Better Place Raises Financing for Denmark Electric Car Project

from Earth2Tech by David Ehrlich

A Smart Meter Map of the World

Michael Kanellos

January 2, 2009 at 11:27 PM

Have you had trouble keeping track of smart metering projects? So have we, which is why we’re glad to see the Smart Metering Projects Map run by the Energy Retail Association in the UK.

The map essentially pinpoints smart metering projects across Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia on a zoom-able Google map. If you click on one of the flags, a few paragraphs pop up explaining the scope and purpose of the project. Distrigaz Sud, for instance, is installing 1.1 gas meters in southern Romania to offset gas network balancing concerns. The meters in the trial utilize snap-on Zigbee devices to permit communication.

In Kyrgyzstan, a utility will test out pre-paid gas meters. (Pre-paid gas meters used to be a common fixture in the U.K. after World War II and are going to be trialed in parts of the U.S. for lower-income housing developments.)

And my personal favorite, Bosnia Herzegovina’s Elektroprivreda HZ HB Mostar is installing meters that communicate through power-line networking provided by Echelon. Echelon has also landed deals, and installed, power line-enabled meters and street lights in Italy, Norway and Texas. Italy already has 30 million smart meters, according to the map, which makes the country one of the more popular nations for smart meters. Elektroprivreda will initially only put in 200 meters but wants to boost the number to 200,000.

There are no projects yet, according to the map, in South America or Africa, but there are proposals in the works for South Africa.

At the risk of sounding redundant, smart metering will be one of the major issues and market for greentech in 2009 and beyond. Proponents say that smart meters and demand response programs can substantially curb greenhouse gases and energy consumption by more finely controlling the distribution and consumption of electricity, water and natural gas. Electrical grids, water utilities and gas pipelines, however, weren’t designed with two-way communication and control in mind so bringing intelligence to these systems will require investments in networking, hardware and software.

Contact Simon Harrison if you want to collaborate or have questions.

Hawaiian Electric in Smart Meter Deal With Sensus

by David Ehrlich

The Aloha State will be getting a smart grid under a new contract announced today between Hawaiian Electric and Sensus Metering Systems. Sensus said that Hawaiian Electric, which provides electricity for 95 percent of Hawaii’s residents, plans to install Sensus FlexNet smart meters for 430,000 residential and commercial electric customers, subject to approval of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission. Sensus did not disclose the financial terms of the 15-year agreement.

Hawaiian Electric, part of Honolulu’s Hawaiian Electric Industries(s HE), first teamed up with Raleigh, N.C.-based Sensus back in October 2006. After a successful trial involving 500 smart meters on Ohau, Hawaiian Electric upped the ante to 3,000 meters in early 2007.

The technology provides automated meter reading, data collection, voltage monitoring, notification of outages and remote control of customer loads. But that doesn’t mean the utility will be controlling your fridge — these smart meters are for communications between the meter and the utility, not for talking to any smart devices you might have in your home.

The remote control feature usually comes into play with large business customers or electricity-generating plants, allowing the utility to temporarily shut off or lower electric loads to help reduce excessive demand, or to turn on generators to help relieve the demand. It could also be set up to increase or lower electricity use in response to changes in market prices.

Under today’s deal, the new meters are expected to be installed between 2009 and 2015, with 19 tower sites throughout Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island to provide two-way radio network coverage for the system.

Last month, computer giant IBM announced some moves in the smart grid market, making deals with utilities American Electric Power and Consumers Energy to deploy and test smart grid technology. And in October, Landis+Gyr said it would provide a major portion of the 5 million smart meters set to roll out under PG&E’s four-year, $1.7 billion SmartMeter program.

Electric car proposal has Hawaii charged up

Dynamic PhotoNews^TM from Hawaii
IT'S ELECTRIC!

A California firm proposes to jump-start electric car use in Hawaii

STORY SUMMARY | READ THE FULL STORY

By 2012, Hawaii is poised to become a national leader in electric car use under an ambitious plan announced yesterday by Gov. Linda Lingle.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place has proposed a $1 billion plan to be funded through private investments that would include up to 100,000 charging stations around Hawaii and possible state incentives for thousands of electric car buyers to be rolled out in the next several years.

It is the first statewide project of its kind, and follows a similar outlay announced last month in San Francisco.

"Better Place is a grand scale step in the right direction," Sen. Daniel Inouye said in a statement. "Let us not falter or recede from our commitment to reduce our dependency on foreign oil."

Under the plan, which might include government incentives for customers to buy electric vehicles, drivers would pay up to 8 cents a mile to buy electricity through Better Place under a subscription plan similar to that of a cell phone contract.

The plan is part of the state's Clean Energy Initiative, which provides that 70 percent of power come from clean energy sources by 2030.

"Our goal is 1.2 million cars in Hawaii all going electric," said Shai Agassi, founder and chief executive of Better Place.

— Jennifer Sudick 

IBM snags smart-grid pilot deals

Posted by Martin LaMonica

IBM has won two deals to supply IT gear and services for utilities' smart-grid energy-efficiency programs.

Ohio-based American Electric Power on Tuesday said that it has chosen IBM to be the systems integrator for its gridSmart initiative, which is designed to upgrade the distribution grid to better handle distributed power generation, storage, and efficiency programs.

Click on the image to see how much energy different home appliances consume.

(Credit: Department of Energy via IBM)

Michigan gas and electric utility Consumers Energy on Tuesday said that it will work with IBM to test out advanced metering infrastructure in a pilot project slated to start early next year.

In smart-grid projects, utilities upgrade the electricity distribution network with communications and data-gathering tools. By getting current information on electricity demand, operators should be able run the grid more efficiently and better spot problems.

In some smart-grid pilots, consumers can get an in-home display of their energy usage and participate in energy-efficiency programs. A household could agree to let utilities dial down appliances, such as clothes dryer, for a short time or take advantage of lower rates by running the dishwasher at off-peak times.

Smart-grid technology has been available for many years, but smart-grid suppliers report that utilities are showing more willingness today to invest in these energy-efficiency programs.

For its part, IBM is investing heavily in smart-grid technology--the intersection of energy and IT--and is involved in several utility smart-grid upgrades around the world.

Last week, IBM and France-based utility EDF announced a research program to study efficiency and "sustainable energy" technologies. This week, it published a video on YouTube explaining the basic concepts of a smart grid.

Better Place's $1 billion electric vehicle grid headed to Bay Area - Gas Stations to Electricity Stations

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Need another reason to live in America's other bastion of social liberalism and homelessness? How about a $1 billion electric vehicle re-charging infrastructure in the Bay Area? Palo Alto's Better Placeis finally bringing its ambitious, city-wide electrical grid and battery exchange service home after staking plans to do the same in Israel, Denmark, and Australia. The plan just endorsed by the San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco Mayors (without coughing up any money), is expected to result in 250,000 charging ports (for topping off charges), 200 battery-swap stations (for trips over 100 miles), and a driver service center by 2012 -- network planing and permitting will begin in 2009 with infrastructure deployment set to kickoff in 2010. Here's how it works, customers will receive a discounted price on electric vehicles when they subscribe to drive a certain number of miles -- Better Place will own the batteries. Besides clearing the way of government bureaucracy, the mayors have agreed to offer incentives for companies that install the plug-in stations. Now get this, Better Place expects to lure electric vehicles from the usual suspects like Toyota, Renault-Nissan, and GM in addition to, get this, Tesla Motors. Oh yes. Almost makes us want to hug an Upper Haight, teenage, poser hippie. Almost.

Update: Coincidentally, Tesla is considering a small, swappable battery for its Model S sport sedanthat, according to Elon Musk, could be changed "faster than you can fill a car with gasoline." Ah, synergy.

IBM, EDF Team Up for Smart Grid Research

by Josie Garthwaite

Computing giant IBM and French electric utility EDF will together research ways to boost the efficiency of power plants and modernize electricity infrastructure, IBM announced today. The collaboration puts them in the thick of what’s known as the smart grid industry, a potentially $65 billion market whose key players include IT, energy, and utility companies. Their goal: Harness wasted energy and untapped data to create an ultra-efficient, dynamic power network that allows energy — and information — to flow both ways.

With smart grid tech, the power grid can more easily accommodate, say, a home with solar panels on its roof feeding unused energy back into the general power supply. If something like the Better Place infrastructure project in California, or for that matter, EDF’s own partnership with Renault in France, goes nationwide, all of those plug-ins could put a big strain on power supplies — unless a more “intelligent” grid allows cars to give and take juice from the grid according to when electricity is needed most.

IBM is hardly a new entrant in this field. It is a member of industry groups including GridWise Alliance, Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition, and the Demand and Response Smart Grid Coalition (which Google also joined recently), and it has been working with utility companies for years.

Working with EDF basically gives IBM a massive laboratory in which to build out its technology, creating, as IBM Energy and Utilities research chief Ron Ambrosio described it to Greentech Media, “a very large system of systems.” That’s reminiscent of another innovation that’s attained a bit of popularity: the network of networks, aka the Internet.

EPA Setting Energy Standards for Gaming Consoles

EPA Setting Energy Standards for Gaming Consoles

Standards take effect July 1, 2010 and bring some energy efficiency to gaming.

10.16.2008 — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is trying to bring energy efficiency to the gaming world as part of it's EnergyStar program. (via Good Clean Tech) 

The EPA aims to add the Xbox 360, PlayStation and Wii gaming consoles to Version 5.0 of its Energy Star program, which is due out in July 2009.

The guidelines require the systems to:

• Use less than one watt during 'off' mode
• Use less than 5 watts during 'sleep' or 'auto-off' mode
• Enter sleep mode after an hour of inactivity
• Settop box and DVD/Blu-ray playback must be within 10 percent o Energy Star requirements

According to the EPA, the new standards will take effect July 1, 2010. The EPA says this "will give game console manufacturers design lead time, while also ensuring Energy Star qualified game consoles will offer consumers significant energy savings."

The new standards might not result in tremendous savings, but every bit helps today.

Power Adapters Background

Why are external power adapters important?

External power adapters, also known as power supplies, are crucial to the operation of virtually all small electronic devices. As many as 1.5 billion are in use in the U.S. — that’s about five for every person. The total electricity flowing through all types of power supplies is about:

• 207 billion kWh/year,
• $17 billion a year, or
• 6 percent of the national electric bill.

However, these devices tend to be very inefficient. Left unchecked, by 2010, the energy use from consumer electronics and small appliances could account for almost 30 percent of a typical home’s electricity bill. Encouraging the use of more efficient power adapters will help stem this growing energy consumption.

The new guidelines for power adapters will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions; in the U.S. alone, more efficient adapters have the potential to save:

• over 5 billion kWh of energy, and
• prevent the release of more than 4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions — the equivalent to taking 800,000 cars off the road.

Consumers will soon be able to purchase a variety of products such as cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, and camcorders that are manufactured with ENERGY STAR qualified power adapters. Products with qualified adapters will be identified by the a new ENERGY STAR EPS graphic in product promotional materials and/or store displays on product packaging, literature, and/or store displays.

Eventually, these new efficient adapters will be incorporated into a wide spectrum of products including laptops, cordless phones, office equipment, and other products, and also sold separately as replacement adapters.

Who can participate in the ENERGY STAR Adapters program?

ENERGY STAR is currently recruiting adapter manufacturers that offer ENERGY STAR qualified adapters and consumer electronics manufacturersthat make products using ENERGY STAR qualified adapters.

About ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.

Results are already adding up. Americans, with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved enough energy in 2007 alone to avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 27 million cars — all while saving $16 billion on their utility bills.

Combined heat and power (CHP) Cogeneration Solutions

Percentage of energy produced by cogeneration

Cogeneration plants proliferated, soon producing about 8 percent of all energy in the U.S.^[8] However, the bill left implementation and enforcement up to individual states, resulting in little or nothing being done in many parts of the country.

In 2008 Tom Casten, chairman of the company Recycled Energy Development, said that "We think we could make about 19 to 20 percent of U.S. electricity with heat that is currently thrown away by industry."^[9]

Outside the U.S., energy recycling is more common. Denmark is probably the most active energy recycler, obtaining about 55% of its energy from cogeneration and waste heat recovery. Other large countries, including Germany, Russia, and India, also obtain a much higher share of their energy from decentralized sources.^[8][9]

Combined Heat and Power Partnership

---

Combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, is an efficient, clean, and reliable approach to generating power and thermal energy from a single fuel source. By installing a CHP system designed to meet the thermal and electrical base loads of a facility, CHP can greatly increase the facility's operational efficiency and decrease energy costs. At the same time, CHP reduces the emission of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global climate change. Read more basic information regarding CHP.

The CHP Partnership is a voluntary program seeking to reduce the environmental impact of power generation by promoting the use of CHP. The Partnership works closely with energy users, the CHP industry, state and local governments, and other clean energy stakeholders to facilitate the development of new projects and to promote their environmental and economic benefits.

Explore our most popular tools and resources:

• Learn About CHP Technologies
• CHP Emissions Calculator
• Is My Facility a Good Candidate for CHP?
• Funding Opportunities
• Our Partners

Basic Information

CHP is not a single technology, but an integrated energy system that can be modified depending upon the needs of the energy end user.

CHP provides:

• Onsite generation of electrical and/or mechanical power.
• Waste-heat recovery for heating, cooling, dehumidification, or process applications.
• Seamless system integration for a variety of technologies, thermal applications, and fuel types into existing building infrastructure.

The two most common CHP system configurations are:

• Gas turbine or engine with heat recovery unit
• Steam boiler with steam turbine

Gas Turbine or Engine With Heat Recovery Unit

Gas turbine or reciprocating engine CHP systems generate electricity by burning fuel (natural gas or biogas) to generate electricity and then use a heat recovery unit to capture heat from the combustion system's exhaust stream. This heat is converted into useful thermal energy, usually in the form of steam or hot water. Gas turbines/engines are ideally suited for large industrial or commercial CHP applications requiring ample amounts of electricity and heat.

Steam Boiler With Steam Turbine

Steam turbines normally generate electricity as a byproduct of heat (steam) generation, unlike gas turbine and reciprocating engine CHP systems, where heat is a byproduct of power generation. Steam turbine-based CHP systems are typically used in industrial processes, where solid fuels (biomass or coal) or waste products are readily available to fuel the boiler unit.

[PDF] 

Microsoft PowerPoint - Riddoch - COGEN Europe 2007.ppt

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Changing the way Europe provides heat. and electricity for a sustainable future. III - European CHP market overview. 2003 cogeneration statistics ...

The Report has benchmarked Cogeneration Public Company Ltd. (COCO) against competing firms in the Electric Services industry worldwide—going beyond traditional methods of company benchmarking. Reports for over 50 Electric Services companies are available now including:

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TXU Corporation

Google and General Electric Team Up on Energy Initiatives

By MIGUEL HELFT

Google and General Electric said Wednesday that they would work together on technology and policy initiatives to promote the development of additional capacity in the electricity grid and of “smart grid” technologies to enable plug-in hybrids and to manage energy more efficiently. The companies said their goal is to make renewable energy more accessible and useful.

Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, and G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, alluded briefly to the partnership during a joint appearance at Google’s Zeitgeist conference, which is taking place at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

The two executives gave few details of their planned collaboration. In an interview following their presentation, Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org, an operating unit of Google, said the effort was in its planning stages and did not have a set budget.

“All this talk about renewable energy will not be realized if we do not build substantial additional transmission capacity,” Mr. Reicher said.

Without additional capacity, Mr. Reicher said, it would not be possible, for example, to get power from a solar plant in the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles, or from a wind farm in the Dakotas to Chicago. Mr. Reicher said that environmental standards, overlapping state and federal regulations and other policy issues are among the biggest impediments to building additional transmission capacity.

Google and G.E. are also discussing how to combine their respective software and hardware expertise to enable technologies like plug-in hybrids on a large scale and to accelerate the development of geothermal energy.

For Google, the partnership with G.E. is part of larger set of energy initiatives, including direct investments in green technology to help develop renewable energy that is cheaper to produce than coal-generated power. For its part, G.E. has made a large bet on green energy technologies, an initiative the company calls “Ecomagination.”

Electric power transmission from Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Energy portal

"Power line" redirects here. For the conservative U.S. blog, see Power Line. For the telecommunication technology, see Power line communication.

"Power grid" redirects here. For the board game, see Power Grid (board game).

Transmission lines in Lund,Sweden

BC Hydro transmission towers and lines in Coquitlam, British Columbia.

PG&E's Path 15 500 kV power lines in the California Central Valley.

Power lines near Helsinki,Finland

A tension tower with transposed phases carrying a single phase ACtraction current line (110 kV, 16.67 hertz) near Bartholomä in Germany

Hydro-Quebec high tension power lines (735 kV) near St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec

A transmission corridor inEtobicoke, Ontario.

Electric power transmission, a process in the delivery of electricity to consumers, is the bulk transfer of electrical power. Typically, power transmission is between the power plant and a substation near a populated area. Electricity distribution is the delivery from the substation to the consumers. Electric power transmission allows distant energy sources (such as hydroelectric power plants) to be connected to consumers in population centers, and may allow exploitation of low-grade fuel resources that would otherwise be too costly to transport to generating facilities. Due to the large amount of power involved, transmission normally takes place at high voltage (110 kV or above). Electricity is usually transmitted over long distance through overhead power transmission lines. Underground power transmission is used only in densely populated areas because of its high cost of installation and maintenance, and because the high reactive power produces large charging currents and difficulties in voltage management.^{[citation needed]}

A power transmission system is sometimes referred to colloquially as a "grid"; however, for reasons of economy, the network is not a mathematicalgrid. Redundant paths and lines are provided so that power can be routed from any power plant to any load center, through a variety of routes, based on the economics of the transmission path and the cost of power. Much analysis is done by transmission companies to determine the maximum reliable capacity of each line, which, due to system stability considerations, may be less than the physical or thermal limit of the line. Deregulation of electricity companies in many countries has led to renewed interest in reliable economic design of transmission networks. However, in some places the gaming of a deregulated energy system has led to disaster, such as that which occurred during the California electricity crisis of 2000 and 2001.^{[citation needed]}

Contents  [hide] 1 AC power transmission 1.1 History 2 Bulk power transmission 2.1 Grid input 2.2 Losses 2.3 HVDC 2.4 Grid exit 3 Limitations 4 Communications 5 Electricity market reform 6 Merchant transmission 7 Health concerns 8 Special transmission 8.1 Grids for railways 8.2 Radio frequency power transmission 8.3 Superconducting cables 8.4 Single wire earth return 8.5 Wireless power transmission 9 Records 10 See also 11 Notes 12 Further reading 13 External links

Losses

Transmitting electricity at high voltage reduces the fraction of energy lost to Joule heating. For a given amount of power, a higher voltage reduces the current and thus the resistive losses in the conductor. For example, raising the voltage by a factor of 10 reduces the current by a corresponding factor of 10 and therefore the  losses by a factor of 100, provided the same sized conductors are used in both cases. Even if the conductor size is reduced x10 to match the lower current the  losses are still reduced x10. Long distance transmission is typically done with overhead lines at voltages of 115 to 1,200 kV. However, at extremely high voltages, more than 2,000 kV between conductor and ground, corona discharge losses are so large that they can offset the lower resistance loss in the line conductors.

Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 [2], and in the UK at 7.4% in 1998. [3]