The Green Frog from Silicon Valley

Ontario skating ahead of smart grid market

Smart grid is a strategic initiative for many developed countries with an aging electric infrastructure. For the Canadian Province of Ontario, it has already become a reality after its utilities deployed smart meters (picture right) to more than 80% of its 5 million electricity users. And this was done despite a sparse geography and a challenging climate. The determination can be traced back to its political leadership in green sector that wants to transform a massive infrastructure challenge into a vector of economic development.

The Minister of Energy, Chris Bentley, noted during my recent visit in Toronto that great hockey players "skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been". Blue Chip companies like GE and IBM have long been in Ontario, which benefits from an advanced manufacturing industry and world-class research & education institutions. But Canadians have more difficulty to commercialize innovation than their US neighbors. Are people in Ontario up to the challenge?

Integrating renewable energy sources into the grid: eyes on La Reunion island

One of the hottest subjects in solar is how to integrate intermittent renewable energy sources with utility grids. Wind has recently reached 5% of energy production in California and a number of utility-scale solar farms will be in service in coming years to bring the total beyond 10%. It is a fundamental issue that has many utilities scratch their heads over, and that has spurred a series of new pilot projects.

Recently, Hitachi made an investment in the smart grid management company Silver Spring Networks. They are leading  the smart grid pilot project in Hawaii, which has a contribution from solar and wind farms in double digits on some islands like Maui. I have done a search worldwide, and I actually found out that the grid with the largest relative amount of energy production from solar and wind is not in the Pacific but in the Indian Ocean. The French island of La Reunion already observes peaks of 30% of instantaneous power load from solar panels. The local utility operator deals with the challenge of intermittent energy sources every day.

Smart meter market grows despite set-backs in home energy management

Last week marked another acquisition in the smart mart meter business: Siemens agreed to purchase eMeter for yet undisclosed terms. The San Mateo based company sells meter data management (MDM) software to utilities. So far, they have worked with progressive utilities, mainly in Ontario, Texas and Australia. The Smart Grid acquisition tally has reached some critical mass and it is definitely one of the hottest areas in cleantech.

Yet, several Silicon Valley pundits like Google and Cisco have scaled back their ambitions in home smart energy management. Smart meter programs also had its share of backlash in bigger markets like San Francisco's Bay Area. I received several pamphlets from PG&E in the mail recently as my building is gearing up to get our new meters. The latest one, a newsletter called “SmartRead”, but empty of in-depth content, tries to explain in simple terms the economic benefits of this new technology amidst new increased rates in Northern California and privacy concerns.

I sat down with one of Cisco’s main smart grid expert, Sanket Amberkar, to talk about their experience. According to him “it will take a bit more education to get home users comfortable”. For Cisco, the transformation that utilities are going through is not that different from the transformation that Telecom operators went through 10-15 years. They call it Gridonomics.