Greetings from New York City, home of
Ground Zero, some of the quirkiest high-fashion
restaurants on the planet, and, at least for this week, Greentech Media’s
Energy Innovations conference. The conference’s unusual blending of renewable energy and energy conservation technologies with savvy venture capital strategies is a clear indicator that green power is finally beginning to infect the mainstream business community. Interactive 2-way power grids, ocean wave and tidal generating systems, and other technologies that had seemed too radical (or had not even existed) a couple of years ago are now being seriously considered as key ingredients of a strategy to repair the global economy and guideposts to a more stable, sustainable future.
Some of the hottest topics at the conference were the technologies and business models being developed to transform our power grids from dumb, one-way distribution channels into smart, interactive networks that communicate freely with the buildings, appliances, and equipment that they were powering. According to Bill Vogel, CEO of
Trilliant, the first step towards a true smart grid will be deployment of smart meters at customer premises that can adjust their billing rates based on real-time grid conditions, and can communicate those rates to customers. Making electric rates available to appliances and climate control systems via a ZigBee-based network allows them to perform non-essential tasks at times when electricity is abundant, as is often the case for wind systems during evening hours. The smart meter will also play a role in feeding locally-generated energy back into the grid from local solar panels or even tapping some of the reserve available in the batteries of a parked hybrid/electric vehicle.
A smart grid will also require intelligence on the consumer side of the meter and several companies at the conference demonstrated products that will help manage building energy consumption as well as giving occupants much more visibility into how the electricity is being used. Peter Santangeli, co-founder of Greenbox Technologies, explained how the system they are developing will use a home gateway to communicate electric rates to appliances and coordinate peak load management schemes. It can also access power consumption statistics from the meter or the utility’s database that gives consumers a time-of-day breakdown of their electric power use. The system’s browser-based graphic display makes it easy for customers to break down their power consumption into the baseline load and intermittent peaks and, with a little work, identify specific loads. Other windows in the Greenbox display allow customers to compare their energy conservation efforts against other Greenbox subscribers. Test deployments in Oklahoma City and the Bay Area have shown that the information the Greenbox system gives consumers allows them to alter their consumption habits and save 15 - 20% on their electric bill while lightening the burden their homes place on the grid.
Taking a slightly different approach to smart home systems,
Tendril demonstrated its wireless home energy management system which seamlessly connects so-called smart consumer devices (like thermostats and outlets) to the existing utility back office and provides a communication channel between consumers and their energy providers. The system bridges the utility back-office information systems and consumer home networks and displays it either on a secure
web portal or a simple
wall-mounted LCD. Both displays allow you to see current household energy use, in both kilowatts and dollars per hour, and track your monthly bills with up-to-date billing information and real-time feedback on how well your energy-conserving efforts are paying off. For the competitively-minded, the Tendril system allows you to compare your household energy consumption footprint to other households with a similar demographic.
Of course, there were also some very exciting supply-side technologies on display at Energy Innovations. Among the more notable was
Bloo Solar’s 3-D photovoltaic cell structure that captures 3x more light that hits its surface than conventional planar cells. Because the vertical micro-machined photovoltaic pillars that cover the Bloo cell surface can still trap and efficiently convert light that’s striking it at 60º or more off-perpendicular, it can operate in late morning and afternoon light without the added expense of a 2-axis tracking mount. Larry Bawden, Bloo CEO, says that these unique characteristics will allow production cells to enjoy 20% - 30% efficiencies and deliver 2x – 3x more watt-hours per day than conventional photovoltaic technologies.
In such an unconventional setting like the Greentech conference, that has so many innovative technologies on display, it’s usually hard to find one that is unique such that it stands out from the others. Needless to say, Energy Innovations rose to the challenge by inviting
Hyperion Power Generation to give a talk on its so-called backyard nuclear plant. Weighing only a few tons and measuring only 1.5 m in diameter, the diminutive reactor uses a Uranium Hydride fuel system that self-regulates itself to a safe 550ºC without any mechanical control system. This allows it to be buried underground in a sealed chamber which is only excavated when the reactor’s ten year service life is at an end and it’s ready for replacement. Debra Deal, VP of marketing at Hyperion, says that the sealed system can produce either 27 MW worth of electrical power or 70 MW worth of thermal energy that can be used for water desalinization, shale oil extraction, or any other industrial process. Scheduled to enter production in late 2010, a reactor equipped for thermal energy production is expected to cost $25 million while an electrical generator has a $37 million price tag.
The two days I spent in the hopeful, upbeat atmosphere at Energy Innovations was a welcome relief to the near-constant stream of bad news as the old economy implodes inward upon itself. For a brief moment it was possible to imagine a time, not too far away, when markets worked the way
Adam Smith intended, and the future was hopeful again. It’s quite unlikely that the technologies and products I saw at the conference will single-handedly reverse the financial chaos that’s gripping most of the planet, but the increased efficiency and economic opportunities they offer could be a key part of a recovery and a path to a more sustainable economy.
Comments? Questions? Want to make an appointment to meet me at the
Renewable Energy Technology Conference, February 25 - 27 2009 in Las Vegas?
Write me at
lhg at en-genius dot net or post your comments on our blog.
