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IBM reckons Green is where economic and ecological concerns converge

I love this ad. It demonstrates that not only has IBM a sense of humour but also that they have the right story - today, with soaring energy prices, Green is where economic and ecological concerns converge.

Last year IBM announced Project Big Green. This was a commitment by IBM to re-direct $1 billion USD per annum across its businesses to increase energy efficiency! Serious money by anyone’s standards.

This isn’t just some philanthropic gesture on IBM’s part. By making this investment the company expects to save more than five billion kilowatt hours per year. IBM anticipates it will double the computing capacity in the eight million square feet of data center space which IBM operates within the next three years without increasing power consumption or its carbon footprint. In other words they expect to double their compute power, without adding data centers, nor increasing their carbon footprint!

This year, IBM have gone even further! As an extension of their project Big Green they have announced ‘modular data centers’ similar to Sun’s S20 product. They come in three sizes and IBM claims they are

designed to achieve the world’s highest ratings for energy leadership, as determined by the Green Grid, an industry group focused on advancing energy efficiency for data centers and business compute ecosystems.

I’d love to see comparable metrics between the S20 and IBMs modular data centers.

However, the take home message today is that IBM is committing serious resources to its Green project. Not because they care deeply for the planet (I’m sure they do) but because they care deeply about the bottom line and with increasing energy costs, there is now a sweet convergence between doing the right thing for the planet and for the shareholder!

by-sa

Energy Demand Management II - the sequel!

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Creative Commons License photo credit: owlhere

The post I wrote about energy demand management (EDM) last week certainly stimulated some discussion and got people thinking - always good.

It appears it was a timely post too as I came across two announcements which seem to indicate that the big utilities are looking very seriously at smart grids and EDM.

The first news came out of SAP’s recently formed AMI Lighthouse Council when they announced the integration of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) with Enterprise technology.

The AMI lighthouse consists of SAP, CenterPoint Energy, CLP Power Hong Kong Limited, Consumers Energy, Energy East, Florida Power & Light, Oklahoma Gas & Electric and Public Service Electric & Gas as well as several strategic vendors like eMeter, Itron and OSIsoft.

AMI short for Advanced Metering Infrastructure refers to systems that measure, collect and analyse energy usage, from smart electricity meters on request or on a pre-defined schedule.

From Wikipedia

This infrastructure includes hardware, software, communications, customer associated systems and meter data management software.
The network between the measurement devices and business systems allows collection and distribution of information to customers, suppliers, utility companies and service providers. This enables these businesses to either participate in, or provide, demand response solutions, products and services.

The idea is that the AMI Lighthouse Council are working towards the integration of SAP® solutions with AMI solutions for business processes, including customer relationship and billing and enterprise asset management. All vital to making EDM a reality.

The second announcement which caught my eye is that IBM is working with Country Energy (a utility co. which owns and operates Australia’s largest energy supply network) to develop a smart grid in Australia. From the announcement:

Country Energy is pursuing the Intelligent Network concept to improve reliability, support the growth of renewables like solar and wind, and make energy efficiency simpler for customers.

When you see tech companies like SAP, and IBM betting heavily on the smart grid concept and utilities like Country Energy, CenterPoint Energy and CLP Power Hong Kong Limited coming on board to make it happen you know that smart grids are coming.

This next generation of smart grids will be able to absorb far more energy from unpredictable (destabilising) renewable energy sources without compromising grid stability which is in all our best interests.

by-sa