We have pointed to the ongoing convergence of wireless communications and smart grids before, for example in this video about Tropos Networks and in Tom’s stump pitch on sustainability and mobility, but some news from this week throws the trend into stark relief.
Carbon Trust investments, the VC arm of a non-profit organisation working to lower the UK’s carbon emissions just announced it is to invest in a network management company called Arieso.
Why would Carbon Trust do that? After all, what does mobile network optimisation have to do with energy management? According to the newenergyworldnetwork story:
Rachael Nutter of CT Investment Partners said, ?Energy consumption in mobile phone base stations is a significant proportion of the opex of mobile operators, as high as 50 per cent in the most extreme cases.
That’s the thing about sustainability – it doesn’t need to be seen as a cost center… rather it can, and should be, part of optimisation activities. Lower carbon, lower energy, cheaper mobile roll-outs. What’s not to like?
If you’ve been following GreenMonk for a while you should know we’re wedded to bottom up sustainability approaches – “from the roots up” as we call it, which is one reason we’ve sponsored, and contributed to the awesome UK HomeCamp community, founded by Chris Dalby, who now works at UK smartmeter firm Current Cost. Seems things are moving along there too.
One of the key players attempting to drive home automation as an activity for “civilians” is ZigBee. It just started working with GreenPeak, which specialises in ultra low power mobile silicon chips, designed to be used in battery-free devices. [See a theme emerging? ;-)] No batteries isn’t just a lower carbon play though- it also means less heavy metals and toxic chemicals. What’s the news? GreenPeak is now Zigbee compliant.
Finally some smart grid news.
Swiss smart meter player just took $165m in new funding.
Could be smart timing.
The Climate Group, sponsored by GE, Google, HP, Intel, Nokia and others? just called on Barack Obama to adopt a goal of providing every household with real time information about their electricity use.
Meanwhile last week Microsoft hohm and Ford announced they are working together on home energy to Electric Vehicle management and integration, to help people that own these EVs charge them cost effectively. Its worth pointing to one of my favourite GreenMonk interviews in that light- we talk to Greg Frenette of Ford about EV smart grid convergence.
It really is time to run the first HomeCamp US!
Ironically enough, when I searched for a creativecommons attribution only shot of a smartmeter i found one from my colleague Michael Cot? in Austin. His utility called it a smartmeter, but unless he? has access to the data generated I don’t see how it deserves the name. But that’s a subject for a different blog, and indeed a line of Greenmonk research.
The really keen eyed among you may have noticed how many of the links above come from newnet news. No accident. I love the feed. Its like a shot of good news tequila every morning – something to warm your spirits.
Just discovered your site. Really like the videos. As an investor in energy and the power grid, I especially appreciate your insights in this article that is related to the future smart grid. I look forward to reading the other material on your site. Thanks.
Thanks for the mention James, great post. Technically Current Cost do not manufacture SmartMeters as such, but Real Time Displays. The difference being that RTDs give an indication of enrgy usage and smart meters do something a bit more clever and are designed to be accurate for billing purposes.
Homecamp USA sounds great and we need to fix up a date for the next Homecamp UK too 🙂