Greenpeace ‘Cool IT’ update

Greenpeace has updated its Cool IT assessment, which scores IT companies on the extent to which they’re helping to tackle climate change.

I may not always see eye-to-eye with Greenpeace on IT (their intention is good but I sometimes have reservations about the execution) this is one process I very much support.  I’ve made my own views clear on the need for IT companies to make a contribution outside their own businesses and this is what Cool IT is all about. 

Companies are scored 50% on the extent to which they’re providing climate solutions to other parts of the economy, 35% is down to the extent to which IT companies are advocating and lobbying for a strong global climate deal to be brokered in Copenhagen and 15% measures how much companies are reducing their own carbon footprints, including using renewable energy.  (This was at least the scoring split for the initial assessment earlier this year – the web site is somewhat unclear this time round).

IBM, HP and Fujitsu come out in the top three places, compared with the last assessment in May, when the top three were IBM, with a score of 29, Sun (also 29) and Dell (21).  Greenpeace points out that no company scored more than 50 (out of 100), but the scores for the top three are a lot better than last time round, when they seemed unfairly low.

However, I agree with Greenpeace’s disappointed in the lack of leadership from the IT community; "Though the IT industry will profit from strong emissions reduction targets, disappointingly, it is not coming close to its potential of leading the way to a low carbon economy," said Melanie Francis, Greenpeace International Climate Campaigner. "IT giants like Microsoft, Google and IBM need to rapidly put their weight behind a strong deal at Copenhagen or the climate will lose out to dirty industry's negative lobbying."

In fact Greenpeace has started a petition on its web site calling on Google, IBM and Microsoft, as the largest and most influential IT players, to speak up for urgent climate action.

Among the comments made by Greenpeace in the assessment were:

• IBM maintains top spot on the leader board due to its extensive range of climate solutions and reducing its own emissions, although the company is only one point ahead of a much improved HP.

• Toshiba is providing more comprehensive information on how its climate solutions can reduce global emissions.

• Sharp stands out as the only Japanese company to indicate support for a strong emissions reduction target from the new Japanese Government. 

• The CEO of Ericsson has been making prominent speeches on the urgency of the climate change problem and the importance of Copenhagen.

• Apple is credited with its decision to leave the US Chamber of Commerce over the Chamber's stance on the US government’s efforts to address climate change.

• Whilst Google has set out plans to reduce emissions by 2030 it has not yet spoken up on the need for a strong global deal in Copenhagen.

• The leaders of Nokia, Dell, Microsoft and Sony, among others, remain silent on the most urgent issue facing the planet.

The number of companies included in the assessment has expanded since the first iteration, Google and Panasonic are both assessed for the first time for example, and several more companies are expected to be added for the next release early in 2010.

Trilliant wins British Gas contract

US Smart grid company Trilliant has announced that it will be providing communications software to British Gas as part of the utility’s smart metering activities.  British Gas will use Trilliant's enterprise communications management software, UnitySuite, for smart electric and gas meters, home energy displays, thermostats and other devices.

To quote Andy White, President and CEO of Trilliant; "This continues our market expansion in Europe and we look forward to expanding our role in the United Kingdom where the government plans to replace 47 million existing domestic gas and electricity meters with smart meters by 2020."

Trilliant is pushing hard into the market and this looks like a significant win.  The company has been successful in its home market, but this is an important deal in the rapidly evolving European market, which has easily as much growth potential in the coming years. 

Trilliant has been around since 1985 so has plenty of expertise and is trying to establish itself as the market leader.  As we reported in September, the company is integrating UnitySuite with IBM’s WebSphere and Tivoli products and the two companies are pursuing joint solutions development and integrated offerings as well as cooperating on industry standards development.  It’s that sort of partnership that could help seal Trilliant’s market position.

The British Gas deployment is expected to start in December.

CA launches new ecoSoftware tools

Software supplier CA has announced new tools for its sustainability management ecoSoftware suite, which is aimed at helping companies better manage energy use and carbon emissions. 

The two new products are:

- CA ecoGovernance 1.5, a carbon and sustainability management software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution (as most emission management solutions are) which provides visual tools for better control over enterprise-wide sustainability initiatives. It also includes project management capabilities, tracks progress against business objectives and has an automated survey assessments for use internally and externally.

- CA ecoMeter 1.5, is an operational energy management solution. It captures energy-related information from devices within the data centre and other facilities to allow energy consumption to be related to specific devices, business units or buildings.  It also helps to monitor the savings from server consolidation and virtualization.  It sounds like the sort of solution that you would expect all data centre managers to adopt in the coming years if they really want to keep on top of emissions.

The ecoSoftware suite as a whole was recently accredited by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for conforming to the CDP’s reporting standards.  These additions should help the company’s strong push into this expanding market.

Smart Green Grid Initiative

Whirlpool, the company that plans to manufacture a million smart grid-compatible clothes dryers by the end of 2011 (see previous article), has joined with GE and others to launch the Smart Green Grid Initiative (SGGI). 

It’s a collaborative effort aimed at showing how smart grid technologies and practices can help achieve climate change goals. SGGI has been approved by the UN as an official smart grid delegation to the Copenhagen meetings and will be holding educational sessions at the event.

The idea is to show governments, industry and policy makers how smart grid technologies fit with other plans to become more energy efficient and reduce emissions. For example, explaining the role smart grids play managing the variable nature of renewable energy sources.  Also, how demand response and energy storage solutions can can complement the delivery of renewable resources.

“We launch this effort today to try to illustrate the relationship between a smart grid with smart products and technologies, and the global effort to mitigate climate change,” said Jeff Noel, corporate vice president, Communications and Public Affairs, Whirlpool Corporation. “Complementary policies in these areas will benefit consumers, create jobs, and reduce environmental impact. Today, these two areas are for the most part in different silos, and there is not enough awareness or understanding of how important development of the smart grid can be to meeting climate change goals.”

SGGI supporters include utilities and technology companies.  In addition, the Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition and the Demand Response Coordinating Committee, the main US groups promoting the development of the smart grids, will be supporting SGGI.

SGGI also says it’s holding several webinars and a Capitol Hill briefing to build awareness and it has its own web site at www.smartgreengrid.org, which has information about events, as well as explaining the role smart grids can play.

This looks like a good initiative and one that ICT companies could benefit from signing up to (Google and LG were the only ICT companies listed as members in the press release).  It is certainly an area where more education is required for both the public and policy makers. There is still a significant number of people (and commentators) that see smart grids as an expensive government white elephant.  In fact as well as an essential part of the effective management of energy use in the future, it also opens up enormous business opportunities for the ICT market in particular and the business community in general.

IBM sustainable supplier consulting

IBM has launched a new Sustainable Supplier Information Management Consulting offering designed to help clients develop the methodology to manage and analyse supplier information across a range of sustainable measures, from energy use to environmental impact, safety, efficiency, labour practices, etc.  It also helps with reporting sustainability information to business partners, regulators and other key stakeholders.

IBM’s view is that companies need to use ‘smart’ technologies and processes to collect, analyse and act on the large amounts of information from across their supplier networks. The company estimates that the end result can improve supply chain efficiency by 8-12%, with similar reductions in cost, environmental impact and risk. 

However, in its 2009 c-level executive survey on green and sustainability, IBM found that 29% aren’t collecting any of this data at all from their supply chains, 80% aren’t collecting supplier data for CO2 emissions and water usage, and 60% aren’t checking supplier data for labour standards.

In addition, half the respondents said supply chain partners are demanding new standards for carbon management, but only 19% are collecting enough CO2 emissions data.  Another 75% said partners also require new standards for energy management, waste and labour standards.

IBM’s consulting offering is designed to help develop processes and systems across a range of areas, from process change management, supplier audit management, qualification management, real-time quality management, etc.  It can also be used with IBM’s Sustainable Procurement offering, which are aimed at more efficient and sustainable procurement.

This is all part of IBM’s comprehensive offering of sustainability consulting and solutions, which are summarised here.

What I find interesting is the mixed marketing messages that come with these offerings, which switch seamlessly between cost and efficiency, environmental impact and sustainability, business risk, and regulator and stakeholder pressure.  In this economic climate none of these issues are probably enough to win a deal, but together they address a number of current and future concerns.  Sustainability is not going to be a sufficient reason to invest in change until it is widely accepted that it has its financial implications (in terms of carbon cost) and stakeholder pressure (shareholders and investors) built in.  It won’t be too long, though.

Green Grid EU data centre policy report

The Green Grid has released a guide to policies affecting the data centre industry in the EU as a whole and the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands in particular.  The full 60-page White Paper, entitled ‘The Green Grid Energy Policy Research For Data Centres’, is freely available here.

The report points out that growth of data centres and their use of energy means that the industry will be particularly affected by the drive for energy efficiency for equipment and buildings.  With the rising number of policies and regulations, organisations need to keep up with the implications of the legislations and their responsibilities.

Vic Smith, Dell representative and EMEA Technical Work Group chair of The Green Grid said that “The overall finding from the report is that legislation is continuously tightening, and therefore it is advisable to innovate now and seek out opportunities to manage future implications for all data centres across the region,”.  (Which very much fits in with our own view of jumping before you’re pushed). 

The report lists the most significant policies to affect organisations and their impact on finances, operations and company reputation:

The most significant policies identified were:

• The UK’s forthcoming Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) legislation, which we have reported on previously, is seen as representing the most significant financial risk to the data centre sector because of the penalties for non-compliance.  The whitepaper includes some models of how the legislation would affect data centres of different sizes (which anyone involved in the business in the UK really should read).  The CRC is also the only piece of regulation thought likely to have an impact across the three areas of concern.

• Revisions to the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which will include new buildings to be zero energy by the end of 2018 (although the term will not be defined until next year).  Member states are also to set minimum percentages for a share of existing buildings to be energy neutral in 2015 and 2020.

• Various building codes and planning policies across the EU will increase the financial burden associated with building and technical designs in order to comply.

The guide also makes recommendations, including:

• All stakeholders should prepare for and manage risks associated with the (UK) Carbon Reduction Commitment.

• Data centre operators should be measuring and reporting their energy consumption and pushing for reductions across the IT infrastructure and building services.

• Data centre operators should take advantage of any energy efficiency incentives, such as tax reductions and capital allowances.

This is good stuff and worth a read.  The experience in the UK is that the CRC crept up on the industry and caught it by surprise.  It’s debatable whether all data centre managers in the UK are yet aware of the implications (most will be included in the legislation when it’s passed, in the next few months).  Any company that runs data centres international will have a host of policies to be aware of and planning for.  Those with any sense will be drawing up company-wide plans now.  They may well change, as legislation does, but as someone once said, plans are nothing, but planning is everything.

Smart grid news

• Accenture posted a press release on October 8th to say that it had been selected by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to provide strategic consulting on the planning and implementation of smart grids in the UK.  No figures seem to have been released about the value of the contract and timescales for delivery.

It seems that Accenture will be responsible for analysing the UK’s electricity grid network and market structure and will advise on the readiness to adopt smart grid technology and services. The company will also help with developing the business case around the financial viability and potential benefits of smart grids.  I look forward to reading the report (if we get to see it).

• Last week Microsoft announced that it has developed a reference architecture, known as the Microsoft Smart Energy Reference Architecture (SERA), that can serve as the basis for development of the ‘integrated utility of the future.’

SERA helps utilities test the alignment of information technology with their business processes and provides a road map to help identify and solve the integration issues facing grid and energy ecosystems.  Microsoft believes it will help utilities implement solutions faster and more reliably and has been working with power industry partners to ensure that SERA addresses power utilities’ IT infrastructure needs.

Microsoft claims that SERA will help create a world where a plethora of smart devices can seamlessly plug into the grid thanks to common standards and interoperability frameworks, just as the plug-and-play model allows thousands of devices to seamlessly plug into PCs today.

CSC’s Corporate Responsibility report

CSC has just released its latest Corporate Responsibility (CR) report, but from a global warming perspective it raises as many questions as it answers.

Firstly, some highlights from the 16-page report – this is just the actions that are given in the two page environmental sustainability coverage:

- Major data centres in the UK and Australia have been awarded ISO 14001 certification and the remaining data centres around the globe are ‘on their way’. The company is working with The Green Grid on energy efficiency for data centres and information service delivery.

- CSC is committed to reducing overall facility energy usage by 30% compared with a 2008 cost baselines.  Note that this is energy, not emissions, it doesn’t say when the reduction will be achieved and there are no actual, verifiable figures supplied. 

- CSC UK is reducing carbon emissions by 20% over 3 years, against a baseline of 2007 and is anticipating a 10% percent reduction for 2009 and 2010, with 5% percent in each of the following years.  It’s not clear what time period we’re talking about here, but it is based on actual numbers.  CSC in the UK has identified its baseline footprint as 70,457 tons of CO2 per year, includes energy, waste and transport.  

- CSC Australia’s target for 2010 is to reduce its per-person CO2-equivalent emissions by 25% from 2007 levels.

The company goes on to say that the following measures are being taken to reduce internal energy consumption:

• Power savers — reducing electricity consumption by 11%

• Mobile phone recycling facilities

• Document recycling bins — saving approximately 3,500 trees annually

• Third-party recycling/disposal of old IT assets — reducing landfill

CSC also says in the environmental coverage that it’s reviewing the impact of other business activities such as business travel, company-owned vehicles, indirect offsite combustion of fuels, e.g., procured resources, electricity, materials and employee commuting, upstream emissions caused by suppliers, downstream emissions created by an organization’s products or activities during their life cycle, IT servers for internal business operations, and electricity consumption at CSC offices.

There is more, such as the use of renewable energy and combined heat and power in the UK, but nothing at the corporate level.

 

What’s disappointing is that this coverage is so patchy and inconsistent to make it pretty much worthless.  The UK operation is getting its act together, but the corporation as a whole does not seem to be on song:

• There’s no corporate wide assessment of emissions or any reduction target or timescale.  It’s not as if the details are somewhere else, the company has not responded to the CDP’s request for information for the last four years.

• Targets are inconsistent, for example with the corporation talking about reducing energy use compared with 2008, the UK is looking at emissions compared with 2007 and Australia is working on a per person basis.

• The information that is given is unclear.  When does the corporation want to achieve the 30% energy reduction and when did the UK’s three year reduction programme start?

If this information is available then its not clear where.  the company’s Corporate Responsibility web pages don’t throw any more light.

Clearly CSC is making efforts to be more environmentally friendly, but, as I’ve said many times before, to have any credibility in helping reduce global warming companies need to be transparent in measuring and monitoring carbon emissions and setting clear reduction targets.  Transparency is the name of the game, as the CDP has established.

I’m surprised at this continual lack of information from CSC.  When I spoke to the company more than a year ago there was an expectation that it would have responded to the CDP by now.  I’m hoping to talk to the company later to get some feedback on my comments – I’ll let you know.

What I would say is that, based on the information provided, the company’s claim of ‘thought leadership’ in the CR report looks a little thin.

1E launches NightWatchman for servers

Power management company 1E has released a server version of its NightWatchman software, previously only available for PCs.  The company claims that it’s the first solution to address the $25bn of potential savings in data centres globally.

NightWatchman Server Edition provides efficiency and power reporting so that decisions such as decommissioning wasteful servers are simpler.  The focus is more on business value than just availability and performance.  Even if servers are productive, energy savings can be enhanced with 1E’s ‘Drowsy Server’ technology, which dynamically minimises energy consumption when no ‘Useful Work’ is being performed, saving an average of 12% in energy costs. 

Useful Work Analysis is part of the software’s capability.  It reports how much power is used for business applications and how much is being used on idle and non-productive processes.  With the information server managers can make better decisions on decommissioning, consolidation, virtualisation and saving energy.

The software provides dashboards and reports that monitor energy consumption, efficiency, cost and CO2 emissions across all servers or within a department or location, application, etc.

The product is available immediately and apparently CSC is carrying out a study to measure the benefits.  If a major IT services companies like CSC adopts the software as part of its green strategy then it could quickly find a wide user base.

At the same time as launching the product, 1E also released the findings from a survey of server managers, commissioned in association with the US organisation Alliance to Save Energy.  Findings included:

- 15% or more servers are not doing anything useful according to 72% of server managers

- 83% admitted that they do not have an adequate grasp of server utilisation

- 72% of server managers admitted that they rely on CPU utilisation as their measure of server efficiency, although the CPU may not be providing any business value

- 63% rely on manual checks, trial and error or wait until something is broken to find unused servers

- 65% have virtualised unused servers and almost a third said that they are actively seeking a solution to virtual server sprawl

- 75% admit that their company’s need for high levels of IT service internally get in the way of measuring and improving server efficiency.

All that makes frightening reading (two thirds have virtualised unused servers!).  It shows just how much room there is for power efficiency improvement in the data centre.  There’s a long way to go yet to minimise power use, with lots of potential routes to take, but NightWatchman is another weapon in the energy-saving armoury.

Carbon neutrality standard

On Wednesday the British Standards Institute (BSI) announced that it’s developing a new standard, known as PAS 2060, to give a consistent and comparable approach to carbon neutrality claims.  The developed is in co-operation with the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and several well-known companies, including Marks and Spencer, Eurostar and the Cooperative.

BIS points out that claims of carbon neutrality are often made by companies that want to appear greener, but there’s no common definition or understanding of what it means.  The result has been public confusion and accusations of ‘greenwashing’. The PAS 2060 specification for carbon neutrality aims to establish some credibility to the term.

The standard will allow accurate and verifiable declarations of carbon neutrality.  By including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as an essential element, BIS believes that PAS 2060 will encourage action on climate change and improvements in carbon reduction management (which you would have thought was a pretty basic aspect of carbon neutrality anyway).

PAS 2060 builds on existing environmental standards such as the ISO 14000 series and PAS 2050.  It will include the quantification, reduction and offsetting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  A draft of PAS 2060 is expected to be available for public comment in November and BSI is encouraging anyone interested to comment.  Interested parties can register interest at www.bsigroup.com/PAS2060.

It’s a good anti-greenwashing move and comes in the nick of time.  The UK government is already using the term – it’s a stated aim to make ICT energy consumption in central government departments carbon neutral by 2012.  This was announced before the government had said what carbon neutrality is.  It has since come up with a definition, published in the recent GHG accounting guidelines, which reads “Carbon neutral means that – through a transparent process of calculating emissions, reducing those emissions and offsetting residual emissions – net carbon emissions equal zero”.  Not exactly precise.  Lets hope that PAS 2060 is a lot clearer and more comprehensive (particularly with regard to the offset element).

EU green research portal

Last week the European Commission launched SETIS, the online Strategic Energy Technologies (SET-Plan) Information System. 

The terminology is a little confusing (as is often the case from the EU), but basically the Commission has a strategic plan to accelerate the development and deployment of low carbon technologies. It covers planning, implementation, resources and international cooperation in the area of energy technology.  SETIS is the online portal that provides the latest research results on the status, forecasts and R&D investment figures for low-carbon technologies.

The analyses cover the technologies identified by the SET-Plan and proposed as European Industrial Initiatives (wind, photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, bio-energy, carbon dioxide capture and storage -CCS-, smart grids, nuclear fission), two ongoing Initiatives (fuel cell and hydrogen and nuclear fusion) as well as others with great potential such as, ocean, geothermal power and energy storage. Demand side energy efficient technologies are also included.

The SETIS information and data is split into two areas.  Technology Maps are an analysis of the status and prospects of low-carbon technologies. The Capacities Maps (see below) monitor R&D efforts made by the industry and the public sector in Europe on key low-carbon technologies. SETIS also provides an energy production cost calculator that allows users to compare costs of production for different technologies over the time (up to 2030).

There’s an impressive amount of information on the site (which is here).  It looks like an invaluable resource for anyone that needs to know the what, when and how of low-carbon energy provision in Europe.

 

SAP helps smart grid transition

At the SAP utilities conference currently going on in Munich the company has been talking about its success in 2009 with the SAP AMI Integration for Utilities software, introduced earlier this year.  This is a solution that helps utilities integrate their metering processes with backend systems.  It provides energy usage patterns which can be translated into operational cost savings as well calculating the reduced cost of ownership for metering solutions.

The software also gives consumers more information on their energy consumption so they can better manage and conserve energy.

Companies currently adopting the software apparently come from three continents, although only US and Australian clients were specifically mentioned.

As SAP pointed out, the deployment of smart meters will have a significant impact on utility processes.  Given that this is an evolving market, it’s going to require flexible business operations and IT systems that can adapt to changes.  SAP is getting in on the act by linking metering, backend operations, customer service and billing processes in a solution that is integrated with its enterprise offerings.

There are significant opportunities for SAP in this market, although it will need to be agile to keep up with the inevitable changes as it develops.  And this is just the utilities providers – at the business customer end there will also be a great demand for more information about energy use and emissions which will need to be plugged into finance systems, etc.  SAP will have more of a fight with the competition at that end of the market.

Data centre free cooling assessment

Earlier this month the Green Grid launched an online tool to help data centre managers assess available free cooling in various European locations.  (North American and Japanese versions were available earlier in the year).

The free tool and associated maps are designed to help data centre and facilities managers determine how much outside air is available for data centre cooling and hence can reduce energy use and costs.  Users input their country and city names plus specific variables, such as local energy costs, IT load and facility load, to determine the potential energy savings.  The tool, which covers 33 European countries, also provides information about savings that could be obtained using water-side economizers. 

Members of The Green Grid will have access to a high resolution graphical map of the estimated hours of air-side and water-side economization possible for Europe and many specific countries.  The low resolution version is freely available online (see below).

The tool is based on hourly observations from 608 weather stations throughout Europe taken between 1999 and 2008.   

This sounds like a useful tool in looking for ways to reduce data centre energy and emissions.  Managers need as much background data as they can get to support a move towards more energy efficiency.  It’s going to become increasingly important as data centre’s start to fall within emissions legislation, as is now happening with the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) in the UK. 

Whirlpool to produce smart clothes dryers

Whirlpool Corporation ‘the world's leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances’ has announced plans to manufacture a million smart grid-compatible clothes dryers by the end of 2011. The move is part of the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Smart Grid Investment Grant program.

The idea is that the appliances will be able to react to signals from the smart grid and modify their energy consumption, hence saving power and reducing electricity bills. Whirlpool says the dryers could save a typical consumer $20 to $40 per year where there is time-of-use pricing, i.e. different peak and off-peak charges.

Using smart appliances will also help manage the availability of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, which are inherently variable due to weather. According to the company, the deployment of one million smart grid-compatible dryers could shift the equivalent energy of 10 coal fired, 500-megawatt power plants.

Whirlpool was apparently the first appliance manufacturer to conduct a smart grid pilot, back in 2006, and holds key patents. The company has made a commitment that by 2015 all of its electronically controlled appliances will be capable of receiving and responding to signals from the smart grid. However, there are understandable caveats to the plan. Firstly, it’s dependent on the development of an open, global standard for transmitting signals to and receiving signals from a home appliance by the end of 2010 (which at the moment seems unlikely). Secondly, appropriate policies that reward consumers, manufacturers and utilities for using and adding these new peak demand reduction capabilities need to be in place.

Whirlpool’s plans give an insight into why smart grids are coming. If we’re increasingly relying on renewable energy with variable delivery, i.e. wind or solar, then it needs to be intelligently managed at the consumer end. The example often quoted is that if the grid is reliant on solar power, we can’t all plug our electric cars in to be recharged when we get home, just as the sun is going down. There needs to be the means to manage energy use and the incentives to change behaviour.

It is also interesting because of the implications of a world where devices have increasing in-built intelligence and communications capability. The ‘Internet of Things’ is a concept that's been around for some time, but smart grids provide a greater incentive to move in that direction. The implications for the ICT industry are huge.

Alcatel-Lucent wins smart grid service contract

Together with its partners, Alcatel-Lucent is set to deliver Germany’s first smart metering managed service package to local energy supplier Stadtwerke Pasewalk.

The service is aimed at helping the utility address the demand to be more efficient as well as reduce its environmental impact.  In particular, to ensure that Stadtwerke Pasewalk’s operations comply with the forthcoming European Union rules on consumption-dependent billing of gas, electricity and water, which come into effect at the start of 2010.  It also means the company can give customers a device to monitor their own energy consumption and manage it accordingly.

Alcatel-Lucent’s partners in delivering the service are Vodafone Germany, which will provide machine-to-machine communication solutions, DIEHL Energy Solutions will deliver the smart meter and associated systems and services, and SIV AG is providing its ERP system, kVASy, which is used for billing by Stadtwerke Pasewalk.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the fact that it takes four companies (five if you count SIV’s subsidiary UTIPS, which is also involved) to deliver a solution.  Smart grids need several technologies to come together and solutions potentially need to be delivered on a large scale, so partnerships are the order of the day.  We can expect to see many more, particularly since they will have to be primarily forged at the national level.

In this case there is also an element of a trial contract.  Stadtwerke Pasewalk is quite a small company – one of 900 German utilities and with just 12,000 meters – but it’s keen to be at the forefront of technology use.  So this represents a great test bed for the suppliers.

Perhaps more significantly is the approach.  The utility wants to take advantage of technology but not make its own investment, given uncertainties about the approach, standards and impending regulation.  It’s a particular issue for a company of this size, but is also going to be a consideration for much larger utilities who want to move but are concerned about which way to jump.

A major reason for outsourcing in the ICT industry is to benefit from new technology as it becomes available, as well as flexibility of delivery of the service provider.  The impending implementation of smart grids represents a very similar scenario.

Smart Google and Cisco

Google has announced a device partner for its PowerMeter tool, which we mentioned in a previous blog.  The PowerMeter software shows consumers their home energy information in a form easy to access and understand on their computer.  The idea (as with all home smart meters) is that increased awareness of energy use leads to reduced consumption.

But up till now PowerMeter has required a smart meter to be installed by the utility supplier.  With this new device the utility’s smart meter is no longer required.

 

The device, which is only available in the US, is a TED 5000 from Energy Inc. (TED stands for ‘The Energy Detective’).  It allows users to view personal home energy data using the free PowerMeter software from anywhere you can access the web. Consumers can get real-time information on energy use and costs, as well as changes in use over time.  The company is looking for other device partners.

Meanwhile, Cisco is also continuing its push into the smart grid market.  According to smartgridnews.com the company has partnered with German utility Yello Strom in a pilot to allow about 70 homes and businesses to communicate with the electric grid over an IP network. The trial will use Yello Sparzaehler meters, which also happen to integrate with Google’s PowerMeter. The trial is aimed at giving Yello Strom customers the means to manage their energy consumption, hence reducing bills and peak demand.

Apple leaves the Chamber

In the past I’ve been critical of ICT companies that join various ‘concerned’ groups around climate change but rarely take any real stand on matters of principal or government policy. So it’s good to hear that Apple is making its views felt in the US Chamber of Commerce (particularly given my comments yesterday). The company has left the organisation over its stance on climate change.

The issue stems from the Chambers call, earlier this year, for a hearing to debate the evidence behind the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The Chamber is reported to be prepared to go to court to get its way.

The Chamber of Commerce believes that the EPA ignored evidence contradicting its conclusions on issues such as the effect higher temperatures will have on net mortality and levels of other pollutants. In a press release of August 25th, William Kovacs, the Chamber’s senior vice president for Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs is quoted as saying; “Let me be clear, we are not debating the science behind global warming. We are unconvinced that EPA has demonstrated, as a matter of law, that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles in the US endanger public health or welfare.”

This just seems to be nit-picking. The IPCC, an international organisation representing almost 200 countries has called on scientists around the world and concluded that man-made global warming is happening. We have a summit in December aimed at an international agreement that may help save the world and much will depend on US agreement. But the US Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business federation representing more than three million businesses, is not yet ready to act.

The Chamber has tried to smooth things over with a statement on its web site, but not before some prominent companies signalled their departure from the organisation. Three major US utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon, will not renew their membership and Nike has resigned it seat on the Chamber’s board of directors. All cited the environmental policy as the reason.

Apple has gone one stage further by leaving with immediate effect and it would be nice to see the company joined by other ICT companies that are members (there is no membership list available, but there must be an awful lot). The Board of Directors alone includes Accenture, AT&T, Comsys, Deloitte, IBM, Siemens and Xerox. Let’s hope they're fighting the case from the inside.

Greenpeace – quarterly green electronics guide

Greenpeace’s latest assessment of electronics suppliers (the 13th edition) continues to show Nokia as the market leader with Samsung and Sony Ericsson the two other notable leading players in the market.

The full story is here, but promises around removing chemicals from products continue to have a significant impact. LG Electronics fell from 4th to 11th due to the penalty point imposed for backtracking on its commitment to have all its products free of PVC and BFRs by the end of 2010. Dell still has a penalty point for a similar promise, although the company’s overall score increased. HP had its penalty point lifted, after the September 2009 release of a notebook for business customers with a cost neutral option of a PVC and BFR free configuration.

Apple moved up from 11th to 9th, with the comment from Greenpeace; ‘the most progressive PC maker on removing toxics from product range. Room for improvement on e-waste and energy’.

In fact Apple has been making real efforts on the green front recently with some significant improvement in its reporting of its emissions and environmental actions.

There is a new environmental section on the company’s web site, which goes into detail of the environmental impact of Apple products over the complete lifecycle.

Also, in its recent CDP response the company went into much greater detail than in the past (the previous submission provided little or no useful information). Now it’s an extensive and detailed document.

However, for some inexplicable reason the company still refuses to publicly commit to GHG emissions reduction targets. All it will say (in response to the CDP question) is ‘Apple has reduction targets, although it is generally not our policy to trumpet our plans for the future’.

It is odd that such a well-loved company with a loyal following should continue to put some of that very significant brand value at risk through inadequate reporting of its environmental plans. Clearly the company is taking action and at least is now talking about it, but the one overriding requirement from all businesses is to commit to reducing emissions. Commitment is what Copenhagen is about. Given its influential place in the market, Apple really is letting the ICT industry down.

ITU’s green push

The International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency for information and communication technology issues, is to press for the greater recognition of ICT as a cross-sectoral tool to combat climate change in the upcoming Copenhagen Agreement. The announcement was made during the recent inaugural Virtual International Symposium on ICTs and Climate Change, in which over 500 people from 50 countries participated.

The ITU has already been very active in negotiations to promote the role that ICT can play, participating in meetings in Bangkok and Barcelona. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon previously underlined the organisation’s role; "ITU is one of the very important stakeholders in the area of climate change," he said.

It’s good to hear that a UN organisation is actively promoting the use of ICT to help reduce emissions and, hopefully, making the point at the negotiating table. I’ve noticed a worrying trend recently for ICT to be seen more as a problem than part of the solution. We clearly need to make IT a lot more efficient, and there’s plenty of scope to do that, but, as has been said many times, ICT can prevent a lot more emissions than it creates.

The ITU launched a major initiative in 2008 to better understand the relationship between ICTs and climate change. The organisation’s Telecommunication Standardisation Sector (ITU-T) has recently developed a methodology for calculating the impact of ICTs on GHG emissions over their entire life cycle and is converting the methodology into a formal global standard. ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is focusing on monitoring and sensing systems for better climate information. There was a recent joint seminar with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on the use of radio spectrum for meteorology, aimed at weather, water and climate monitoring and prediction.

There’s more about what the organisation is doing to promote green ICT on its web site: http://www.itu.int/themes/climate/

HP launches a smart grid security service

According to a report in eWeek Europe, HP has launched a security audit for smart grid services.

Security has been increasingly raised as an issue with smart grids, as I reported back in March, and HP’s new service is also in response to some recent hacking of energy meters and other smart grid infrastructure.

The HP Smart Grid Security Quality Assessment (SGSQA) service was announced at the company’s Executive Energy Conference in Budapest and is aimed at utility companies and smart grid operators.

The new service is apparently based on an existing security audit methodology that HP uses to test its own software and hardware. The service, which HP says works in multi-vendor environments, would take around two weeks to check the vulnerabilities of a smart grid system and is already being trialled with three utility companies.

UK Government GHG accounting guidance

The UK government’s consultation on GHG reporting, which we reported on back in June, has been completed and the results are contained in ‘Guidance on how to measure and report your greenhouse gas emissions’, published yesterday. The guidance is aimed at all sizes of business as well as public and third sector organisations.

There’s not much new here. The methodology is based on the GHG Protocol and defers to it for any missing emissions factors not supplied by DECC (Department for Energy and Climate Change, which has taken over responsibility from Defra).

It looks like a very clear document, with examples and case studies, and will need to be. The UK Climate Change Act requires the government to introduce mandatory business reporting of GHG emissions information by the 6th of April 2012 or explain to Parliament why not.

The document heads in that direction when it says “We encourage organisations to publish their GHG emissions data and supporting explanations. Where you report your data is a matter of choice: for some companies it may be their annual report / business review or it may be in a separate corporate responsibility / sustainability report.”

The document also goes into emissions reduction, including offsetting, with a description of what defines ‘good quality’ schemes. The criteria are based on:

• Additionality – projects that would not have happened otherwise.

• Avoiding leakage – offsets don’t generate their own emissions.

• Permanence – What if the forest burns down (if trees are the offset)?

• Validation and verification – by an accredited and recognised independent third party.

• Timing – carbon credits should only be issued after the emissions reduction has taken place.

• Avoiding double counting – a registry must be used to register, track and permanently cancel credits.

• Transparency – credits should be supported by publicly available project documentation.

At the same time as the accounting guidance, after a public consultation earlier this year the government has also come up with a definition of carbon neutrality, as follows:

“Carbon neutral means that – through a transparent process of calculating emissions, reducing those emissions and offsetting residual emissions – net carbon emissions equal zero”.

More details in the guidance document here, but I still have reservations about this. I can see that quality offsetting may need to be part of the mix, but very much as a last resort. As far as I could see from this document there is no clear guidelines as to the ‘last resort’ requirement.

At least the guidelines will give some stability to carbon management solutions providers who can now have some confidence about what their products and services need to be able to do and how they should be applied.