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Green bits and bytes for Jan 13th 2011

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Green bits

Some of the Green announcements which passed by my desk this week:

  1. Invensys IMServ, a UK-based carbon and energy solution provider has launched a new programme to help UK schools increase their energy efficiency, reduce their carbon footprint and save money on their energy bills.
  2. SAP Americas was named 2010 Smart Grid Integrator of the Year 2010, North America by The New Economy.
  3. Enterprise energy management company JouleX has upgraded its network-based agentless product JEM to version 2.5. The new version supports a broader set of IT infrastructure devices, improves energy measurement and accuracy, JouleX Mobile allows employees to become more engaged in company’s sustainability initiatives, “load adaptive computing” allocates computing resources based upon system and application utilisation and has significantly upgraded its reporting capabilities.
  4. Tropos Networks, a company which sells wireless broadband network infrastructure, announced the other day that they were selected by more utilities as the company of choice for their smart grid communications infrastructure than any other vendor. Tropos’ CEO Tom Ayers, whom I video interviewed previously here, said

    I expect that 2011 will be a banner year of growth for our company and smart grid deployments globally.

    Good for them!

  5. UK based Greenstone Carbon Management made me aware recently that Asian-based investment bank Nomura have selected Greenstone’s Acco2unt carbon accounting software to help measure, manage and report its carbon emissions across the Bank?s operations in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
  6. After a successful pilot, ARRA recipient Burbank Water and Power (BWP) has selected energy management company Trilliant to implement its smart metering communications infrastructure. Trilliant is partnering with GE for meters, eMeter for Meter Data Management, and Siemens for integration. BWP will utilise Trilliant?s solution to help manage service requests, customer inquiries, meter reading and service interruptions.

Photo credit lissalou66

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Friday Green Numbers round-up 11/19/2010

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Green Numbers

And here are this week’s Green numbers…

  1. Smart grids could save Europe ?52bn

    Smart grids could save the EU ?52 billion annually, according to leading smart grid companies that have teamed up to promote European leadership in smart grids.

    The sizeable savings would arise from reducing losses in the electricity distribution network through automation and encouraging consumers to cut energy consumption with smart meters that provide more accurate and timely information, experts from the Smart Energy Demand Coalition said at its launch yesterday (15 November) in Brussels

    Utilities will also be able to lower the system voltage level and make meter-reading redundant, argued Chris King, chief regulatory officer at eMeter. After deducting necessary costs like the installation of smart meters and new software, the net benefit would still be ?31 billion per year, he said.

  2. Exelon to spend $3B on nuke plants by 2015

    Exelon Corp. plans to invest $3 billion to boost the output of its nuclear plants as environmental regulations make competing coal-fired generation more expensive.

    The investment is part of a plan announced Tuesday to spend $5 billion between 2010 and 2015 to increase generation capacity and reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

    The company already has the lowest carbon footprint of any major power producer because 93% its power is generated by its huge fleet of nuclear reactors, which emit almost no carbon dioxide. As Exelon increases its output of nuclear power, the company will close a pair of money-losing coal plants in Pennsylvania.

  3. Oregon Utilities Outline a Do-able Plan to Reduce CO2 10% Below 1990 Levels

    To reduce emissions of greenhouse gases 10 percent below 1990 levels, Oregon?s PGE (Portland General Electric) plans to replace coal plants with 2,362 MW of wind energy and 557 MW of simple-cycle combustion turbines burning natural gas

    To pay for the new investment in building renewable energy, utility rates will likely rise 13% in 2019, and 25% in 2020, the utility calculates.
    But the other utilities in the state that utilize the regions plentiful hydro can make a gentler transition, as they currently have surplus generation from clean sources in the spring and winter.

  4. https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/WhatWeDo/CDPNewsArticlePages/CDP-reveals-water-constraints-now-boardroom-issue-for-global-corporations.aspx

    The Carbon Disclosure Project launches first water disclosure report on world?s largest companies

    The report findings show that water is already impacting business operations with 96% of responding companies able to identify whether or not they are exposed to water risk and more than half of those reporting risks classifying them as current or near-term (1-5 years). 39% of companies are already experiencing detrimental impacts relating to water including disruption to operations from drought or flooding, declining water quality necessitating costly on-site pre-treatment, and increases in water prices, as well as fines and litigation relating to pollution incidents.

    Water security is already high on the corporate agenda with 67% reporting responsibility for water-related issues at the board or executive committee level. The majority of companies (89%) have already developed specific water policies, strategies and plans, and 60% have set water-related performance targets.

Photo credit millicent_bystander

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Friday Green Numbers round-up 07/09/2010

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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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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