#ENERGY: "Gap Being Filled by Social Media"

A lack of understanding of their energy bills is prompting consumers to depend on the advice of friends and family, opening opportunities for new avenues for education, according to the "2011 IBM Global Utility Consumer Survey."



IBM helped Malta build the world’s first national smart utility grid, replacing 250,000 analog electric meters with smarter meters that track usage in real-time, identify sources of loss, set variable rates, and is being integrated with a new smart water metering system.

Energy consumers worldwide want to conserve and take advantage of smarter technologies but lack a basic understanding of how to do so. Consumers surveyed by the "2011 IBM Global Utility Consumer Survey" say they need smarter ways of making their energy decisions.

"We surveyed over 10,000 people in 17 different countries in nine different languages, and really focused on their expectations and perceptions as to where they see energy fitting into their lives," said Michael Valocchi, vice president, Global Energy & Utilities Industry Leader for IBM Global Business Services. "We found a really startling lack of knowledge."

IBM helped Malta build the world’s first national smart utility grid, replacing 250,000 analog electric meters with smarter meters that track usage in real-time, identify sources of loss, set variable rates, and is being integrated with a new smart water metering system. (Source: IBM)

According to Valocchi, "30 percent didn't understand the basics of their energy bill" leading to decision-making processes that depended on the evaluations of trusted advisers, rather than on understanding the clear choices being made available to them by the smart grid and smart meters. Younger consumers, in particular, were much more inclined to just depend on the consensual decisions of their social networks rather than on the traditional financial motivations being hawked by energy providers.

"Younger consumers under 25 are three times more likely to make their energy decisions based on family or friends advise," said Valocchi. "That’s information that is outside the control of the energy provider itself."
IBM's survey revealed that 60 percent of consumers still do not even understand the terms "smart grid" and "smart meter," but that understanding was key to their acceptance. For instance, 61 percent approved of smarter energy efforts when they finally understood them, but that only 43 percent, without a basic understanding of smart energy efforts, approved of them.
"People want to conserve energy," said Valocchi. "We just need to get better at showing them how."

IBM is recommending that instead of trying to educate consumers in the language and metrics of electrical energy--such as "dollars per kwh"—utilities instead should create consumer-oriented portals that compare a consumer's energy consumption with that of their neighbors, presenting clear visual evidence of the results of conservation and describing simple, effective methods of improving their standing among their peers.

"We are providing energy providers with a new way of engaging their consumers in a way that allows them to see the choices they can make in terms that they understand," said Valocchi. "It’s going to allow a whole new way of customer engagement that we have never seen in the industry."

As an example of progress already made, IBM described on-going efforts with the government of Malta (a small central Mediterranean archipelago) where research has revealed that deploying smart meters needs to be coupled with new presentations in billing that focus on the concrete steps that need to be taken to improve conservation with the new technology. The five-year effort, now in its fourth year, is a harbinger of how to make smart energy deployments successful and avoid consumer backlash during initial deployments.

"Smart metering needs to go hand in hand with the larger transformation," said Jean-Christophe Samin, project manager for IBM’s smart grid deployment for electricity and water in Malta.
According to Samin, the entire information chain needs to enhance consumer awareness, from the smart meter and the information it provides to the billing system.

IBM's pilot efforts with the Malta-government-owned Enemalta Corporation and Water Services Corporation include creating an online smart energy portal that explains conservation in easy-to-understand terms that offer just a few simple concrete choices, then provide the tools for measuring their progress in comparison to the efforts of their peers that IBM calls "social proof."

Further Reading

#ENERGY: "U.S. Renewables Outpace Nuclear Power"

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that renewable energy sources in total have surpassed nuclear power, and are likely to widen the gap unless new nuclear plants are built.

U.S production of energy from renewable sources recently passed that from nuclear reactors despite administration efforts to revitalize U.S. nuclear power generation with federal loan guarantees for constructing new nuclear reactors.

In his 2011 State of the Union speech, President Obama said, "We need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country."
Obama's attempt to paint nuclear energy green, however, was before the nuclear disaster in Japan, which has prompted nations worldwide to back away from nukes, including Germany which has pledged to concentrate on renewable energy and shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022.

The Obama Administration, on the other hand, is currently proposing to add $36 billion to the current $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power plant construction in its FY2011 budget, bringing the total to $54 billion—nearly tripling the money currently available for new nuclear reactors.

Renewable energy passed that of nuclear power in March 2011 (in quadrillion BTUs). (Source: Energy Information Administration)
Meanwhile the world continues to reel from the triple meltdown at the Fukushima-daichi nuclear complex in Japan. Efforts there have been plagued by problems and missteps.

In the wake of this continuing fiasco, one bright light shines--namely, that renewable energy sources have already passed nuclear power generation in the U.S. and are on-track to outpace oil too.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that renewable energy sources--which include hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal, and bio-mass/fuels--were responsible for 0.805 quadrillion BTUs of energy, or about 17 percent of the total U.S. energy generation, in March 2011. Nuclear, on the other hand, provided 0.687 quadrillion BTUs, or about 14.5 percent, according to EIA estimates.

Comparing the entire first quarter of 2010 to 2011, renewable energy sources rose about 15 percent, according to the EIA, and compared with the first quarter of 2009, renewable energy rose over 25 percent, marking accelerated growth in 2011.
Further Reading

#ENERGY: "Personal power management puts you in charge"

Personal power management is permitting users to take control of their energy consumption. Look for personal energy management solutions from a whole ecosystem of electronics and software providers starting in 2011. R. Colin Johnson, Kyoto Prize Fellow @NextGenLog


Google PowerMeter and The Energy Detective (TED) is all you need to monitor energy usage with your computer or mobile device.

Here is what my EETimes story says about personal energy management: Google already has a free downloadable app, the PowerMeter, that can monitor overall energy consumption in a home with an installed breaker-box add-on, such as Energy Inc.'s TED (The Energy Detective). Intel is taking the approach one step further by "personalizing" energy management as it once helped personalize computing; the company has crafted a prototype personal-energy monitor that plugs into the wall (instead of the breaker box) and uses artificial intelligence to deduce which appliances in a household are on and how much power they are using...
Full Text: http://bit.ly/NextGenLog-gCBN

"ENERGY: Artificial Photosynthesis Offers Smarter Path to Renewable Energy"

MIT is working on a personal energy system that stores energy in liquid fuels during the day at their point of use, the way a plant does using photosynthesis, and then providing electricity to homes and hybrid cars when sunlight is not available. Look for artificial photosynthesis to be incorporated in to first adopters homes within five years. R.C.J.


Photosynthesis-like technologies offer a sustainable future even as world populations grow by generating and storing the energy to run homes and cars on-site, according to the inventor of a new renewable personal energy system at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Personal energy (PE) is the goal of professor Daniel Nocera, director of both the Solar Revolutions Project and the Eni Solar Frontiers Center at MIT. According to Nocera, PE systems emulate the way a plant transforms solar energy into a fuel that can be used at night and on cloudy days. PE aims to enable a renewable, sustainable future, even as the world's energy needs double by 2050.
Text: http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Technology-For-Change/Artificial-Photosynthesis-Offers-Smarter-Path-to-Renewable-Energy/

"ENERGY: World's First Osmotic Power Plant Yields 24/7 Renewable Energy"

Unlike solar, wind, wave and other sources of renewable energy, osmotic power plants harness a source of energy that is constantly available--fresh water streams running into the sea--thereby enabling sustainable, renewable power plants that produce constant, uniform electricity, all day, every day. Look for osmotic power plant to begin popping up along shorelines worldwide over the next decade. R.C.J.


The world's first osmotic power plant officially opened today in Tofte, Norway, providing sustainable, renewable electricity generation 24/7. Unlike solar, wind, wave and other sources of renewable energy, osmotic power plants harness a source of energy that is constantly available--fresh water streams running into the sea--thereby enabling sustainable, renewable power plants that produce constant, uniform electricity, all day, every day.
Osmotic power generation harnesses the chemical energy locked in the gradient between salt water and fresh water by using an osmosis process. This pilot plant was designed by Statkraft (Oslo) to produce 10 kWatts of energy, but the Norwegian renewable energy company plans to expand that to a full-scale osmotic power plant capable of producing continuous 25 megawatts.
Text: http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Technology-For-Change/Worlds-First-Osmotic-Power-Plant-Yields-247-Renewable-Energy/

#ENERGY: "Smart Grids Driving $1 Billion Markets"

As the global energy grids modernize with smart meters, alternative generation and energy storage technologies, whole industries will get infusions of prosperity.
Energy grids are modernizing at an accelerated pace, with smart infrastructure projects getting underway worldwide. In addition to the grid itself, whole industries hope to grow in prosperity as the smart upgrades consume their resources.
The smart grids will span installations from the giant electrical generating stations all the way down to smart home appliances. Ubiquitous communications and control will allow cloud computing resources to communication with energy efficient buildings, home energy management systems, and individual smart appliances anywhere on the Internet. By automatically balancing loads on the grid, shifting non-mission critical functions (like drying clothes) to off-peak hours, and by using local storage arrays to buffer peak-demand periods, future smart grids aim to both efficiently and reliably service urban and rural electricity users alike.
Smart grids will also be a necessity in order to accommodate the coming legions of all-electric vehicles that will be charging from the grid by the end of the decade, according to IC Insights. Grid modernization will also incorporate renewable energy sources and sinks--from photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines to neighborhood fuel cells and liquid-battery storage arrays. IC Insights estimates include the entire smart-grid infrastructure, electrical storage systems, smart meters and IT investments needed to run it all.
Since the infrastructure will be smarter, it will require IT investments for the computers and networks controlling and coordinating the scheduling and balancing of loads on the grid. In addition, an increasingly diverse array of alternative generation and storage technologies are being accommodated, creating whole new industries.
Total smart grid expenditures today are under $100 billion annually, according to a new Research Bulletin from IC Insights Inc. Accelerated growth over the next four years will boost annual funding of smart grid infrastructure to nearly $200 billion.

Investments in smart grid infrastructure will be almost $100 billion in 2011, and will nearly double to $197 billion by 2015. (Source: IC Insights)
The semiconductor industry that enables smart meters to be smart will likewise almost double along with the smart grid itself. This market (including all semiconductor microchips used in smart grid projects) will grow from $524 million in 2010 to $1.1 billion by 2015, according to IC Insights. That represents a predicted average growth rate of 15 percent for the next four years.
Besides the microchips used in the computers and networks controlling the smart grid, semiconductor microchips will be the enabling technology in smart meters, as well as home-area and business energy-management networks. These microchips will include embedded processors, micro-controllers, wireless radio frequency (RF) chips, power transistors, flash memories, and communications chips. Already today, many semiconductor vendors are offering application-specific system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for smart meters that handle all communications with the grid, household appliances, smart wall plugs, intelligent thermostats, and energy-management systems.


Further Reading

#WIRELESS: "Smart Monitors Benefit from RF Energy Harvesting"

Georgia Tech professor Manos Tentzeris holds a sensor (left) and an ultra-broadband spiral antenna for wearable energy-scavenging applications, both of which were inkjet printed on paper. (Source: Georgia Tech)

Radio-frequency energy from television, AM, FM, cellular, WiFi, WiMax, Long-Term Evolution and more can now be harvested to power smarter electronic devices for security, environmental sensing, structural monitoring (bridges/buildings), food spoilage and wearable bio-monitoring devices. Much has been made of the radio-frequency waves saturating every cubic inch of air in developed nations, and especially in metropolitan centers where television, AM, FM, cellular, WiFi, WiMax, Long-Term Evolution and scientific/medical sub-bands compete. One research group at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta), however, sees RF saturation not as a potential health problem, but as an opportunity to scavenge power directly from the air.

Harvesting RF energy from the air and converting it into usable power for smarter electronic devices could enable always-on security devices that work even during power outages, environmental and structural sensors that do not require batteries, food-preparation sensors that monitor spoilage inside containers, and wearable biological sensors that can transmit vital signs to emergency responders even when the person wearing them is unconscious.

Other groups have demonstrated the ability to harvest ambient RF power using relatively expensive antennas tuned to specific frequencies, but Georgia Tech researchers now claim to have created a cheap ultra-wideband antenna technology that can scavenge a wide swath of frequencies simultaneously and allows their energy-harvesting devices to generate much more power than earlier attempts.
"Using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges is giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability," said Manos Tentzeris, a professor at Georgia Tech.

Since 2006, Tentzeris and colleagues have been experimenting with antenna-based energy-scavenging devices, but only in relatively narrow bands. Now, the team claims to have created ultra-wideband antennas and sensors that can be printed on paper or clear polymers using conductive inks with embedded silver nanoparticles, making their energy-harvesting technology commercially feasible.

In demonstrations, Tentzeris' team has created self-powered sensors for chemical, biological, heat and stress applications. The team has also created ultra-cheap RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags using their techniques, which could be used in manufacturing, shipping and for monitoring communications and power usage.

The system works by first converting alternating RF signals in to direct current that charges either a super-capacitor or a battery, which typically saves up enough energy to power on a device. Only microWatts of power can be generated in real time from a single RF frequency, but by using these new ultra-wideband antennas, milliwatts of power can be produced, enabling some low-power devices to be run directly. Eventually, the team hopes to power devices requiring as much as 50 milliwatts.
Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration and Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization.

Further Reading

#OPTICS: "World's First Nanoscale Optical Fibers'

Photonic chips that compute with light instead of electricity--the holy grail of optics--will enable a faster, more sustainable Internet, by virtue of lowering its power consumption with the world's smallest optical fibers.



Researchers have created nanowires generated by direct laser writing, here stacked to form a three-dimensional woodpile photonic crystal with a pronounced stop gap.

At its current rate of growth, the Internet is on track to consume half the world's energy in the next decade, according to professor Min Gu, the Director of the Centre for Micro-Photonics at Swinburne University of Technology. To head off the debacle, Gu's research group has created the world's smallest optical fibers, which he claims will enable not only a faster, but a more sustainable Internet, by virtue of reduced energy consumption.
"The Internet has become a major energy consumer," said Gu. "In the next decade the Internet will account for half of the world’s energy usage--so making it more efficient will make a huge difference to our carbon footprint."

Researchers have created nanowires generated by direct laser writing, here stacked to form a three-dimensional woodpile photonic crystal with a pronounced stop gap.
His research team, which was recently ranked among the top 100 universities for physics research in the Academic Ranking of World Universities published annually by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, is working with the six university, Australian government funded, effort to stem Internet power consumption at the Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems. The aim of CUDOS is to create an all-photonics Internet that drastically cuts energy consumption by computing with light instead of electricity.
Photonics encodes the binary ones and zeros of Internet communications on pulses of light instead of electronic charge packets. Electricity must overcome the resistance of the wires through which it travels, which causes them to heat up, wasting much of the energy required for communications signals. As a result, all long-haul Internet communications today are performed with optical fibers which carry signals between metropolitan areas faster and without all the heat.
However, once the signals reach their target city, they are translated into electrical signals with expensive, power hungry converters which receive the weightless photons of light from the long-haul fibers and translate them into electrical signals that travel down a cable- or digital-subscriber link (DSL) to the user's computer. Likewise, between distant metropolitan areas "repeaters" must periodically translate the optical signals into electrical ones, then use high powered lasers to re-encode the electrical signals as light pulses that continue down fibers to the next repeater.
The holy grail of photonics is to eliminate the need for repeaters, cable, DSL and even the wires between the chips inside your computer with nanoscale optical fibers that perform all computing with light, eliminating the need to ever translate weightless, energy conserving photons into heavy, energy wasting electrons. With optical fibers small enough, even the communications signals on the processor inside your computer could be made optical, saving energy for computers, routers, and other communications equipment as well as extending the battery life of the mobile device themselves.
In its most recent step toward realizing the dream of all-optical computing, doctoral candidate Elisa Nicoletti working on a CUDOS project in Gu's lab, created the world's smallest optical fibers. Measuring just 68 nanometers in diameter, the new optical fibers are small enough to be used inside all-optical routers, switches and other future photonic microchips. Measuring just one-twelfth the wavelength of the light being transmitted through them, the nanofibers were directly written with a laser onto microchips using a nonlinear material called a chalcogenide.
Other groups have created nano wires out of plastic, which is a passive material that merely passes the signal. But by using chalcogenide, Gu's group was able to demonstrate nanowires constructed into a three-dimensional "woodpile" photonic crystal with a pronounced stop gap. Such structures can work with laser-powered light pumps to perform all the functions performed today with power-hungry electrical routers and switches.
Further Reading

"ENERGY: RPI claims battery-fueled, room-temp fusion"

It won't power the starship Enterprise, but an experimental "dilithium crystal" pyroelectric technology is said to enable compact nuclear fusion. Engineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.) said they have opposed two oppositely charged centimeter-sized lithium tantalate crystals to create a fusion device that can operate off a battery at room temperature. "In a [conventional] fusion device de- signed to produce energy, the release of high-energy ions further heats the plasma, thereby sustaining the reaction. We get the same amount of energy out of the fusion reaction, but we cannot use it to sustain the reaction," said the technique's inventor, associate professor Yaron Danon. "Instead, we plan to use the energy emitted to create a portable neutron source that has applications in non- destructive testing or, possibly, explosive-mine detection," he said. Indeed, Danon predicts that different application areas will benefit from the four types of high-energy particles that a pyroelectric crystal accelerator can emit: high-energy electrons, ions, neutrons and X-rays. The electrons that pyroelectric crystals produce could be used for therapeutic purposes, such as cancer treatments, he said. With some improvements, the high-energy emissions might be used to inspect cargo or scan luggage. Danon performed his research for the Department of Energy with Jeffrey Geuther and Frank Saglime, doctoral candidates in nuclear engineering.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180203378

"ENERGY: Intel touts personal energy management"

The era of the personal computer is giving way to the era of personal energy management, according to Intel. Look for Intel-branded energy management control panels and apps by the fall of 2010. R.C.J.


Intel's CEO declared the "era of personal energy management" during the chip maker's developer's forum in Beijing this week. Intel has designed its own smart energy sensor that plugs into any outlet and uses a training mode to learn the electronic signatures of household appliances on a circuit. Intel also showed a prototype of an energy display panel that uses data from its wireless energy sensor to monitor usage, recommend more efficient practices and set goals. The same functions performed by the hardware control panel can also built into an application for laptops or smartphones.
Full Text: http://bit.ly/aLzysF

#ENERGY: "Carbon solar cell harness infrared light"

Carbon, the future miracle material is now preferred for solar cells too--at least for a the untapped infrared spectrum. Plastics are becoming old school, carbon is is the future: R. Colin Johnson



An atomic-force microscope image of a layer of single-walled carbon nanotubes deposited on a silicon surface, as the first step in manufacturing the new type of solar cell developed by an MIT team. Individual nanotubes can be seen in the image.
Photo: Rishabh Jain et al
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Here's what MIT says about carbon solar cells: About 40 percent of the solar energy reaching Earth’s surface lies in the near-infrared region of the spectrum — energy that conventional silicon-based solar cells are unable to harness. But a new kind of all-carbon solar cell developed by Michael Strano and colleagues at MIT could tap into that unused energy, opening up the possibility of combination solar cells — incorporating both traditional silicon-based cells and the new all-carbon cells — that could make use of almost the entire range of sunlight’s energy.

In order for the new solar cells to work, the nanotubes have to be very pure, and of a uniform type: single-walled, and all of just one of nanotubes’ two possible symmetrical configurations.

Other groups have made photovoltaic (PV) cells using carbon nanotubes, but only by using a layer of polymer to hold the nanotubes in position and collect the electrons knocked loose when they absorb sunlight. But that combination adds extra steps to the production process, and requires extra coatings to prevent degradation with exposure to air. The new all-carbon PV cell appears to be stable in air.

The carbon-based cell is most effective at capturing sunlight in the near-infrared region. Because the material is transparent to visible light, such cells could be overlaid on conventional solar cells, creating a tandem device that could harness most of the energy of sunlight. The carbon cells will need refining, according to Strano, since the current proof-of-concept devices have an energy-conversion efficiency of only about 0.1 percent.

Typically, when a new solar-cell material is studied, there are large inefficiencies, which researchers gradually find ways to reduce. In this case, postdoc and co-author Kevin Tvrdy says, some of these sources of inefficiency have already been identified and addressed: For instance, scientists already know that heterogeneous mixtures of carbon nanotubes are much less efficient than homogeneous formulations, and material that contains a mix of single-walled and multiwalled nanotubes are so much less efficient that sometimes they don’t work at all.

The work also involved MIT graduate students Rachel Howden, Steven Shimizu and Andrew Hilmer; postdoc Thomas McNicholas; and professor of chemical engineering Karen Gleason. It was supported by the Italian company Eni through the MIT Energy Initiative, as well as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense through graduate fellowships to Jain and Howden, respectively.
Further Reading

"ENERGY: 5 Green Energy Technologies Slated to Blossom in 2010"

Of the thousands of green energy efforts worldwide, these five technologies are passing make-or-break milestones in 2010. R.C.J.

How to Build a Green Data Center
In 2009, Syracuse University, in cooperation with IBM, opened the Green Data Center (GDC)...
How to Green an Existing Data Center
For existing data centers, in 2009 Sentilla (Redwood City, Calif.) began beta-testing its Sentilla Energy Manager software that can retrofit existing data centers to reap up to 40 percent savings in energy...
Stirling Engine Powers SunCatcher
In 2009, a spin-off of the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories--Stirling Energy Systems--proved the concept behind concentrating the suns' rays into the combustion chamber of a Stirling engine driving an electricity generato...
Osmosis Harnesses Ocean Power
In 2009, the world's first osmotic power plant went online at Statkraft (Oslo, Norway) enabled by Energy Recovery (San Leandro, Calif.) which re-engineered its desalination pressure exchangers to run in revers...
Tree Power Harnessing Nature's Battery
In 2009, MIT proved the concept behind "tree power"--namely that trees act like living batteries..
Read all the details by clicking below:
Full Text: http://bit.ly/5BBDsw

"NANOTECH: Nanotubes pack promise of battery-free energy storage"

Mechanical energy can be stored and released without any degradation over time, like a mouse trap. Now engineers think that the extremely flexible, but very strong, carbon nanotube can store mechanical energy by stretching them like a spring. Such nanosprings could someday replace batteries for long-term energy storage and for use in high- or low-temperature environments where batteries are likely to fail. Look for nanosprings to be commercialized within five years. R.C.J.


Springs can store mechanical energy indefinitely when properly tethered, and they can operate in harsh environments, with immunity to temperature extremes that would kill most batteries. The catch is that conventional steel springs have a much lower energy density than batteries. Researchers working with carbon-nanotube powered springs, however, report that the nanotube springs can store 1,000 times more mechanical energy than their steel counterparts. While that's still lower than the energy density of today's batteries, ganged nanosprings might rival batteries in density, with a greener footprint. Unlike batteries, carbon nanotubes are impervious to temperature, humidity and other environmental factors, since they are composed of pure carbon molecular chains just a few nanometers in diameter but millimeters long. For direct battery replacement, the nanosprings would need to drive a generator to deliver electric current, making the efficiency of the generator a factor.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220100920

"ALGORITHMS: Data Center Energy: The Newest IT Asset"

Smart energy management maximizes performance in the data center while minimizing waste, and in the process turns energy into the newest IT asset. Look for most data centers worldwide to start using demand-side energy management over the next few years. R.C.J.


Sentilla claims that its demand-side energy management can monitor every device in the data center with no extra hardware to be installed. Using artificial intelligence (AI) inference engines, Sentilla Energy Manager tracks energy consumption at a data center to within 2 percent of actual, as well as provides savings of up to 40 percent by identifying where energy is being wasted.
Full Text: http://bit.ly/axBScP

#ALGORITHMS: "Smarter Building Management Cuts Costs"

Tulane University’s Richardson Memorial Hall is being turned into a "smarter building living laboratory" for its architecture students. (Source: IBM)

Green buildings are not confined to new construction anymore. IBM recently unveiled its Intelligent Building Management software that applies analytics and automation algorithms to make any building new or old 'green.'

Aiming for smarter building management, IBM Intelligent Building Management software can cut power use by up to 40 percent as well as reduce buildings' maintenance costs by as much as 30 percent.

According to IDC Energy Insights, the global Smart Building market was over $3 billion in 2010 and will grow to over $10 billion by 2015. And no wonder, since buildings consume a third of the world's energy today and urban growth is driving this demand higher as an estimated 1 million people around the world move into cities each week.

IBM estimates that as much as 50 percent of the energy and water used in existing buildings today is wasted, and that by 2025, buildings will be the largest consumer of global energy, surpassing the transportation and manufacturing industries combined. As a result, analysts claim that energy conservation has become the No. 1 priority worldwide for cities, universities, corporations, hospitals and factories.
New buildings, of course, can design-in conservation methodologies, but even legacy buildings can benefit from the application of smart analytics by virtue of the multitude of sensors and building control systems that have already been installed there by companies like Johnson Controls and Schneider Electric. As a result, most buildings already have access to a constant flow of data on lighting, heating, air conditioning, manufacturing, and computer use. By harvesting the data from these sensors, IBM's Intelligent Building Management software aims to make any building greener.

According to David Bartlett, vice president, IBM Smarter Buildings, organizations seeking to optimize their energy use, can make use of its Intelligent Building Management software to "listen to and make sense of a building's operations, by applying a real-time, analytic approach."

To prove its point, IBM recently released statistics showing that its own Rochester, Minn., campus--consisting of 3 million square feet and 35 interconnected buildings--was able to reap an 8 percent energy savings by virtue of following the suggestions made by its Intelligent Building Management analytics.
Independent testing is also ongoing at Tulane University (New Orleans) where the Intelligent Building Management software is being applied to its century-old Richardson Memorial Hall, which is being turned into a "smarter building living laboratory" for its architecture students.

"We are particularly inspired by the melding of environmental sustainability and technology innovation," said Kenneth Schwartz, dean of Tulane’s School of Architecture.

As a test bed for a new generation of architects, Tulane will be using IBM's Intelligent Building Management algorithms to provide a "holistic efficiency" approach that monitors air temperature, humidity, water temperature and other parameters to minimize the consumption of natural resources without affecting the quality of comfort in the rooms.

All the gathered data is analyzed and the results are fed to a dashboard where operators can drill down into details as well as scale out to see enterprisewide metrics. Analytical rules detect anomalies in usage, such as when the energy profile of an air-handling unit deviates from normal trends, as well as pinpoint necessary repairs. As a result, the maintenance team can work in "just-in-time" predictive-maintenance mode, sending a qualified mechanic armed with the right replacement before it
Further Reading

"ENERGY: Osmotic power generators harvest energy from sea"

Running desalination plants in reverse in order to produce electricity, rather than cleanse salt from water, was made possible by the invention of the pressure exchanger by Energy Recovery Inc. Look for osmotic energy generating plant to begin popping up on coastlines worldwide over the next few years. R.C.J.


Energy Recovery Inc. has re-engineered its pressure exchangers, which enable fresh water to be derived from salt water worldwide in desalination plants, to run in reverse systems that generated power from mixing fresh- with salt-water. The first pilot plant, constructed by Norwegian-government owned renewable-energy company Statkraft is up and running. If successful, Statkraft plans to replicate its plants across the globe potentially generating enough energy to satisfy up to 50 percent of Europe's needs.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221901504

"ENERGY: Backpack power plant gererates green electricity from river currents"

Green energy can be produced by the Bourne Energy RiverStar Backpack Power Plant. By teathering the float at the bottom on a stream, with the included tie-downs, the turbine generates electricity 24/7/365 with no heat or exhaust emissions. Take it along to generate 500 watts--or up to 20kwatts when used in arrays--to power your campsite or in remote third-world locations to power water purifiers, cell phones, whatever. Look for these green energy generators to start popping up everywhere. R.C.J.


The RiverStar BackPack Power Plant is the smallest of its Bourne Energy's hydrokinetic, zero-fuel continuous power generators, measuring just three feet in length and weighing less than 30 pounds. The self-contained units unfold their turbine blades, which are stored inside the float for backpacking, and are bottom mounted with no threat of contamination from waste materials, cutting the cost of electricit by more than 90% compared to portable generators. Bourne also offers many other designs for portable micro-hydro power generators that can use river, tidal and ocean power to produce as much as 3MW per unit.
Text: http://www.prweb.com/releases/Bourne-Energy/Renewable-Energy-Backpack/prweb2605214.htm

#ENERGY: "Grid-Scale Batteries Could Buffer Renewables"

Gigantic grid-scale batteries containing self-separating liquids, instead of metal electrodes, promise to buffer renewable energy sources by storing, for instance, wind energy at night for use during the day.


Professor Donald Sadoway and research affiliate David Bradwell at MIT's Materials Processing Center observe a test battery inside the heavily insulated metal cylinder heated to 700 degrees Celsius (1292 degrees Fahrenheit). (Source: MIT)

Novel grid-scale all-liquid batteries promise to enable electricity from renewable sources--such as solar, wind, and ocean--to be stored then released on-demand by virtue of chemical reactions that take place at over 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claim their all liquid battery technology can be inexpensively replicated on a gigantic scale, to help make renewable energy sources viable, since much of their production is wasted today due to a lack of grid-scale battery technologies. For instance, when the wind blows at night when electricity demands are low the all-liquid batteries could level-the-load by storing the energy produced until daylight, thus smoothing out erratic renewables.

The key to the inexpensive new battery technology is that it consists entirely of liquid components. Conventional liquid batteries--like the one it most cars--use two metal electrodes separated by a liquid electrolyte. However, the new MIT gird-scale battery is entirely liquid. Three different liquids of different densities--the top and bottom liquids acting as the electrodes and the middle one as the electrolyte--naturally stay separated in a manner similar to how some cocktails will separate into liquid levels in your glass.

The liquid materials are all inexpensive and yet work even better than liquid-core batteries with solid electrodes, according to their inventor, professor Donald Sadoway. (Sadoway has been working toward the all-liquid battery for three years with his team that includes MIT doctoral candidate David Bradwell.)

The only major downside to MIT's all-liquid battery is that it must be heated to 1292 degrees Fahrenheit in order to keep the three liquids separate. By keeping the all-liquid battery in a tightly sealed and insulated container, the MIT team claims it could be safely deployed by electric grid owners.

The battery has a top layer consisting of molten magnesium, the middle electrolytic layer consisting of molten magnesium-chloride, and the bottom layer consisting of molten antimony. The battery delivers current by stripping electrons from the top magnesium layer; these ions migrate through the electrolyte to form an alloy with the antimony at the bottom. When recharging, electrons from a renewable energy source recombine with the magnesium ions in the alloy at the bottom. The freed magnesium atoms then migrate back across the electrolyte to rejoin the molten magnesium at the top where it is ready to again supply energy to the grid.

Sadoway and Bradwell have founded Liquid Metal Battery Corp. to commercialize their all-liquid battery.

#ROBOTICS: "Jumping Robots to Extend Battery Life"

Robots could drastically extend their battery life by jumping instead of walking or rolling as they do today--especially if robots adopt a unique two-step 'stutter jump' technique discovered by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology: R. Colin Johnson

Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Daniel Goldman (left) and Graduate Student Jeffrey Aguilar examine a simple robot built to the dynamics of jumping. The research could lead to reduced power consumption by hopping robots. (Click image for high-resolution version. Credit: Gary Meek)

Here is what Georgia Tech says about jumping robots: Stutter Jumping: Study of 20,000 Jumps Shows How a Hopping Robot Could Conserve its Energy

A new study shows that jumping can be much more complicated than it might seem. In research that could extend the range of future rescue and exploration robots, scientists have found that hopping robots could dramatically reduce the amount of energy they use by adopting a unique two-part “stutter jump.”

Taking a short hop before a big jump could allow spring-based “pogo-stick” robots to reduce their power consumption as much as ten-fold. The formula for the two-part jump was discovered by analyzing nearly 20,000 jumps made by a simple laboratory robot under a wide range of conditions.

“If we time things right, the robot can jump with a tenth of the power required to jump to the same height under other conditions,” said Daniel Goldman, an assistant professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “In the stutter jumps, we can move the mass at a lower frequency to get off the ground. We achieve the same takeoff velocity as a conventional jump, but it is developed over a longer period of time with much less power.”

The research was reported October 26 in the journal Physical Review Letters. The work was supported by the Army Research Laboratory’s MAST program, the Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the GEM Fellowship.

Jumping is an important means of locomotion for animals, and could be important to future generations of robots. Jumping has been extensively studied in biological organisms, which use stretched tendons to store energy.

The Georgia Tech research into robot jumping began with a goal of learning how hopping robots would interact with complicated surfaces – such as sand, granular materials or debris from a disaster. Goldman quickly realized he’d need to know more about the physics of jumping to separate the surface issues from the factors controlled by the dynamics of jumping.

Inspired by student-directed experiments on the dynamics of hopping in his nonlinear dynamics and chaos class, Goldman asked Jeffrey Aguilar, a graduate student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, to construct the simplest jumping robot. Aguilar built a one-kilogram robot that is composed of a spring beneath a mass capable of moving up and down on a thrust rod. Aguilar used computer controls to vary the starting position of the mass on the rod, the amplitude of the motion, the pattern of movement and the frequency of movement applied by an actuator built into the robot’s mass. A high-speed camera and a contact sensor measured and recorded the height of each jump.

The researchers expected to find that the optimal jumping frequency would be related to the resonant frequency of the spring and mass system, but that turned out not to be true. Detailed evaluation of the jumps showed that frequencies above and below the resonance provided optimal jumping – and additional analysis revealed what the researchers called the “stutter jump.”

“The preparatory hop allows the robot to time things such that it can use a lower energy to get to the same jump height,” Goldman explained. “You really don’t have to move the mass rapidly to get a good jump.”

The amount of energy that can be stored in batteries can limit the range and duration of robotic missions, so the stutter jump could be helpful for small robots that have limited power. Optimizing the efficiency of jumping could therefore allow the robots to complete longer and more complex missions.

But because it requires longer to perform than a simple jump, the two-step jump may not be suitable for all conditions.

“If you’re a small robot and you want to jump over an obstacle, you could save energy by using the stutter jump even though that would take longer,” said Goldman. “But if a hazard is threatening, you may need to expend the additional energy to make a quick jump to get out of the way.”

For the future, Goldman and his research team plan to study how complicated surfaces affect jumping. They are currently studying the effects of sand, and will turn to other substrates to develop a better understanding of how exploration or rescue robots can hop through them.

Goldman’s past work has focused on the lessons learned from the locomotion of biological systems, so the team is also interested in what the robot can teach them about how animals jump. “What we have learned here can function as a hypothesis for biological systems, but it may not explain everything,” he said.

The simple jumping robot turned out to be a useful system to study, not only because of the interesting behaviors that turned up, but also because the results were counter to what the researchers had expected.

“In physics, we often study the steady-state solution,” Goldman noted. “If we wait enough time for the transient phenomena to die off, then we can study what’s left. It turns out that in this system, we really care about the transients.”

This research is supported by the Army Research Laboratory.
Further Reading

#ALGORITHMS: "Smart Homes Redefine Housework as IT"

Smart household robots, appliances, energy managers, entertainment systems and security systems, all communicating device-to-device, are redefining housework as an IT function.


LG's Smart ThinQ system uses smartphone apps to control smart household robots, appliances, security systems, and energy-management systems. (Source: LG)

This week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas will showcase the home of the future, where housework is being redefined as an IT function. Centered around apps running on smart entertainment systems and smartphones, home owners can now wirelessly control household robots, smart appliances, security systems and energy management systems.

"By creating new possibilities for chore management, such as allowing consumers to monitor washing machines through their TVs or smartphones, LG is enabling homeowners to rethink the concept of household chores," said Moon-bum Shin, executive vice president and CEO of LG Electronics Home Appliance Company.

At CES, demonstrations abound showing how shoppers can use a smartphone app at the grocery store to see what is on hand in the smart refrigerator at home, how a smart oven can likewise be turned on remotely to have dinner cooked by the time you arrive home, how a smart energy manager can turn on the smart washer and dryer during off-peak hours to save money, and how a smart entertainment system can manage your favorite tunes and television shows to have them available on-demand whether you are at home watching on your flat screen TV or in the subway listening on your smartphone.

Device-to-device connectivity is the key to turning housework into an IT function. An example of this technology is the upgraded LG Smart ThinQ, which marries LG smart appliances and household robots to the company’s home energy management system (HeMS), smart entertainment systems, PCs, and mobile smartphones.

"Smart ThinQ and HeMS provide consumers with a more comfortable and convenient way to manage chores, as well as potentially providing big savings in energy usage on electricity bills," Shin said.

LG's smart refrigerator and smart clothes washer received 2012 CES Innovations Awards. Shoppers can use the touch-panel on the company’s smart refrigerator to check its contents without opening the door. The contents can also be checked remotely using a smartphone app. Other Smart Access apps allow users to monitor the status of any household appliance and robots, which are all smart-grid ready. Users can also issue commands to LG’s Hom-Bot to perform housework, such as vacuum the kids rooms before they get home from school.

LG will also demonstrate Google TV running on its new ultra-resolution 84-inch organic liquid-crystal flat-panel display, showing images at a resolution of 3840-by-2160 pixels, instead of the quarter-sized 1920-by-1080 displayed by HD TVs.