Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Business Intelligence for utilities: Five planning strategies

By Chris Lewis

Guest Blogger, Energy Efficiency Markets

March 28, 2012

Business Intelligence is not a new concept to utilities, as the analysis of data is as entrenched in every utility as the concept of providing safe, reliable and affordable power. However, the unique challenge facing utilities today is that there is exponentially more data, from more advanced sources, and dispersed to many more functional areas of the organization.

Utilities are operating in a new smart grid environment where they must start examining Business Intelligence and Analytics as a core competency. Careful planning and strategies need to be put in place to ensure data quality, manage and support system integrations, and ultimately determine the level of engagement of the customer.

Cognera conducted research in this area and surveyed investor-owned utilities, co-operatives, and municipally owned and operated utilities, and found some interesting facts:

• Almost 70% of respondents with advanced metering infrastructure installations planned to use the data for purposes other than billing and specifically for a Business Intelligence application.

• The most preferred single source for Business Intelligence software was within the actual provider of the AMI system themselves (50%), followed by a desire to see meter data management systems (25%) and customer information systems (15%) provide the Business Intelligence function.

70% of respondents said that they are currently unsure or would be using a combination of systems to provide the analytics and reporting required.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Desert Year: Why Is It So Hard to Care?

by Skip Laitner

Guest blogger, Energy Efficiency Markets

Reposted from Real Climate Economics

March 21, 2012

Why is it so hard to care about snakes? Or the desert? The climate? And especially the environment more generally?

This time the snake was real. Right there on the side of the road. Some evenings ago, however, in the waning hours of twilight, it turned out to be just a short length of black rubber hose that was also laying along the path I was taking. But this particular snake was just as dead. I’m no expert but it was non-venomous, perhaps a narrowhead garter snake.

It looked as though it wanted to live, but it also looked as though the wound had slowly bled it to death. The snake seemed as if it had been just barely clipped or pinched by the wheel of a passing car. The injury itself didn’t really appear to be all that serious. I was thinking that had it been given immediate care, it would likely be alive today. Unfortunately, the cars seem to be more forthcoming than any immediate animal care.

I confess that while not especially fond of them, I am intrigued by snakes. And of this particular critter? Somehow I think of this as “my snake” and I wondered why I cared about it, or why I was saddened by its demise? That single snake was neither socially nor economically important.

Nature is content to love snakes in her own way – as a species. Yet she seems wholly unconcerned with any particular snake. As Joseph Wood Krutch suggested many years back, Mother Nature seems to hold the view that it’s the “greatest good of the greatest number.” In fact, it seems to be a principle so absolute that she is not “tempered with regret over those who happen not to be included within the greatest number.” And yet, I cared.

There are perhaps 3000 separate species of snakes, and maybe hundreds of millions of individual snakes. These may be a sufficient number so that, like Mother Nature, I don’t need to think about them all that much. And I certainly don’t need to fret over their individual livelihood. And yet I cared about this snake. Probably because I was right there with it. In some way, then, I was connected to it.

Why is it so hard to care about snakes? Or the desert? The climate? And especially the environment more generally? Part of it, I suspect, is our isolation. We spend 6 percent of our time in our cars and 89 percent of our time in our buildings. That insulates and isolates. But the research of psychologist Susan Mineka (at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine) suggests thatour instinctive fear of snakes may be learned. Her studies of rhesus monkeys provide empirical evidence that we may be genetically programmed with the fear of snakes. But here’s the kicker. . . . The genetic program needs to be turned on, or socially-triggered, by some vicarious experience. That may be good news for snakes. And that may be good news for us; and the climate as well. What is learned can be unlearned. What if we encourage and allow that unlearning or relearning to happen? Perhaps then we may find unexpected value in snakes. And the environment.

Snakes are important models for adaptation, evolutionary ecology, and high-performance muscle physiology. And they also provide a sense of wonder. Somehow the desert wouldn’t quite be the desert if we didn’t wonder whether there might be a snake resting under a rock, that very same rock that you might also decide would be a good resting place. Still, I recall the advice of WC Fields who once said, always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite; and furthermore, always carry a small snake.

John A. “Skip” Laitner is Director of Economic and Social Analysis for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), based in Washington, DC. Tucson is his family’s hometown, and he likely will be there through August of 2012. He hopes to provide a new posting roughly every week over the year. While these columns do not reflect the official opinion or views of ACEEE, its board or its staff, he can be reached at jslaitner@aceee.org.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

All sustainability is local

By Elisa Wood

March 15, 2012

“All politics is local.” This quote from the late US Congressman Tip O’Neill continues to frame political strategies today. It turns out his premise also applies to environmentalism. All sustainability is local, as a Massachusetts software company reveals in a new application that takes on the complicated task of quantifying the green efforts of corporations.

Massachusetts-based Energy Points has devised a sustainability algorithm that considers location, right down to the zip code, in sorting the many variables that reveal how well a company performs environmentally. What’s most sustainable in one location might not be so important elsewhere. For example, installing LED lighting could be wise move for a Massachusetts operation, but a company in the Mojave Desert might be better off with a new water management system, says Energy Points founder Ory Zik.

We tend to use the terms ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ loosely, and they have become more advertising slogans than clear descriptions. Energy Points says it overcomes this problem by measuring sustainability “on math not myth.”

More specifically, the company takes its cue from Weight Watchers by reducing a complex set of calculations into a simple point system. Energy Points converts a company’s sustainability profile into what it calls an energy per gallon metric, a mirror of the per gallon of gasoline measure that is easily understood by most Americans.

But there is nothing simple about the software platform’s data base, which took three years to build. In addition to location, the algorithm considers such variables as a company’s management of fuel, transportation, waste, water and electricity, where resources are used, when they are used, and how they are created, distributed and treated.

Companies can use the platform to determine their best course of action and to gauge how they compare to others.

“The market place is rewarding companies that are more sustainable. Energy Points will allow companies to quantify and then communicate sustainability in way that the market place can understand,” said Zik, who also founded solar thermal company HelioFocus.

Energy Points recently announced that it has secured a $3 million initial round of financing led by Plan B Ventures. The company is using the financing to accelerate the adoption of its platform. About 15 companies are already on board to pilot the product.

Given today’s corporate interest in sustainability, and the need for honesty in green measurement, Energy Points may be on to something. Now if someone would create a scientific metric to verify political claims, local or otherwise….

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work can be found at www.RealEnergyWriters.com

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Trillion dollar answer to Bachmann’s light bulb question

By Elisa Wood

March 8, 2012

US Congresswoman Michele Bachmann often asks why government should tell us which kind of light bulb to choose. Turns out it’s a question with a trillion dollar answer.

We will save $1.1 trillion through 2035 because of existing energy efficiency mandates for light bulbs and appliances, according to a report issued this week by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.

The Efficiency Boom: Cashing In on the Savings from Appliance Standards” says the standards will cut our energy use 200 quads, the equivalent of the US using no energy for two years. The standards already have reduced our energy use 3.5 percent.

This means lighting and appliance standards have saved more energy than almost any other efficiency program, says the report.

Bringing the numbers close to home, the average household will save about $30,000 over 45 years, or enough to cover two years of typical mortgage payments, under existing and new standards. This assumes the household changes major appliances every 15 years.

It’s important to note that Bachmann’s assertion – that the government is choosing light bulbs – is an oversimplification. The standards do not mandate any particular kind of lights, but call for manufacturers to achieve a certain level of energy efficiency. True, an old technology may not make the cut. Oddly, though, no one seems worried about losing access to inefficient air conditioners, computers or other appliances. Anti-standards folks, like Bachmann, seem attached only to inefficient light bulbs. (This bewilders me.)

US appliance standards go back to 1974 when then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed a bill to bring greater efficiency to major appliances in that state. Other states followed, but the federal government didn’t get on board until 1987. Again it was Reagan, this time as President, who signed the first bill. Additional standards became law under President George Bush and President George W. Bush. Since then, the Department of Energy has further updated standards. About 55 products are covered; not only lighting, but also refrigerators, air conditioners, motors and other appliances.

“Standards have been a bipartisan energy policy success story stretching across four decades and five presidencies,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of ASAP, a coalition of consumer, environmental and efficiency groups.