Tag: oracle

Trends & Concepts

When will we have full Smart Grid deployments?

electric cables
Photo credit mckaysavage

Despite a lot of talk and some high profile trials the day we have ubiquitous full Smart Grids is still a long way off.

I attended the Smart Grids Europe conference in Amsterdam this week.

It was a great conference, I met a ton of interesting people and had some fascinating conversations.

I can’t help feeling a little deflated though.

I’m a huge advocate of Smart Grids. I gave my first international talk about Smart Grids and demand side management (Demand Response) at the Reboot conference in Copenhagen back in early 2007. We are now a full three years later and many utility companies have yet to roll out smart meter pilot programs.

Others are rolling out smart meters more because of pending of legislative requirements than because of any desire help reduce people’s energy footprints.

In fact, after talking to more utility companies, I suspect that smart grids may not proceed beyond smart meter deployments in some regions. The recent Oracle survey of Utility CxO’s confirms this view

utilities executives put improving service reliability (45 percent) and implementing smart metering (41 percent) at the top of the list [of Smart Grid priorities]

So why the apparent passive aggressive response from the utility companies?

Well, they have to keep the lights on. To paraphrase the old saw, they do not want to ‘fix’ their grid, if it ain’t broke! And, let’s be fair, the idea of investing large sums of money to help their customers use less of their product isn’t one which sits comfortably with them. That’s understandable.

And no utility wants to have the kind of customer blowback that PG&E saw with their botched smart meter rollout in Bakersfield.

But there is a huge global imperative for Smart Grids – the Smart 2020 report said:

Smart grid technologies were the largest opportunity found in the study and could globally reduce 2.03 GtCO2e , worth €79 billion ($124.6 billion).

How then do we square that circle?

We could legislate for them but a better approach would be to change the landscape in which the utility companies operate such that there is a business case for full smart grid deployments.

I suspect the best approach would be the introduction of a carbon tax. This is something we need to do anyway (and the mechanisms for doing so are a topic for a separate post) but if there were a tax on CO2 production, it would be in utility companies (and their customers) interests to cut back on energy consumption.

Even if there were a strong business case for smart grids, given the glacial speeds at which utility companies move, I suspect it is going to be many years before we see full smart grid implementations.

by-sa

Trends & Concepts

Smart Grid Heavy Hitter series – Oracle’s Guerry Waters


I decided to run a series of interviews with people deeply involved in the Smart Grid space. I’m calling it the Smart Grid Heavy Hitters series. I will publish a new interview every Thursday until I run out of interviewees (or out of energy – poor pun intended, sorry!).

In this, the first of my Smart Grid Heavy Hitters’ interviews, I talk to Oracle’s VP of Industry Strategy, Guerry Waters.

It was a great interview – in it we talked about:

  • Oracle’s vision of a successful Smart Grid
  • The benefits of Smart Grids
  • The requirements for a successful Smart Grid rollout
  • The impacts of regulations on Smart Grid rollouts
  • Examples of Smart Grids and
  • Oracle’s place in the Smart Grid ecosystem

I’d like to thanks Guerry and Oracle for being such willing participants in this project and Ludovic Leforestier for helping make this interview happen!.

by-sa

Trends & Concepts

The day that we see all devices which consume water having networked flow meters is still a ways off
atr
Photo credit Hypergurl – Tanya Ann

I wrote a post a couple of days ago asking the question How long until all devices which consume water have networked flow meters? after talking to Oracle VP Industry Strategy, Guerry Waters about Oracle’s recently released “Testing the Water: Smart Metering for Water Utilities” study.

Having put the question out there, I’m now going to discuss some of the factors which will influence the answer!

The first thing to realise from the Oracle data is that 76% of homeowners in the US are concerned with the need to conserve water in their community and 71% believe that having access to detailed consumption data would encourage them to take steps to lower their water use. So barring and big PR disasters like the PG&E Smart electricity Meter fiasco in Bakersfield, it would seem that the vast majority of consumers are bought into the idea of having smart meters to help lower water consumption.

How about the utilities? It looks like if they do decide to rollout smart water meters, they’ll very much be pushing an open door.

Funnily enough this is where it starts to get a bit nuanced!

First off, 83% of utilities who have conducted a cost-benefit analysis (n=86) support the adoption of smart meter technology, so that’s a good start, right?

Well, yes, but what are the motivations of the utilities?

It turns out that they are far more interested in using smart meters to enable early leak detection than in supplying customers with tools to monitor/reduce their consumption!

Right away this is problematic, if the aims of the utilities and their customers are not aligned, then this will greatly complicate any rollouts. Also, if the utilities are not strongly focussed on providing consumers with tools to reduce their consumption, any such tools which are provided to homeowners would most likely be sub-optimal (an after-thought).

Then, when asked what they perceived as roadblocks, the water utilities cited the lack of cost recovery or measurable ROI as well as the up-front utility expenses required – in fact, 64% of utilities are not even currently considering a smart meter program!

So, until the water utilities are as enthusiastic to roll out smart meters as their counterparts in the electrical utilities are, then the day that we see all devices which consume water having networked flow meters is still a ways off.

Of course, in the case of the electric utilities, their enthusiasm is certainly not hurt by the amount of recovery act monies being pored into smart grids!

by-nc-sa

Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts

How long until all devices which consume water have networked flow meters?

atr
Photo credit bmitchellw

Oracle published the results of a very interesting study recently called Testing the Water: Smart Metering for Water Utilities.

Now, we have all heard about the compelling case for Smart Meters for electrical consumption (I have written and spoken about it extensively) but in this study Oracle asked utilities and their customers about the benefits of rolling out Smart Meters for managing water consumption.

Part of the reason for undertaking this study was that water shortages are already being seen in the South East United States, Western Canada, and Southern California.

In fact, according to the EPA’s WaterSense site:

  • At least 36 states are projecting water shortages between now and 2013.
  • Each American uses an average of 100 gallons of water a day at home.
  • Approximately 5 to 10 percent of American homes have water leaks that drip away 90 gallons a day or more! Many of these leaks reside in old fixtures such as leaky toilets and faucets. If the 5 percent of American homes that leak the most corrected those leaks—it could save more than 177 billion gallons of water annually!
  • The average [US] household spends as much as $500 per year on their water and sewer bill and can save about $170 per year by installing water-efficient fixtures and appliances.

Some of the results of the Oracle water study show that:

  • 68% of water utility managers believe it is critical that water utilities adopt smart meter technologies
  • 76% of consumers are concerned about the need to conserve water in their community
  • 69% of consumers believe they could reduce their personal water use
  • 71% of consumers believe receiving more detailed information on their water consumption would encourage them to take steps to lower their water use
  • 83% of water utilities who have completed a cost- benefit analysis support the adoption of smart meter technology

So, the public is concerned about water conservation and believes that more information would help them reduce their consumption of water. The majority of utility managers also believe smart meter technologies are critical, so things are looking rosy so far.

The data output from smart electricity meters is extremely granular and yields very specific energy footprints. With this data it is trivial to identify the devices using the energy down to make and model of the machine. However, this is not the case for smart water meters. Their output is far less granular – it will be quite difficult to map water consumption data from smart meters to individual devices within the house (unless there are flow meters attached to all the devices using water, for example).

What if though, you could tie-in the output of your electrical smart meter and your water smart meters? Analysing the data from the two meters it should be possible to identify at least some of the devices using water (fridge, dish washer, electric shower, etc.). Having this information tied-in to make and model of device would be extremely useful to help identify more water efficient appliances.

Because, for the most part, your water and electricity utilities are separate companies (or different business units within a utility), this is not a solution they are likely to pursue. However, there has been a surge in the number of 3rd party companies working on Home Management Software applications/devices.

Most recently we’ve seen that Apple are looking into the home energy management space, but others big names already involved include Google, Microsoft, Intel and Panasonic to name but a few.

With consumer’s actively interested in receiving more information about their energy and water usage and with the value that this data has, it is a no-brainer that Home Management Software will manage water consumption as well as energy in time.

How long before it is mandatory that all devices which consume water have networked flow meters and all homes have smart water meters?

by-sa

Conference

Java Conference

I have just seen the line-up for IrishDev’s Java Conference and it is extremely impressive.

The conference is on in Dublin on November 7th and has speakers from Apache, Sun, Iona, JBoss, Oracle, and Microsoft amongst others.

Kudos to Fergal and the guys in IrishDev for organising what looks like will be a phenomenal day out for anyone with any interest in Java.

Technology

Up is down, black is white, Microsoft does Linux deal with Novell!

From the “They said it would never happen dept” comes news today that Microsoft have signed a deal with Novell!

The deal has been summarised into three main points by Dana Gardner:

  1. Under a technical cooperation agreement, Novell and Microsoft will work together in three primary areas to deliver new solutions to customers: virtualization, web services management and document format compatibility.
  2. Under a patent cooperation agreement, Microsoft and Novell provide patent coverage for their respective customers, giving customers peace of mind regarding intellectual property issues.
  3. Under a business cooperation agreement, Novell and Microsoft are committing to dedicate marketing and sales resources to promote joint solutions.

The timing of this deal is curious, coming as it does only a few short days after Oracle announces its enhanced support for Linux!

Looks like a competition to see who can love Linux the most these days, doesn’t it?

Interviews, IT@Cork, Podcasting, Technology

Any questions for Jeff Nolan?

Jeff Nolan is a former executive at SAP (Jeff led the Apollo Strategy Group for SAP – aka the Oracle Attack group) and recently joined a silicon valley startup called Teqlo.

I will be interviewing Jeff tomorrow for the IT@Cork pre-conference podcast series.

If you have any questions you would like me to put to him, feel free to leave them in the comments.

UPDATE – this interview has been postponed until Tuesday Oct. 10th so you still have time to get your questions in!