Wednesday evening, members of the DC chapter of the Internet Society gathered at the National Library of Medicine for the latest in their Internet 2020 series, Developing a National Smart Grid.  As NextGenWeb often emphasizes, technology and environmental efficiency are increasingly intertwined, so this was a very timely topic for an Internet group.

Fred Baker, Fellow at Cisco Systems and former Chairman of the IETF, started the discussion with an explanation of what the Smart Grid actually is.  He described how standards relate to how electricity moves around among consumers, buildings, substations, control centers, and more. With that, there are many functional requirements for communication. “The Network should enable an application in a particular domain to communicate with an application in any other domain in the information network, with proper management control over who and where applications can be interconnected.”

Katherine Hamilton, President of the GridWise Alliance, advocates for a smarter grid on behalf of a coalition comprised of hundreds of large and small enterprises. “The Smart Grid allows stakeholders to have more choices as well as participate in their energy choices.  It enables a more reliable, more flexible, more efficient, more secure, cleaner electric grid.”  Hamilton believes strongly in the consumer empowerment that the “energy Internet” provides.

Watch the interviews below with Hamilton and Sally Wentworth, Senior Manager for Public Policy at ISOC, to delve deeper into the connections between energy, broadband, technology, and consumers.  We will link to the event in its entirety as soon as it’s available.

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Several FCC leaders, including Chairman Genachowski and Commissioners Copps, Clyburn and Baker, traveled to Cambridge, MA, for a field hearing today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on energy and the environment.  Chairman Genachowski noted that his father was an MIT graduate and he believes there is a strong relationship between broadband and energy.  The other commissioners echoed the theme of broadband’s importance from energy efficiency to economic recovery.

Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) was excited about the intersection of technology and energy, noting that “not one home in America had broadband when President Clinton signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act.  Then it was off to the races, creating capacity! Now we have a new vocabulary and many new jobs (thousands of which are in Massachusetts).  And, now we have a chance at a second revolution.”

Massachusetts’ Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles believes that a more efficient energy future is very possible and not that complicated, but will take a realignment of priorities.  The resulting efficiencies will lead to a net savings for consumers and for the environment.  Secretary Bowles shares a lot of information and tactics to reach a smart energy future on his website.

Peter Brandien, VP for System Operations for ISO New England, encouraged everyone to consider all of the possible uses of smart grid data.  “We can use the integration of existing technology out of utility substations and data plants to make better decisions of how to operate.”  Although excited about the opportunity, he believes we need to maintain security, as well.

Massachusetts Department of Energy’s Phil Giudice believes that the smart grid will help to maximize use of renewables and eliminate waste.  Even beyond emissions, he said, this is a good idea from an economic standpoint.  If we could build and customize loads according to demands and challenges, and even around peak hours, we could have a very efficient system, he added.

Dr. Jerrold Grochow, research affiliate of the MIT Energy Initiative, focused on challenges facing the smart grid, such as cybersecurity and privacy.  Dr. Grochow is now two months into an 18-month research project to identify key technical and policy challenges to evolving the grid.  He agreed that broadband-enabled intelligent grids hold tremendous promise, but noted that key concerns must be addressed.  Solutions include using energy audits and making sure sensitive data is encrypted.

Finally, Bruce Walker of National Grid described his vision of a smart grid to increase efficiency, security and reliability.  He believes we need a coordinated effort between both the broadband and smart grid communities to see this innovation reach its full potential and deliver benefits realized by customers everywhere.

The Commissioners asked the panelists how deep they feel the national broadband plan should go into details for smart grid implementation.  Panelists responded that although energy has evolved as very state-based, it would be good to have federal guidance for efficiency and uniformity.  Chairman Genachowski concluded the event by rounding up what he saw as the clear themes:  Coordination, transparency and universality.  NextGenWeb agrees — Coordination across the community of stakeholders, transparency with consumers and universality to maximize broadband’s many benefits in our daily lives.

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What role does broadband have to play in the future of smart grids and energy conservation? A lot, according to some very interesting presentations recently at Verizon’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.

The event, titled “Thinking ‘Outside’ the Smart-Meter Box,” was organized by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and hosted by Verizon. Kathy Brown, Verizon’s SVP for Public Policy Development and Corporate Responsibility, kicked off the event by noting that, “information technology will lead us to be a more energy efficient people.”

Karen Ehrhardt of ACEEE began the discussion by reviewing new research on consumer behavior regarding energy consumption. She presented products that will help consumers decrease their energy use, including broadband-enabled smart meters. Kat Donnelly of MIT followed by highlighting consumer feedback technologies as well as presenting on some of the social barriers to adoption of new energy tracking tools. She said the primary barrier is the fact that energy is now an invisible resource – people are disconnected from their actual consumption.

Finally, Benson Hougland of Opto 22 gave a live demonstration of technologies he installed in his home to track energy consumption. Hougland was able to control appliances in his home in California remotely from the event in DC, measure energy usage in real-time, and calculate cost savings due to energy conservation. All of these technologies were made possible by connecting his electricity meter to his broadband modem. Though Hougland wrote special software to allow for the seamless integration of all his appliances, his presentation exemplified the power of broadband and provided a window into a future where the consumer has more control over their energy consumption. A future that, thanks to innovative broadband networks, is just around the corner.

Click below to watch archived footage from the event, as well as an interview with Benson Hougland.

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J. Chris Baker
Senior Vice-President & CIO, San Diego Gas & Electric

As a utility executive and a technologist, I am seeing the communications industry and the energy industry come together in a way that I have not seen before. Nowhere is this intersection between technology and energy more apparent than in my hometown of San Diego, which is fast becoming the epicenter of a thing called smart grid.

What is a smart grid? While many definitions exist, I like to describe it as the convergence of information technologies, grid technologies, process automation, and communication technologies to build intelligence into the energy system. These attributes are absolutely necessary to support the integration of new renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, distributed generation such as rooftop solar panels on thousands of homes and businesses, electric vehicles, customer-side demand management, smart home technologies, and grid self-healing capabilities.

So why here, in San Diego, and why now?

Southern California has a unique set of conditions that place us at the forefront of a national–if not international–initiative to modernize and automate energy grid functions.

First, we have a very tech savvy population with San Diego ranked number two in the nation for broadband Internet adoption, according to the January 2009 issue of Forbes. And when it comes to the wireless industry, Southern California is world-class.

Second, San Diego is seeing an influx of renewable power, like solar and wind, and these place new challenges on our energy infrastructure. Specifically, San Diego Gas & Electric must be able to make up for these resources when the sun suddenly stops shining or the wind stops blowing. San Diego currently has over 6,600 solar roofs on its homes and businesses, which is more than any other city in California. Last year alone, San Diego Gas & Electric installed 16 megawatts of solar, and we are also developing new wind projects in our mountains including a recently announced project that could provide up to 120 megawatts of energy.

A third factor is Southern California’s early adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles which also place a set of new demands on the energy system.

Sempra Energy’s two utilities–San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Company–provide energy to 23 million people across 24,000 square miles of Southern California. How we serve these customers and fulfill our mission is in the midst of a dramatic transformation. In fact, we expect the next 10 years will hold more changes than the past century!

Fortunately, the Sempra Energy utilities have been investing in technology and establishing best practices to position our organization to lead the industry through this shift.

To specifically advance our smart grid transformation, we have re-engineered many technology and infrastructure systems installing electronic sensors in several substations, trialing new automation technologies that are moving us toward a self-healing grid, and more.

San Diego Gas & Electric will be the first utility in the U.S. to complete installation of smart meters that have full two-way communications, in-home control and remote connect/disconnect capabilities. Roll-out has begun and 1.4 million smart meters will be installed across the service territory by 2011.

The utility is also involved in numerous electric vehicle projects and new transportation technologies to provide this growing transportation sector with the energy infrastructure it will need.

Our industry has begun a massive shift from a static “pipes and wires” approach in communications to a networked, automated and sophisticated real-time communications architecture. And in that shift, wireless communication becomes absolutely essential: The smart grid will be built on a foundation of robust, secure, and pervasive wireless services.

To illustrate, San Diego Gas & Electric’s energy grid has approximately 220,000 wood poles, 160,000 transformers, 18,000 miles of overhead and underground lines, more than 14,000 structures, and 275 substations. These assets are spread across a service territory that ranges from dense urban centers to sparsely populated rural communities, mountain peaks as high as 7,000 feet and deserts that dip below sea level.

Initially hundreds, then thousands and possibly millions of sensors will be installed across these miles. And the only way to communicate with these assets cost-effectively and reliably is with wireless technology.

San Diego Gas & Electric currently uses wireless communication across the utility and has relied on it and our friends in the wireless industry for years.

During the 2007 California wildfires, we called upon wireless communication in a new way to overcome a major crisis. We lost 1,800 utility poles and 35 miles of powerlines, thousands of customers were without power, and we’d lost voice and data communications too.

To support San Diego Gas & Electric’s emergency response, three innovative wireless solutions were developed by the utility’s IT group and worked beautifully. The first was in partnership with San Diego company Proximetry and included a seven-mile point-to-point 802.11a wireless communication link with 802.11 b and g hotspots supporting VoIP and data communication between temporary command centers and our data center. This solution restored high-bandwidth communication for our field employees within only days and was critical to restoring power for our customers.

The second wireless solution was in partnership with Tachyon and included satellite communications that brought several of the more remote communities back into the network.

The third solution was mobile. Through a pre-existing mutual cooperation initiative with the San Diego County Regional Communications System, we were able to integrate our 900 MHz mobile communications with the county’s 800 MHz public safety network. This provided interoperability and communication between public safety and utility personnel.

That’s an extreme example. But our utility communications serve a system that is under regular stress every day due to San Diego’s location at an energy cul-de-sac, constrained by a transmission system that places us, literally at the end of the line. This makes balancing load and generation a tightrope walk.

To complicate the situation, San Diego Gas & Electric is increasing its reliance on renewables such as wind and solar energy. State regulators have set a target for all California utilities to secure 20% of our energy from renewable sources in 2010, and we have gone above and beyond that to voluntarily adopt a target of 33% by 2020. To manage this shift without jeopardizing reliability given the intermittent nature of sunshine and wind power, we require a rock-solid communications backbone. We need to be able to redistribute load or switch to stored energy the minute a cloud passes over the sun or the wind drops.

These constraints make our smart grid vision imperative and, in fact, mission critical.

As a smart grid leader, our communications challenges are sure to be faced in the near future by other utilities around the country as they follow in our footsteps, including:

Coverage

Smart grid applications will need wireless coverage over 100% of our grid assets and 100% of our customer locations. That’s a tall order. Today’s 3G wireless service leaves gaps in our service territory that must be filled.

Capacity

Even though each endpoint may not consume or produce much capacity, when you’ve got millions of them online it adds up pretty quickly.

Performance

Any way you want to measure performance – latency, availability, peak throughput – we are going to need a new level of wireless performance for smart grid.

Security

The energy grid has always been critical national infrastructure and the smart grid even more so. As we add computing and communication nodes to our energy grid, we have got to be sure we’ve taken security and system integrity into account.

And, of course, cost is an important criterion as we evaluate our options.

Within the next decade, smart grids will be the norm—but the sooner we can address the communications needs of the grid, the sooner we can achieve this vision.

We recently submitted two Recovery Act stimulus applications to accelerate our smart grid vision, and like many of you, are awaiting word on the applications.

One is for a next-generation wireless network. It will serve as our pervasive communications backbone for San Diego Gas & Electric’s current, pending and future smart grid initiatives.

The second project is a demonstration that will connect our existing microgrid project in the Borrego Springs desert to the University of California, San Diego’s industrial microgrid at its La Jolla campus and allow the utility to demonstrate new smart grid best practices and technologies based on its existing smart grid foundation.

This is an exciting time for both the wireless and energy industries, and exciting times in San Diego County particularly. We have made a great start on the smart grid future here in Southern California. And we have some great partners in the communications industry.

One of the things I have been trying to get across in this blog post is a call to action for more robust, more pervasive wireless services. I think you’ll hear that call to action everywhere in the US – every utility will be looking for the same thing.

Today’s 3G wireless services have been incredibly useful in our mission, but we all need to step up our game for smart grid. 4G wireless can, in fact, become the foundation for smart grid, but only when it is deployed with the characteristics I’ve described above. Together, the communication and energy industries have an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate and build a great future for this region and for the nation. I for one am looking forward to that.

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As part of a ‘Rural Tour’ launched by the Obama Administration in June, yesterday in Bethel, Alaska, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and other members of the President’s Cabinet (Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and Energy Secretary Steven Chu) gathered to discuss efforts focused on developing a new energy economy and creating green jobs.

As is the case when discussing so many of the monumental challenges facing America, broadband is a central component of successful and innovative solutions. Broadband enables e-commerce, telework and teleconferencing, all of which are contributing to a cleaner environment through fewer cars and trucks on the road, reduced demand for office space and related energy use and other eco-friendly options that reduce carbon emissions. While the environmental benefits themselves are enough to get anyone who cares about sustainability excited, broadband also offers significant economic benefits.

This week, Alaska was the backdrop for this important discussion about our economic, energy and environmental future. But being a global leader in green innovation will require a national commitment. Stay tuned to NextGenWeb for more information on how broadband is contributing to a 21st century economy and environment.

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Al Gore in the house at the wireless show, talking about how our increasingly connected world can take on global climate change €”and win.

Our former Veep issued an inspirational call to action in which broadband will play a critical role. Gore noted that times have changed, recalling that there were only 50 websites on the World Wide Web when he and President Clinton took office.

Today, Gore said, information is the dominant strategic resource of our economy. And, too often, the infrastructure that makes it all possible is taken for granted “like a fish that doesn’t know it’s in the water.”

Gore called for “a generational one-off investment to transform our energy infrastructure” and harness fuels that are free forever €”like solar and wind energy.

Another big theme: Green really IS green since most things we can do to cut pollution actually wind up saving consumers and businesses money.

Some of the many benefits broadband can bring to the climate change effort:

• With broadband and wireless, no longer do masses of people have to go to central locations (i.e. offices) to access information.
• We are now able to monitor energy use and energy waste to make our buildings, our transportation systems and our households more efficient.
• We can watch the environmental life signs of the planet and get the information we need to make real-time adjustments.

As the government seeks to stimulate the nation’s economy through infrastructure projects, Gore emphasized the need for green infrastructure €”complete with a shout-out for smart-grid technologies that use broadband to run utilities in a much more efficient way.

“We have everything we need to solve this crisis with the possible exception of political will. But fortunately in the United States of America,” Gore said, “political will is a renewable resource.”

Many companies flying the green flag on the exhibit floor, too. Among the wares: Motorola’s carbon-neutral phone (made from recycled water bottles) and LG’s solar-powered handset.

 €¦Maybe Kermit the Frog had it wrong after all. Thanks to broadband, more and more today it IS easy being green.

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Washington Post reporter Kim Hart recently enjoyed a live demo of Cisco and AT&T’s Telepresence system and shared her experiences on the Post IT blog.

I sat with five other conference participants on one side of the table facing three flat-panel TV screens showing six participants who were in Cisco’s Herndon office. The screens were positioned so that it looked like the remote people were sitting directly across from me, and the speakers were arranged so that sound came from the direction of the person speaking.

After noting the more obvious benefits of this technology, including reducing travel costs and carbon emissions, Hart focused on the opportunities that it could bring throughout our government. On the health care front, the Department of Veterans Affairs is currently experimenting with the system, and Cisco’s HealthPresence system is already being used in rural areas to connect doctors and patients. Cisco itself saved $200 million last year alone on travel costs. Just imagine what the government could save with more virtual meetings.

A cleaner environment €¦better health care €¦and more efficient government €¦all in a day’s (virtual) work for broadband.

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NextGenWeb often examines the ways that broadband enables solutions to reduce carbon emissions, like telecommuting, e-commerce, and telepresence. But a panel at South by Southwest shed light on another way that broadband technology is improving the environment and that is through more efficient green design. The topic of the panel was digital technologies and profitable green building. The ways that technology-based efficiencies are valuable in creating and sharing green designs was a strong theme.

The panelist that spoke most directly to the ways technology is improving green design was Murray Legge of LZTA, an Austin-based architecture firm. Legge believes that the way architects design and communicate has moved away from closed and self-contained to more collaborative and open, thanks to technology. He finds that tools like Google SketchUp and other new, digital modeling software are especially helpful in revolutionizing the industry. These types of design applications and software, in addition to ease of communication, have not only made green projects possible, but affordable to many more clients. This is especially important as the current cultural shift is creating more demand.

Keep an eye out for Legge’s current project, LaunchPad Coworking in Austin. Using the technology discussed above, Legge and his team are creating a space for the mobile, officeless worker. And thanks to today’s technology, this will surely be a model shared and embraced for future co-working designs.

A full list of the panelists is below.

• David Armistead – Social Web Strategies
• Pliny Fisk – CMPBS
• Murray Legge – LZTA
• John Motloch, PhD. – Ball State University
• Derek Woodgate – The Futures Lab Inc
• Kathleen Zarsky – Holos

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From tweeting lawmakers to bold ideas for our nation’s recovery, President Obama’s address last night was truly inspiring. He offered an ambitious and hopeful vision of the road to recovery, and I couldn’t agree more with his confident assertion that “the answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach.” In fact, at virtually every turn last night, we encountered a familiar theme to many of us engaged in online policy debates €”the power of broadband to connect the country to the next wave of American growth, innovation and opportunity.

Education. When President Obama talks about ensuring all Americans have access to a complete and competitive education, broadband is the resource that ensures this access no matter where people live €”connecting students to everything from online mentoring to a whole world of opportunities to expand horizons and thrive.

Health Care. It is beyond time for real reform, and health IT is key to getting costs under control while advancing the quality of patient care. Kudos to our connected president for his shout-out to electronic medical records that can reduce debilitating, often fatal errors and make health care more efficient.

Energy. Not only can we rebuild and renew, but we can do it smarter. From telecommuting to reduced air travel, broadband offers many sophisticated ways to boost productivity while reducing dependence on foreign oil and our impact on the earth.

Jobs. President Obama readily acknowledged that investment in broadband deployment will create jobs, and these direct jobs are just the start. Nearly half of all broadband-fueled jobs are outside the tech sector (think IT professionals in schools, hospitals and your office). President Obama also made a critical and constructive acknowledgement that every time our nation has rallied to renew our economy “government didn’t supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise.”

I agree with our President that our shared love of country and desire for our nation to succeed must be the starting point of every debate in the critical weeks and months ahead. I look forward to a constructive conversation about how broadband can help move our economy and our lives forward into a bright American future.

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Monica Babine
Senior Associate for Telework at Washington State University

What can a program in rural Washington State tell us about solutions to our current economic crisis? The answer, surprisingly, is a great deal. Washington State University Extension has been a leader in telework for almost two decades, but never before has its application been as relevant as present day.

With the interconnected, global economy that we currently live in, it is essential for rural Americans to have access to telework opportunities in order to ensure their ability to contribute. Through telework, global corporations are setting up work centers outside of traditional urban settings and new jobs are being brought into rural American communities like never before. And the overall economy, both locally and nationally, is enhanced greatly thanks to an increase in productivity and the creation of new jobs.

Several different industries in Washington state are employing rural workforces. Technology companies such as Intelli-Check Mobilisa, Inc. in Port Townsend is a leading provider of mobile and wireless solutions for government and military projects. State of the art communications systems, such as high-speed broadband networks, allow these employees to communicate, secure graduate level degrees and conduct business globally.

The service industry has also benefited from the positive effects of telework. Earth and Sky Studios is a web design and development company located in Twisp. The fundamentals of Earth and Sky are built on a dependable broadband connection. Jennifer Allen-Tate, Co-Founder of Earth and Sky, has said, “Telecommunications is the backbone of our company. It lets me access human resources in other areas — especially in rural areas — so I can expand without having to add more office space.”

The economic benefits of telework opportunities are endless, from business expansion and relocation opportunities, to e-commerce and local economic stimulus. But in light of much progress there remains much work to be done. In order for rural communities to stay ahead of the curve and for business opportunities to continue to present themselves in rural America, continued investments are key. Telecommunications infrastructure is not cheap, and public-private partnerships, like those supported by WSU Extension, will play a critical role in advancing these capabilities.

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