To cure a Texan of his belief that everything is bigger in Texas, send him to China. Four months ago, Brad Gammons moved from Amarillo to Beijing to help IBM (IBM) land some of the $600 billion the Chinese government plans to spend over the next decade on its electrical network, especially on smart-grid technology to boost efficiency. Now the 50-year-old IBM vice-president marvels that “the scale and pace of how things move here is not something you experience anywhere else in the world.”
As part of a national $620 million Department of Energy project designed to build a more efficient energy grid, the University of Washington and Seattle City Light will develop a $9.6 million “smart micro grid project” on the Seattle campus.
The latest energy saving appliance from Whirlpool Corporation. The energy grid produces energy around the clock but there are many hours when few are using it. Whirlpool’s smart dryer can respond to an alert from the grid by reducing energy consumption during peak times; the heat shuts off but the drum continues to rotate. The hot air is retained and still circulating within the drum, so your clothes are still dried and wrinkle free!
The term “batch processing” was coined back in the 1950’s in the days of mainframe computers: A computer operator would feed a batch of punch cards into the computer, which would then process the information during a scheduled time, and hopefully deliver the needed information back the next morning. Compare that to today, when most computer processing is done through real-time and “event-driven” processing — the data is fed in and the computer quickly spits each bit of info out in seconds. Broadband networks connected to our computers have been built out around this idea of real-time computing.
If digital services are the wave of the future, then D.C. Metropolitan area Pepco customers are often left feeling like citizens of a Third World country. But, if Pepco Region President Thomas H. Graham has his way, that will soon be a thing of the past.
Pepco Holdings, Inc. (PHI) will soon implement one of the nation’s most advanced Smart Grid Programs to bring customers into the light.
PHI recently submitted a proposal to digitize energy grids and in-home meters in the District, to increase reliability, lessen outages and save customers money.
At the center of the District’s $90 million overhaul would be an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). The AMI would measure and record customer use. This information could then be communicated through a network to a central data collection point where it would be analyzed.
“This translates into savings for customers. Smart Meters also provide for better reliability in the future. For example, the meters – in conjunction with automated equipment – will give Pepco the ability to remotely identify the location of outages, without customers calling in, isolate the problem and reroute crews to speed restoration,” Graham said.
The Australian Government is consulting with industry and community groups on an AUS$100 million smart grid trial.
“The Rudd Government is providing AUS$100 million to trial a large-scale smart grid and smart meters project to demonstrate best practice, shape government policy and help industry and consumers realise the benefits of smart grids,” said Minister for Environment Peter Garrett yesterday.
The first stage of the National Energy Efficiency Initiative: Smart Grid, Smart City is to consult with stakeholders in energy, business, community and government sectors, he added.
“Stakeholders recognise that smart grids are new territory, and are discussing what it will mean for customers, how it will shape the future of the national energy grid, and how the trial will potentially enable a whole raft of innovations and initiatives,” he said.
The Government is expected to make further announcements about the Smart Grid, Smart City trial over the next few months.
The trial is just one of the Australian Government’s range of initiatives aimed at tackling the country’s energy efficiency and CO2 emissions. It recently announced an AUS$4 billion Energy Efficient Homes Package, which provides householders with up to $1,600 to spend on solar hot water or ceiling insulation. But the Government has also delayed the introduction of its planned carbon reduction scheme until 2011.
