Smart Grid Funding Announced

Here’s the map of who gets what.

My state of Michigan has two awards:

The Whirlpool project is focused on consumers, but will the DTE project include business facilities in the 660k smart meter rollout?

Smart Meters ‘Need Live Displays’

The UK has plans to install smart meters in all homes by 2020, but focus groups suggest graphical displays are critical to changing behavior:
Most people preferred a graphic indicator of their real-time rate of energy consumption, expressed in terms of expenditure per day.
A gauge of cumulative spend was also a popular idea. Consumers thought that [...]

Leverage Part II

Reducing energy used by home computers and TVs by 50% would save much less energy (and GHG) than using IT to lower energy used by washing machines, dryers, and other household energy hogs (e.g., by demand response) by 20%. Suggestion: do both. 

Yet Another “Smart Grid Promotes Conservation” Story

The Times Green Inc. blog reports today on a study of energy use in 100 business and residential sites after a demand-response system was initiated:
A smart grid pilot project in Fayetteville, N.C., has resulted in an initial 20 percent decline in average electricity consumption, according Consert, a Raleigh, N.C. technology company.
Those numbers are based on [...]

Q: Do I trust Google or Microsoft with my energy data?

A: Neither.
(But if the value I receive is greater than the privacy risks, then sign me up).
In the “I can do anything you can do better” home energy monitoring sweepstakes, enter Microsoft “Hohm” (beta).
Full review coming soon…

VC Shift from Alternative Energy to Energy Efficiency

NY Times article on Venture Capital shift to energy efficiency:
Venture capital is starting to move away from its infatuation with alternative energy and returning to one of its traditional strengths: applying information technology to improve the efficiency of energy consumption.
Many investors say developing new forms of energy can consume hundreds of millions of dollars over [...]

Hacking the Home (and buildings, and …)

Joe Romm on Climateprogress reviews the new energy economy in a post about “The Next 100 Days, Part 2: Bring on the Sizzle”
What’s interesting is his visual:

My hacked home vision is this:
 
You make the call.

Carbon data management system (CDMS)

From findings of a joint IBM – Carbon Disclosure Project study:
There are many diverse drivers behind initiatives to create a carbon data management system. The principal motivators discussed in the study are:
• Cost reduction
• Risk mitigation (e.g. be ahead of any legislation, avoid any negative press)
• Enhancing reputation
• Competition
• [...]

IT as Hero or Villain

IT may be a sustainability villain (manufacture, use, disposal) or hero (remote work, process efficiency, etc.) and this consulting report says it’s the former and not the latter.
It’s anecdotal though until we have results of empirical studies of large samples of firms (or industries, or countries) examining the net impact of IT on such metrics [...]

Energy Data Privacy

Smart meters, Zigbee, and other forms of IT are digitizing and transforming energy services. On the plus side, we’ll know much more about how much we’re using and be able to design better incentives to achieve energy efficiency goals. On the minus side, there is the nettlesome issue of data privacy. As Tom Tansy of [...]