Flurry of activity around Smart Grid
The “smart grid”–which refers to the next generation of electrical grid technology capable of a demand/response approach to energy management–appears to be moving closer to reality. Within the last week, a number of companies have made announcements about smart grid initiatives. Among them:
- On Sept. 17, Cisco announced momentum for its Smart Grid ecosystem effort, which includes partners well known in the manufacturing sector such as OSIsoft, Schneider Electric, and Wipro Technologies.
- On Sept. 16, IBM announced a new standards-based industry software platform and business partner validation program around their smart utility solutions. IBM is leverage various of its software assets around Smart Grid, including Websphere middleware, which could end up as a key piece of software for automating demand/response actions within a smart grid.
- Utility company Duke Energy and smart meter technology provider Echelon have teamed up on a $1 billion smart grid project that’s approved to bring smart metering to 600,000 customers in Ohio, as detailed in this CNNMoney.com article. While this is a consumer-facing effort announced earlier this summer, it may be that for smart grid to gain major traction in industry, we’ll first have to start seeing it on the home front, similar to the way the old Netscape browser and dial-up first opened the eyes of many business people to the power of graphical Web-based information management.
For industry, smart grid will help automate events like the selling of energy from co-generation units in factories at the precise moment when that power will fetch the best price. It also should give manufacturers the real-time visibility they need into energy demand/pricing so that they can schedule or reschedule plant activity accordingly. To be ready for all this, manufacturers may have to put in more submetering or energy monitoring software so they can track energy load in real-time as well forecast energy load. Plant managers also would need some ability to correlate visibility into load and energy demand with systems for plant scheduling and fulfillment so that traditional scheduling priorities aren’t harmed by shuffling things around because some piece of software thinks it can save a few watts. It all sounds pretty futuristic today, I’ll admit, but with IT giants like Cisco and IBM going full bore at this concept, perhaps smart grid will move forward more quickly than any of us can foresee.
What’s your view on the adoption curve for smart grid in industry? Will it be more like Internet computing, where we saw roughly a 10-year span between the introduction of the first browsers to fairly commonplace use of Web-based systems in the enterprise? Will it be even quicker than 10 years? Or, is smart grid entering a hype cycle, and will end up being 15 to 20 years away from a real commonplace impact in the enterprise? Please just comment here, or email me at rgmichel@gmail.com.
Kevin Binnie commented:
I think that there are two parts to smart grid adoption. The first part: actions and investments undertaken by utilities, I think we can expect over the next 3-5 years. The second part, involving specific investments from manufacturers, will be a longer cycle, perhaps as long as ten years. I think that will allow some adopters to realize a competitive advantage, which will ultimately drive universal adoption.
I liked Tom's use of the term "energy security" as it points out that manufacturing requires energy, thereofre this is a critical area of interest for manufacturers. I think it is those investments relating to securing required energy at the time that it is needed is an area smart manufacturers need to focus: the current system is designed to produce power for immediate consumption; the future is to divorce consumption from production of enegy: make the power in ways and at times that are most cost effective and least environmentally impactful and provide storage and delivery mechanisms that support as-needed, when-needed consumption. This is where early adopters can invest and reap the rewards.
Todd Szahun commented:
Cisco, as an IT specialist, is perfectly positioned to quickly meet the growing demands of the Smart Grid initiative, especially when combined with the energy management expertise of Schneider Electric. The Smart Grid ecosystem effort capitalizes on unique partnerships that bring valuable domain knowledge through all building ecosystems including power metering, energy monitoring, IT, and security. The consolidation and simplification of rich real-time information acquisition will empower all stakeholders in the energy production and consumption lifecycle. This means lower delivery costs, less waste, and increased reliability. As companies vie for Smart Grid dominance, and leaders around the world embrace Smart Grid technology as the foundation of comprehensive energy security practice, we will see this industry catalyzed into action.
