My favorite Thanksgiving tradition is the process of actually giving thanks---saying out loud (or putting into writing) all those positive, affirming ideas that, most of the time, we mentally dismiss as too cheesy to actually vocalize. Thanksgiving is the one day each year where cheesy is forgiven, in my book. On this one single November holiday, you're allowed to be your own personal Pollyanna. You can thank your parents for having you, your brother for not killing you that time you stole his most prized G.I. Joe, your boss for not holding it against you that you're not the most photogenic person to do video interviews, your friends for willingly braving zombie movies with you.
I already gave those personal thanks last week, but I just realized today that there are thanks to be given within our industry as well. So, here and now, I propose the ten smart grid items to be thankful for this year.
10. Improved technology. We really haven't done much in a couple of generations with our industry gadgets. The one thing the smart grid has kick-started is tech features---from more efficient switchgear to VAR compensators to in-home displays.
9. More research. All this smart grid chatter has loosened coffers for research and development where once you opened the R&D wallet and moths flew out, dust kicked up, and there was no money to be had.
8. More chatter. Speaking of chatter, there is a lot of it. Even my mother knows about the smart grid, perhaps not to an industry level. But, I'm amazed she knows anything at all. It can't all be from me. It must come from an outside source.
7. Media blitzing. A favorite outside source of all mothers is the media. In this case, I'm referring to tech and insider magazines. Traditionally, the heavy words of the power industry were often reserved for the generation side. These days, however, the grid is the word. Even our generation sister magazines in-house are talking smart grid.
6. Mainstream media blitzing. OK. My mother didn't get her info from an industry magazine or from me. She probably got it from Charles Gibson. She loves her some Charlie. But, isn't it amazing that Charlie is talking about the smart grid?
5. President Obama. Let's face it: Obama's focus on renewables and efficiency has certainly helped the smart grid cause. And the cash didn't hurt, either.
4. More money. Not just from Obama, but also from investors who now see a future in an industry once thought of as about as progressive as aglets (the plastic ends of shoelaces that haven't changed form in more years than my grandmother's been alive).
3. Less money. We have to take a moment, though, to realize that this influx of cash is, at least partially, due to many, many years of no cash. There would be no current boom without the previous bust.
2. The art of selling. We took an industry with a lot of different acronyms and names and words and hard to follow concepts, and we've finally done the brilliant act of marketing: We've dumbed it down. And, yes, that's a good thing. After all, you can't understand Calculus without a concept of simple addition. For years, we've tried to sell the consumer Calculus. And, they've been thoroughly puzzled. And we've been puzzled about why they were so uninterested. Simplicity is key. We should have listened to Thoreau years ago. (He kept telling us to simplify.)
1. The perfect name. In the end, perhaps we should give all of this credit to the ultimate simplification: an easy-to-understand, easy-to-market name. Names have made a lot of people and a lot of products appear so much better. (John Wayne was born Marion Mitchell Morrison, and thank goodness he changed that, for example.) That simple name, "the smart grid," may, in the end, be responsible for rescuing this industry from obscurity, just as Wayne's name change may well have cemented his place as a film icon. After all, how many male movie stars called Marion can you name?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Consumer-driven Smart Grid
I just returned from Amsterdam, and, during the trip, I got a tour of the city's Climate Street project. In a small shopping area in central Amsterdam, the community is coming together to change their carbon footprint, and a lot of the technology in play we would attribute to the smart grid: smart meters, energy management displays, etc. They've added in some solar tram stops and solar trash cans (and an interesting reverse osmosis water feature that can be used to wash those tram stops and trash cans). But, in the end, the heart of Climate Street is good distribution.
But, what fascinated me the most about Climate Street wasn't the technology or even the massive coordination effort by the city (and the local grid operator Alliander). What fascinated me the most was the impetus, the jumping off point for this project. Climate Street started with the shopkeepers. They came together and pushed for this concept, and they got it. Climate Street was a grassroots idea.
Honestly, I really can't imagine shopkeepers in the U.S. banding together to willingly pay for changing their power structure and intake. I can see U.S. shopkeepers asking about financial benefits for programs already put in place by the utility that they didn't have to much think about or fuss with, but I just can't imagine my local Reasor's and Wal-green's putting their heads together to try and do their part to green central Tulsa.
But, perhaps I'm jaded. Perhaps I'm underestimating the American commitment.
But, back to Holland. While we were getting a Climate Street overview outside in the biting Dutch wind, a shopkeeper wheeling in wine for his dinner rush invited us into his coffee shop to view some of the features he had in place for the project, including a plug and software that reads and helps diagnose energy use. He told us that, in fact, the program has convinced him to turn off the registers and the coffee machine at night, since they were pulling so much power.
He seemed very proud of this program and very happy with its progress, even though his shop and the street were marred by serious construction issues associated with removing and replacing the connections and cables.
It made me wonder how much my local Reasor's and Wal-green's really could save if they were willing to put their heads together with Oklahoma Gas and Electric and copy the Climate Street plan.
With a two-fold plan to save money and save the world, it seems like a win-win situation, doesn't it---well worth a little thought and a bit of construction dust? If they can do it, why not us?
But, what fascinated me the most about Climate Street wasn't the technology or even the massive coordination effort by the city (and the local grid operator Alliander). What fascinated me the most was the impetus, the jumping off point for this project. Climate Street started with the shopkeepers. They came together and pushed for this concept, and they got it. Climate Street was a grassroots idea.
Honestly, I really can't imagine shopkeepers in the U.S. banding together to willingly pay for changing their power structure and intake. I can see U.S. shopkeepers asking about financial benefits for programs already put in place by the utility that they didn't have to much think about or fuss with, but I just can't imagine my local Reasor's and Wal-green's putting their heads together to try and do their part to green central Tulsa.
But, perhaps I'm jaded. Perhaps I'm underestimating the American commitment.
But, back to Holland. While we were getting a Climate Street overview outside in the biting Dutch wind, a shopkeeper wheeling in wine for his dinner rush invited us into his coffee shop to view some of the features he had in place for the project, including a plug and software that reads and helps diagnose energy use. He told us that, in fact, the program has convinced him to turn off the registers and the coffee machine at night, since they were pulling so much power.
He seemed very proud of this program and very happy with its progress, even though his shop and the street were marred by serious construction issues associated with removing and replacing the connections and cables.
It made me wonder how much my local Reasor's and Wal-green's really could save if they were willing to put their heads together with Oklahoma Gas and Electric and copy the Climate Street plan.
With a two-fold plan to save money and save the world, it seems like a win-win situation, doesn't it---well worth a little thought and a bit of construction dust? If they can do it, why not us?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
European Conference Abstracts Reveal a Small World
This week I'm preparing to travel to Amsterdam for the conference committee meeting for POWERGRID Europe. This preparation process requires all the traditional travel elements---the buying of mini shampoo bottles, the reading of baggie boxes to see if they're quart-sized, the finding of the passport because you just can't remember what "safe" place you hid it in last time---but the preparation for this particular trip also requires a large non-traditional element: Namely, I have to read through a million paper abstracts.
Okay, not a million. That's an exaggeration. Still, a lot.
For those of you not familiar with the industry's conference process, here's the short, summed-up version: Utilities and vendors, engineers and students submit short summaries of the papers they'd like to present and a committee of experts then wades through all those submissions and someone says "Hey, this guy's paper fits with this guy's paper" and, through this process, we build ourselves a conference.
So, this week, I'm reading through paper abstracts for POWERGRID Europe so that next week, in Amsterdam, I'll know what we're talking about when Richard from Areva T&D or Heiko from Siemens or Marco from UTInnovation pipes up with "Hey, this guy's paper fits with this guy's paper."
What I've found through this reading process is that we're all dealing with the same stuff. Or, as the Disney ride puts it: It's a small world after all.
The largest popular topics: the smart grid and renewables. The largest popular headaches: How do we get the smart grid to work just right and how do we plug in those pesky renewables, exactly?
It reminds me of the time I ran into an old friend (who works in the industry) out of the blue in a line at Heathrow airport. I'd come in from Tulsa and was heading to Milan. He'd come in from Canada and was headed to Moscow. What were the odds we'd meet each other at Heathrow?
But, we do work in the same industry, and, while we weren't headed to the same conference, we were both headed to conferences. And, with those two similarities, patterns start to establish. This pattern led us to bump into each other at an airport hub.
Patterns establish themselves in our industry, too---whether the technology is popping up in New Hampshire, the Netherlands or New Delhi. The question remains, though: What do these patterns really tell us?
Right now, I don't know. Perhaps I will have more answers when I come back from Amsterdam and know which guy's paper fits perfectly with which other guy's paper. Perhaps then the patterns will reveal a clear message, and I'll be able to tell the industry's fortune and its future.
Okay, not a million. That's an exaggeration. Still, a lot.
For those of you not familiar with the industry's conference process, here's the short, summed-up version: Utilities and vendors, engineers and students submit short summaries of the papers they'd like to present and a committee of experts then wades through all those submissions and someone says "Hey, this guy's paper fits with this guy's paper" and, through this process, we build ourselves a conference.
So, this week, I'm reading through paper abstracts for POWERGRID Europe so that next week, in Amsterdam, I'll know what we're talking about when Richard from Areva T&D or Heiko from Siemens or Marco from UTInnovation pipes up with "Hey, this guy's paper fits with this guy's paper."
What I've found through this reading process is that we're all dealing with the same stuff. Or, as the Disney ride puts it: It's a small world after all.
The largest popular topics: the smart grid and renewables. The largest popular headaches: How do we get the smart grid to work just right and how do we plug in those pesky renewables, exactly?
It reminds me of the time I ran into an old friend (who works in the industry) out of the blue in a line at Heathrow airport. I'd come in from Tulsa and was heading to Milan. He'd come in from Canada and was headed to Moscow. What were the odds we'd meet each other at Heathrow?
But, we do work in the same industry, and, while we weren't headed to the same conference, we were both headed to conferences. And, with those two similarities, patterns start to establish. This pattern led us to bump into each other at an airport hub.
Patterns establish themselves in our industry, too---whether the technology is popping up in New Hampshire, the Netherlands or New Delhi. The question remains, though: What do these patterns really tell us?
Right now, I don't know. Perhaps I will have more answers when I come back from Amsterdam and know which guy's paper fits perfectly with which other guy's paper. Perhaps then the patterns will reveal a clear message, and I'll be able to tell the industry's fortune and its future.
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