase.html
http://www.grist.org/article/death-of-a-thousand-cuts

?16?:?47
monkchips :
Smith Electric Vehicles Eyes Road to an IPO http://bit.ly/b76p5F #logistics #WAYmoreinterestingthantesla
never mind Tesla, a logistics EV IPO!
?
16?:?48
Tom Raftery :
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/cisco-saves-over-24-million-with-packaging-diet.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/dell-launches-most-efficient-desktop-computer-to-date.php
http://www.viridity.com/blog/bid/36035/Top-7-Reasons-to-Remove-Orphan-Servers-from-the-Data-Center-Floor
http://www.ceres.org/ceresroadmap
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn10_042/pn10_042.aspx
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/15/rbs-blinded-by-spin

?16?:?52
Ian B :
UK still has lead in wave and tide development – but for how long?

?16?:?53
MikeTheBee :
Ireland are working hard to take the lead.
?
16?:?53
Tom Raftery :
http://blogs.msdn.com/mspowerutilities/archive/2010/03/11/let-s-call-the-smart-grid-what-it-is-disruptive.aspx
?
16?:?54
Ian B :
Yeah should have said UK and Ireland
?
16?:?55
Tom Raftery :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/15/bp-shell-tar-sands-green-energy
?
16?:?56
monkchips :
this is the same company claims 70% of its employees are workin on cloud…?
?
16?:?57
Tom Raftery :
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/trash-wifi-afghanistan.html
?
16?:?57
monkchips :
superb!
?
16?:?58
Tom Raftery :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hereford/worcs/8562434.stm

?16?:?58
Ian B :
Too right
?
16?:?58
Tom Raftery :
http://www.fastcompany.com/1575650/cleveland-mall-gets-a-new-life-as-a-giant-greenhouse
?
16?:?58
MikeTheBee :
But all his family keep the money
?
16?:?59
Tom Raftery :
http://www.avaaz.org/en/protect_the_elephants/
?
17?:?00
MikeTheBee :
No date stamp today?, Tom
np
He made 45mill
Thx Tom.
?
17?:?02
Tom Raftery :
Thanks everyone for your comments and interest
?
17?:?03
Ian B :
Thanks Tom
?
17?:?03
monkchips :
nice close! “oh fuck!”#
?
17?:?03
MikeTheBee :
I still find it strange that when I am *not* logged into Zoho chat the links are clickable, but after I log in they are not. Wierd or what.
?
17?:?04
monkchips :
dont have a hand shandy there tom, you’re still broadcasting…
?
17?:?04
MikeTheBee :
You are still *LIVE* Tom
?
17?:?05
monkchips :
how long are you over for? which show is it?
?
17?:?06
MikeTheBee :
THE END!
?
17?:?06
Tom Raftery :
LOL!!!
Thanks guys