2009: The Year of the Smart Grid?

Smart grids and related technologies ranked fourth on a list of 17 green sectors venture capitalists invested in last quarter.

"Look for 2009 to be the year of smart grid, energy storage and energy efficiency," says senior analyst Eric Wesoff in a statement issued with a report from Greentech Media that showed VCs invested $208.5 million in 11 deals.

Investments in seven green IT deals topped $37.3 million, making it eighth on the list. Solar topped the list with nearly $1.34 billion invested in 29 deals.

$30B Sought for High-Tech Jobs In Obama's Stimulus Package

A report to be released Wednesday calls on the Obama administration to earmark about $30 billion on high-tech jobs in its stimulus package that could reach $1 trillion.

The report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation—The Digital Road to Recovery: A Stimulus Plan to Create Jobs, Boost Productivity and Revitalize America—promises to provide “a detailed analysis and estimate of the short-term jobs impacts of spurring investment in three critical digital networks: broadband, the smart grid (making the electric distribution system intelligent) and health IT and outlines policy steps to spur this investment.” ITIF says:

As Congress considers a substantial stimulus package to get the economy moving, investing in new economy digital infrastructures will provide significant opportunities not just for short-term stimulus and job creation, but also longer term economic and social benefits.

In an interview with The New York Times, ITIF president Robert Atkinson says “there’s another category of stimulus you could call innovation or digital stimulus—‘stimovation,’ as a colleague has referred to it.” as the article states:

Although many economists believe that a stimulus package must be timely, targeted and temporary, Atkinson’s organization argues that a fourth adjective—transformative—may be the most important. Transformative stimulus investments, he said, lead to economic growth that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

Atkinson also says that providing $30 billion in stimulus money for high tech jobs would provide a wonderful chance to integrate innovative technologies at a faster pace than otherwise would be possible. The ITIF chief, via NYT:

“You’d have an economy and society within three to four years that would be a lot better than we have today, and you’d create a lot of jobs.”

How Brainy Should Smart Grid Be?

Not everyone thinks there should be a lot of intelligence in the smart electrical grid.

The CEO of electricity demand control systems provider Sequentric Energy Systems, Daniel Flohr, prefers a smart grid without too much in the way of brains. Citing Flohr, a posting on the site arstechnica.com says:

Utilities want things reliable, secure and cheap, and it's easier to get all of those by limiting the intelligence of the grid. For something like a hot water heater, all the utility needs to handle is a few bits of communication every year, which is sufficient to shut it off and reactivate it around usage peaks.

But CEO Adrian Tuck of consumer smart-metering system provider Tendril sees consumers benefiting from more intelligence in the system.

Tuck compared the current system, where consumers simply get a bill at the end of the month, to shopping in a supermarket without knowing the prices, then getting an un-itemized bill at the end of the month. Tendril leverages the more elaborate monitoring capabilities of its hardware to provide consumers with a more complete picture of their home's power usage. The utilities collect the data from devices for their own purposes but also make it available to consumers through the Tendril platform.

FERC Report Sees IT Smarts to Link Smart Meters, Smart Grid

Linking the electrical grids with smart electric meters in homes and businesses should create many job opportunities for IT professionals in the coming years.

Two trends in efficient energy management are converging. One involves advanced meters that monitor and manage electric use in homes and businesses. The other is advance response programs utilities offer that manage customer consumption of electricity in response to supply conditions.

According to a just-released report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 2008 Assessment of Demand Response and Advanced Metering the ratio of advanced meters to all installed meters has reached 4.7% for the United States, a significant jump from the less than 1% in 2006. On the demand response side, 8% of energy consumers in the U.S. participate in some kind of demand response program and the potential demand response resource contribution from all such U.S. programs is nearly 41,000 megawatts, or 5.8%, of U.S. peak demand, according to the FERC report. This represents an increase of about 3,400 MW from the 2006 estimate.

The report suggests the need for IT know-how to expand smart grid and smart metering use:

One way to mitigate risks in planning AMI (advanced metering infrastructure, the technology for gathering and disseminating information at a utility meter) communications networks is to ensure interoperability. Interoperability allows seamless sharing of data and integration of functionality between digital electronic systems (e.g., computing networks, communications networks, computers, computer programs, advanced metering systems, etc).

The technological means of achieving interoperability is through standards for software, hardware, or firmware. Recognizing a need for standards that would enable interoperability, the U.S. Congress in EISA (Energy Independence and Security Act) 2007 directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish “protocols and model standards for information management to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems.”

In the meantime, many utilities proceeding with AMI plans are doing so cautiously, relying to some extent on open standards to mitigate technological risk exposure or planning and budgeting for periodic technology upgrades to their advanced metering system over the life of their system.

Design of Smart Electrical Grid Should Mirror the Internet

A posting, Smart Grid for a Smart Planet, on smartmeters.com explains why the experts designing the next generation of the electrical grid need IT smarts.

Technological advances of the modern age can take the power grid out of the dark ages and make it smart. Power grids around the world can be monitored and managed in much the same way a computer network is.

Smart meters can be applied to the power grid in a way that every aspect is constantly monitored from the point of generation, through transmission to consumers’ homes and businesses, and as it is consumed. In fact, the smart grid system would look much more like the Internet than it would resemble a conventional power system. A smart grid can handle multitudes of power sources no matter how widely distributed they are – including intermittent, but renewable, power sources such as wind turbines and solar panel arrays.

A piece of advice for IT pros: many information-tech jobs of the future will focus on battling carbon emissions and making energy use more efficient. Successful IT pros combine their IT know-how with industry knowledge, so learn more about the power generation industry and the environmental movement to cut carbon emissions.

Employing Smart IT Seen Reducing Energy Use, Industry Study Says

An analysis by the industry trade research arm Electric Power Research Institute shows how IT smarts can help reduce electricity use.

In a web posting this week, the institute contends a smart grid could potentially reduce annual U.S. energy consumption by 56 to 203 billion kWh in 2030, corresponding to a 1.2% to 4.3% reduction in projected retail electricity sales in 2030.

In addition, according to the institute, a smart grid can provide the catalyst for greater integration of renewable generation resources and greater deployment of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The combined deployment of seven applications enabled by a smart grid could reduce CO2 emissions by an estimated 60 to 211 million metric tons in 2030.

A smart grid is one that incorporates information and communications technology into every aspect of electricity generation, delivery and consumption in order to: minimize environmental impact; enhance markets; improve service; reduce costs and improve efficiency.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The above diagram, from the institute, depicts the interaction between consumer devices with communication capabilities, energy providers and transmission and distribution functions enabled by smart-grid network operations.

Smart Grid Requires Smart Leadership

To create a real smart grid needs more than just smarts; it needs leadership.

In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, Accenture U.K. and Ireland managing director David Thomlinson writes: There is plenty of competition for clean technologies, but no country has yet established a leadership position in the evolution of smart grids.

With smart metering, Thomlinson notes, reducing demand for electricity becomes easier to accomplish.

The demand side has been an unfashionable part of energy policy for 30 years. Now we see smart meters being implemented to help consumers manage their consumption. But it is only through the transformation of our electricity networks into so-called smart grids that we can significantly reduce carbon emissions of buildings and vehicles.

The intelligence behind all of this will come from those with IT skills to create the needed systems and networks. In the U.S., with his energy and environmental nominees, there’s hope that President-elect Obama (above left with environmental advisor Carol Browner) will provide that leadership.

The Smart Grid At Any Cost?

How much should the U.S. government invest in smart grid technology?

The government really doesn’t have unlimited resources, despite talk of a stimulus package that could reach $1 trillion. So, should technologies like the smart grid be built regardless of cost?

Adam Stein, emissions reduction project manager and co-founder of the voluntary carbon offset provider TerraPass, posted the following response under the heading “The Wrong Question” to a blog on Grist.org, an environmental news and commentary site:

"Things that are worth funding are worth funding, regardless of funding source. The question is: should we build a smart grid given a cost of X? Not: should we build a smart grid provided we can find a source of thematically linked revenue?

"A spending program either makes sense or it doesn't, given everything we know about society's level of wealth, competing priorities, expected costs, and expected benefits. If the program doesn't pencil out, it doesn't make sense to do regardless of whether the cash is on hand. And if it does pencil out, then let the appropriation process sort itself out as it normally does. ...

... "It isn't the job of policy advocates to balance the federal budget."

IBM’s Interest Demonstrates IT's Tie to the Smart Grid

If IBM is interested in the electrical smart grid, you got to believe there’s a strong IT connection to smartly managing the efficient use of energy and the money to be made doing just that. In a posting on GreenTechMedia.com, Draw Clark, director of strategy, emerging markets, at IBM’s Venture Capital Group, is quoted as saying:

"Cleantech may be the only category [of venture investing] that is left relatively unscathed and [VCs] are looking to put new money into traditional IT type of companies and smart grid is exactly that."

As the article author Michael Kanellos points out, IBM's VC group doesn’t invest in startups, but meets with them to determine future trends and promising companies. Then, IBM figures out how best to tie its strategies and services with these emerging trends. As Kanellos writes:

If Big Blue is excited about something, there is a good chance that a channel for bringing a new idea to market is already being assembled.”

Kanellos writes that the IT angle better fits into the VC mold for building companies.

Unlike solar or biofuel companies, most smart grid outfits don't need to build huge factories. They develop software or networking devices for controlling various aspects of power transmission or consumption.

Who’s getting VC money to make the grid smarter: Trilliant, GridPoint, eMeter, Silver Spring Networks, Smart Synch, GainSpan, Grid Net and Onzo.

Today, the electrical grid isn’t too smart; its electrons mostly move in one direction. Making it a two-way highway is a challenge that will need lots of IT smarts.

How Fast Can Smart-Grid JobsBe Created Under Obama Plan?

Can the smart grid provide jobs quickly based on existing technology that will be flexible to adapt
to the innovations of tomorrow?

That’s a question raised by Patti Harper-Slaboszewicz, director of advanced metering and meter-data management at energy researcher and consultancy UtiliPoint International, who has analyzed comments made by the top nominees of President-elect Obama’s energy team. In her analysis posted on UtiliPoint’s website. Harper-Slatoszewicz says she’s aware of at least 100 projects far enough along to produce jobs at all levels, entry-level workers to manufacturing to professional. She writes:

Some of these projects may be in limbo waiting for confirmation that the project fits the description of the transformation to green energy and sustainability that the energy team is looking for. Smart metering projects, for example, need meter installers, appointment schedulers, manufacturing, project managers, software, software integrators, customer service training, marketing, network design and installation, computer hardware, uniforms, and more. Projects typically take four to five years to roll out, resulting in positions that would carry employees past the economic recovery period.

Smart meters don’t stand alone, and need an energy Internet with IT smarts to function. As Harper-Slatoszewicz notes:

Smart metering and the associated back office systems and hardware support innovative energy pricing that marry energy efficiency with demand response, allowing customers to reduce peak energy use and conserve energy, resulting in a reduction of green house gases, lower costs, and postponing or avoiding the need to build peaking plants that are only used 100 to 200 hours per year during seasonal demand or during an unexpected outage due to equipment issues.

Biz Green Tech Spend Seen Rising

Companies will continue to invest in green technologies in 2009 at the same or greater levels than in 2008, according to a study by Panel Intelligence.

In its first quarterly sustainability track studying, conducted in early November of 65 sustainability executives from Fortune 500 companies, the cleantech and healthcare market research firm reports:

• Sustainability and clean technology spending as a percentage of corporate revenues should increase 73 percent through 2010.

• 82% of respondents rated energy efficiency as the most important area of focus and investment.

• Corporate spending on sustainable waste management initiatives is expected to grow by 20% in 2009, the highest percentage increase of any subcategory.

• Cost savings, revenue generation and brand strength are the most important drivers of environmental and clean technology initiatives.

• Nearly 55% of respondents observe no financial criteria (i.e. ROI, payback period) when evaluating sustainability projects for their respective organizations.

• A majority of respondents believe capital remains available for sustainability projects.

Says Scott Packard, the firm’s VP of quantitative research:

Sustainability and clean technology initiatives have achieved a tipping point and are no longer perceived by U.S. organizations as an optional expense. Rather, sustainability is an opportunity to achieve a greater competitive advantage and higher efficiency, even in a down economy. Similar to competitive pricing, technology and product quality, sustainability is starting to be required by customers and supply chain partners.

Year in Ideas: Smart Grid

My favorite issue each year of The New York Times Magazine comes out in mid-December: The Year In Ideas (cover image at left, click on it to enlarge>.

Among the ideas in this eighth annual A to Z listing: the Smart Grid.

Info Tech Pros Could Benefit By Slowing Green Investments

Silicon Valley might pull back in their green startup investments in the coming year, and venture capitalist Rob Day sees that as a good thing.

Michael Kanellos, blogging on GreenTechMedia.com, cites @Ventures partner Day as seeing VC investing in green-tech declining by as much as 40% in the first half of 2009. Funds would be diverted away from crowded markets like solar and biofuels.

Why is that a good thing? Funds that will be invested would be redirected toward areas that could benefit IT professionals. Kanellos writes:

You can already see the re-education of many investors taking place. Many have begun to pay more attention to green software companies and smart-grid companies that hope to port classic IT technologies to the grid. Can smart grid become a bubble too? Sure, but at least it’s familiar territory to many, and these kind of companies don’t need big factories. Thus, the dangers of over-funding are reduced.

Defining the Smart Grid

This blogs gives a lot of attention to the smart grid,
mostly because it shows the convergence of the electricity grid with smartness brought on by information technology.

Two recent web postings help define the smart grid:

From the Wired Blog Network: The Austin Smart Grid.

From The New York Times: On the Road to a Smart Grid.

Green Jobs Board Launched

A clean-tech research-publishing firm and executive search firm have teamed to launch an online site that posts job openings for the clean-energy and clean-tech industries.

Clean Edge Jobs already has nearly 200 jobs posted. Among these are those demanding IT know-how such as system programmer, web developer, software engineer and data processing specialist.

It's been the contention of this blog that the greening of our businesses, economy and society will create many new employment opportunities for IT professionals.

Energy Internet: A Peak at the Future

Hot,Flat and Crowded author Thomas Friedman, writing Wednesday in his New York Times column provides a preview of what part of the Energy Internet will look like in the not too distant future.

Friedman writes of new business called Better Place, which is setting up vehicle electricity charging stations in Australia, Denmark, and Israel as well as Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay.

The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy—such as wind and solar—as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.

Think of the IT jobs needed to help create and maintain this system.

Friedman analogizes the future of the auto industry with what Apple CEO Steve Jobs did in the music business, replacing a 20th century industrial platform for one designed for the 21st century.

What did Apple understand first? One, that today’s technology platform would allow anyone with a computer to record music. Two, that the Internet and MP3 players would allow anyone to transfer music in digital form to anyone else. You wouldn’t need CDs or record companies anymore. Apple simply took all those innovations and integrated them into a single music-generating, purchasing and listening system that completely disrupted the music business.

Friedman sees Better Place founder Shai Agassi doing the same in the automotive industry.

What Agassi ... is saying is that there is a new way to generate mobility, not just music, using the same platform. It just takes the right kind of auto battery—the iPod in this story—and the right kind of national plug-in network—the iTunes store—to make the business model work for electric cars at six cents a mile. The average American is paying today around 12 cents a mile for gasoline transportation, which also adds to global warming and strengthens petro-dictators.

Google Joins GridWise Alliance

Google has joined the GridWise Alliance, the industry group that fosters a more efficient and less costly distribution of electricity announced Tuesday.

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Dan Reicher, Google's director for climate change and energy initiatives, said:

"Smart grid technologies will empower consumers with real time, money-saving information about their energy use. Building a smart grid—essentially an energy Internet—will also enable plug-in electric vehicles, speed the development of utility-scale renewable energy, and spur the creation of clean energy jobs."

The GridWise Alliance says it advocates a vision of an electric system that integrates the infrastructure, processes, devices, information and market structure so that energy can be generated, distributed and consumed more efficiently and cost effectively; thereby achieving a more resilient, secure and reliable energy system. Its members include utilities, IT companies, equipment vendors, new technology providers and educational institutions

Smart-Grid Questions Have IT Answers

Austin Energy in Texas is among the most innovative utilities in America, and its general manager Roger Duncan understands the connection between IT and developing the smart grid.

In an interview with Kate Galbraith, who covers renewable energy for The New York Times, Duncan concedes there are plenty of questions that must be answered before a grand vision of a smart grid is achieved. Quoting Galbraith in her posting:

“What are the actual hardware connections that we need? What is the software that will allow us to communicate, even to the level of communicating with appliances like your refrigerator or your pool pump?”

Report Details Government Smart-Grid Policymaking

A new report from the Demand Response Coordinating Committee, a not for prof that promotes efficient energy use, suggests federal and state governments have done much in promoting a smart grid to intelligently distribute electricity, but adds that more must be done.

The report, Demand Response and Smart Metering Policy Actions Since the Energy Policy Act of 2005, points out that Congress has demanded response be incorporated into the nation’s electricity system from a policy and business perspective. (Demand response, according to Wikipedia, refers to dynamic demand mechanisms to manage customer consumption of electricity in response to supply conditions, for example, having electricity customers reduce their consumption at critical times.) Congress, the report says, has recognized that demand response and its enabling technologies are key ingredients to the development of a smart grid. The report continues:

At the same time, Congress has not yet moved to use tax policy and mandates to stimulate the growth of demand response in a way similar to what it has done in the past for renewable energy and traditional energy efficiency. Elsewhere at the federal level, however, federal regulators have used their jurisdiction over wholesale power and regional markets to directly require development and deployment of demand response.

The report reflects the great diversity of approaches and the many levels of activity underway in the states, some prompted by the Energy Policy Act but most by individual states' own initiatives. The report reinforces the significant role of states in demand response:

Much demand response involves modification of retail rates and approval of utility infrastructure investments, each of which are subject to state jurisdiction.

Smart-Grid Net, Not Specific Fuels, Seen as Focus of VC Investments

Infrastrucutre to deliver energy, not specific altneratives to fossill fuels such as solar or biofuel, is where much of venture capital's "green" investments will be made, Arrun Kapoor (below) of SJF Funds, a venture capital fund where half of the investment is in "green" projects, tells Reuters:

Because the current electric grid is 30 to 40 years old, Kapoor sees a new "smart" grid as an attractive investment.

So-called smart grids let customers instantly see the price of the power they are buying, which is expected to cut demand during daily peak load hours and reduce demand from centralized traditional fossil-fuel power plants.