Electricity 2.0 making electricity like the internet
James Governor - Red Monk / Green Monk
Sept 17/08 raw notes
Don't think about how energy networks work
Red Monk: industry analyst business
Do things differently: lots of time using open source tech, social software tools
Started a blog called Green Monk - personal interest
Economics of energy
People wanted to pay him money, once the blog
Speaking about sustainability
Content syndication deals talking about energy, etc.
Tom Raffetery - hyper efficient data centre in Cork Ireland
Most interesting about sustainability space: people creating their own roles
Not a top down phenomenon. It's bottom up. Making a difference within
Their companies
Big Switch - Nicholas Carr
Why can't electricity be more like the internet?
Electricity 1.0
Electricity networks are read only? Why can't we publish?
Does anyone have anything that generates electricity? Publish it?
It's read only. Passive model
Electricity 1.0: top down, controlled. Electricity companies are scared of change, top-down approaches.
Not joined up. They don't connect. Widely separated: islands of electricity and energy.
What if electricity is not available: buggy? Rolling brown-outs.
It's kinda dumb. Static. No flow back and forth in the networks. Controlled system.
Closed network: not easy to participate. Even if you have electricity, could publish, why would they allow that? Locked down system. Traditional approach. How do you get access to that network.
Regularity: important part of energy planning. Have to be a metronome. Anomalies: networks have problems with that.
Network built for an earlier time, when needs were less.
Entire UK electricity network predicated on cups of tea: that's the spike
Eastenders: everyone turns the kettle on for a cup of tea when it's done
Entire provisioning in UK based on capacity spike at 8pm everyday.
Oh Noes!
Soaring oil prices
January 2000 slide from BBC - $30 / barrel graphic
Southwest Airlines: hedged aviation fuel for 5 years
Everyone getting squeezed
Airlines in trouble, can't pay for the energy to move us around
Electricity also getting more expensive
Then comes along…
Renewable Energy - very scary to energy companies
Pretty effective: chart of spain's renewable. Wind accounts for 17% of energy needs at certain points
Politicians: renewables, can't rely, won't cut it.
Demand doesn't meet supply. Wind blows at night. Asleep, when electricity not needed.
Wind effective, but not guaranteed. We're not in control.
Irish market: wind supply, 50% at some times. But over course of year, 6.5%
Can supply majority of needs, in some geographies, at some times, but not all the time
How can you store energy? Can't put it in a box.
Storage: investment really needs to be there.
Exotic storage solutions: limestone caverns, air compression, etc.
Really expensive, unproven.
Hydro electric: pump up when have energy, run down when needed.
If energy created, have to turn it off sometimes. Can't store it.
Wind energy example: NY Times - Maple Ridge Wind
Wind company gets turned off, bumps up against the other grid
Oversupply shutting down operations
Can we make it into a big network? Bi-lateral deal: Scotland & Norway
Scotland: we'll give you wind power, Norway: we'll give you hydro back
Big pipe transfer between two countries. Peer to peer. National Agreement.
Europe vs. Africa: energy transmission
Transfer over long distances is a problem.
Learned so much from the internet about routing, open standards, etc.
Proven principles
Learnt from the internet, apply to other areas. More sophisticated energy markets.
Peak shaving: provisioning for the spike, not just the actual need.
Peak shaving in the home: who's keeping an eye of utilization on the home.
Usage: twice a day: in the morning, then when get home.
Price will be high if everyone wants it at the same time.
Markets work that way.
Demand stimulation
Sometimes we have tons of energy. But no-one says, "hey, use it now"
Please use this surplus
How do you stimulate demand when you have a big pool of it available?
IBM: swimming pool as heat sync in Switzerland
Part of their network
Demand stimulation in the home: night storage heater
Idea is good, don't work that well.
Read/write grid: solar roof graphic
Publish our electricity onto the network.
Solar panel: if people are away, it's wasted energy.
All sorts of ways of generating electricity, but no-one pays us.
Might cut our bills by X, is this a good investment?
Not impossible to move to read/write
German market is interesting
Long view on energy resources
If you want to publish onto the grid, guaranteed pricing available in Germany
Electric devices: cars, segways, etc.
Cars as huge batteries: full of energy, when needed, take it back.
Subsidizing market to have distributed storage capacity
Distributed storage a big challenge
Eric Schmidt (Google) quote: I could plug in my car, make money cost shifting, climate change, etc.
Efforts in energy management might be the biggest revolution for all of us
Invest in wind power, water power
Data centres off shore in the ocean, on huge boats
Very innovative thinking
Metering: key to this
Infrastructure requirements
Hacking your home electric
Twitter: andy_house
Someone's house. Andy Stafford Clark - IBM
Build a better mouse trap: instrumented his house
His house twitters and talks about the high energy use.
"I'm depressed. my house has more followers than I do"
To know me is to change me: Current cost meter picture
Only when you measure, you change your behaviours
Green IT -- IT doesn't pay its own electricity bill
Only when you pay the bill, you change your behaviour
Current cost meter: tells usage, watts, cost, etc.
Totally grassroots movement
Home hacking for energy. People enjoy hacking
Barriers to participation?
In energy networks: face the Berlin wall
Politics are a big deal here. Energy lobbyists.
Don't want to see change.
Difficulty of storage
Difficulty of transmission
Have to storm the barricades. Call for bottom up.
Emergent: like the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The electranet presumes that every citizen is a producer and seller of electricity as well as a consumer - Jock Gill.
Why are we so passive, waiting for someone else to change it for us?
Electricity 2.0
Architecture of participation
Bottom up and up down
Hackable
Massive routable network
Multiple sources
New entrants
Open api's
Publish and subscribe
Read and write
Sustainable
Clinton Foundation work
Cisco routing technology in Lisbon - basis of energy routing technology
Completely new market for Cisco. Routing the new "electricity internet" - Lisbon as a proof of concept
Sustainable: do have some scared moments
Have polar bear moments
Sustainability is really important: but let's get real. Flew from London to New York. Last week, Seattle.
Use a service called Dopplr, calculates carbon usage
Energy networks are creaking: demand greater than supply
Yes, I flew here. Sustainability day one: putting food on table. Not about hairshirts, but need to start agitating for change.
And that's it! The new electricity network.
Tom Raftery - was supposed to be here.
Green Monk blog:
http://greenmonk.net/
Feels like the internet space in 1995. Analyst business. Public relations, investor relations, but no analyst space.
Drink Fat Tire Beer: supplied by wind power
Bit miles: like food miles (local food, eating, carbon getting food to us)
Organic, but grown in Chile
Bit miles: moral imperative to digitize: long tail is profoundly green
Data centres have energy costs: 2%
Digitize, don't print everything out. Atoms have a cost. Electrons cost lower.
Sept 17/08 raw notes
Don't think about how energy networks work
Red Monk: industry analyst business
Do things differently: lots of time using open source tech, social software tools
Started a blog called Green Monk - personal interest
Economics of energy
People wanted to pay him money, once the blog
Speaking about sustainability
Content syndication deals talking about energy, etc.
Tom Raffetery - hyper efficient data centre in Cork Ireland
Most interesting about sustainability space: people creating their own roles
Not a top down phenomenon. It's bottom up. Making a difference within
Their companies
Big Switch - Nicholas Carr
Why can't electricity be more like the internet?
Electricity 1.0
Electricity networks are read only? Why can't we publish?
Does anyone have anything that generates electricity? Publish it?
It's read only. Passive model
Electricity 1.0: top down, controlled. Electricity companies are scared of change, top-down approaches.
Not joined up. They don't connect. Widely separated: islands of electricity and energy.
What if electricity is not available: buggy? Rolling brown-outs.
It's kinda dumb. Static. No flow back and forth in the networks. Controlled system.
Closed network: not easy to participate. Even if you have electricity, could publish, why would they allow that? Locked down system. Traditional approach. How do you get access to that network.
Regularity: important part of energy planning. Have to be a metronome. Anomalies: networks have problems with that.
Network built for an earlier time, when needs were less.
Entire UK electricity network predicated on cups of tea: that's the spike
Eastenders: everyone turns the kettle on for a cup of tea when it's done
Entire provisioning in UK based on capacity spike at 8pm everyday.
Oh Noes!
Soaring oil prices
January 2000 slide from BBC - $30 / barrel graphic
Southwest Airlines: hedged aviation fuel for 5 years
Everyone getting squeezed
Airlines in trouble, can't pay for the energy to move us around
Electricity also getting more expensive
Then comes along…
Renewable Energy - very scary to energy companies
Pretty effective: chart of spain's renewable. Wind accounts for 17% of energy needs at certain points
Politicians: renewables, can't rely, won't cut it.
Demand doesn't meet supply. Wind blows at night. Asleep, when electricity not needed.
Wind effective, but not guaranteed. We're not in control.
Irish market: wind supply, 50% at some times. But over course of year, 6.5%
Can supply majority of needs, in some geographies, at some times, but not all the time
How can you store energy? Can't put it in a box.
Storage: investment really needs to be there.
Exotic storage solutions: limestone caverns, air compression, etc.
Really expensive, unproven.
Hydro electric: pump up when have energy, run down when needed.
If energy created, have to turn it off sometimes. Can't store it.
Wind energy example: NY Times - Maple Ridge Wind
Wind company gets turned off, bumps up against the other grid
Oversupply shutting down operations
Can we make it into a big network? Bi-lateral deal: Scotland & Norway
Scotland: we'll give you wind power, Norway: we'll give you hydro back
Big pipe transfer between two countries. Peer to peer. National Agreement.
Europe vs. Africa: energy transmission
Transfer over long distances is a problem.
Learned so much from the internet about routing, open standards, etc.
Proven principles
Learnt from the internet, apply to other areas. More sophisticated energy markets.
Peak shaving: provisioning for the spike, not just the actual need.
Peak shaving in the home: who's keeping an eye of utilization on the home.
Usage: twice a day: in the morning, then when get home.
Price will be high if everyone wants it at the same time.
Markets work that way.
Demand stimulation
Sometimes we have tons of energy. But no-one says, "hey, use it now"
Please use this surplus
How do you stimulate demand when you have a big pool of it available?
IBM: swimming pool as heat sync in Switzerland
Part of their network
Demand stimulation in the home: night storage heater
Idea is good, don't work that well.
Read/write grid: solar roof graphic
Publish our electricity onto the network.
Solar panel: if people are away, it's wasted energy.
All sorts of ways of generating electricity, but no-one pays us.
Might cut our bills by X, is this a good investment?
Not impossible to move to read/write
German market is interesting
Long view on energy resources
If you want to publish onto the grid, guaranteed pricing available in Germany
Electric devices: cars, segways, etc.
Cars as huge batteries: full of energy, when needed, take it back.
Subsidizing market to have distributed storage capacity
Distributed storage a big challenge
Eric Schmidt (Google) quote: I could plug in my car, make money cost shifting, climate change, etc.
Efforts in energy management might be the biggest revolution for all of us
Invest in wind power, water power
Data centres off shore in the ocean, on huge boats
Very innovative thinking
Metering: key to this
Infrastructure requirements
Hacking your home electric
Twitter: andy_house
Someone's house. Andy Stafford Clark - IBM
Build a better mouse trap: instrumented his house
His house twitters and talks about the high energy use.
"I'm depressed. my house has more followers than I do"
To know me is to change me: Current cost meter picture
Only when you measure, you change your behaviours
Green IT -- IT doesn't pay its own electricity bill
Only when you pay the bill, you change your behaviour
Current cost meter: tells usage, watts, cost, etc.
Totally grassroots movement
Home hacking for energy. People enjoy hacking
Barriers to participation?
In energy networks: face the Berlin wall
Politics are a big deal here. Energy lobbyists.
Don't want to see change.
Difficulty of storage
Difficulty of transmission
Have to storm the barricades. Call for bottom up.
Emergent: like the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The electranet presumes that every citizen is a producer and seller of electricity as well as a consumer - Jock Gill.
Why are we so passive, waiting for someone else to change it for us?
Electricity 2.0
Architecture of participation
Bottom up and up down
Hackable
Massive routable network
Multiple sources
New entrants
Open api's
Publish and subscribe
Read and write
Sustainable
Clinton Foundation work
Cisco routing technology in Lisbon - basis of energy routing technology
Completely new market for Cisco. Routing the new "electricity internet" - Lisbon as a proof of concept
Sustainable: do have some scared moments
Have polar bear moments
Sustainability is really important: but let's get real. Flew from London to New York. Last week, Seattle.
Use a service called Dopplr, calculates carbon usage
Energy networks are creaking: demand greater than supply
Yes, I flew here. Sustainability day one: putting food on table. Not about hairshirts, but need to start agitating for change.
And that's it! The new electricity network.
Tom Raftery - was supposed to be here.
Green Monk blog:
http://greenmonk.net/
Feels like the internet space in 1995. Analyst business. Public relations, investor relations, but no analyst space.
Drink Fat Tire Beer: supplied by wind power
Bit miles: like food miles (local food, eating, carbon getting food to us)
Organic, but grown in Chile
Bit miles: moral imperative to digitize: long tail is profoundly green
Data centres have energy costs: 2%
Digitize, don't print everything out. Atoms have a cost. Electrons cost lower.
1 Comments:
these notes are freaking awesome! its almost like i had all the facts at my fingertips. thanks so much.
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Unknown, at 7:57 am
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