Microsoft’s Hohm offers comparable score cards in an expanding Home Energy Management (HEM) market

Microsoft has announced a new feature of Hohm, it’s home energy management solution launched nearly a year ago.  Users can now compare their own energy efficiency with that of others.

Hohm has estimated the energy efficiency for nearly 60 million homes in the US.  This ‘Hohm Score’ is on a scale from one up to 100 and is calculated for every home in the company’s database.  Each score is unique in comparing a specific home's estimated and potential energy efficiency based on a combination of Hohm’s own algorithms with public record information and analytics licensed from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy.

 

 

By entering an address it’s possible to get an estimate of how much that home could be saving annually on energy, a comparison chart that shows how its energy use measures up to other homes in the area and an energy-cost breakdown. The data can be compared locally, state-wide and nationally, or with another specific address.  The assessment can be fine-tuned by entering some basic information such as the type of appliances and systems used and actual energy usage from utility bills (which can be kept private). 

 

 

The Hohm Score gives an added dimension to home energy management by comparing the assessment with other homes and hopeful creating an added incentive for people to reduce energy use.  The Hohm blog says that if all 60 million homes in the database improved ten points in their score, it would save $16bn in energy costs annually in the US, or about $250 a year per home.

The importance of energy information displays (EIDS) and other energy management technology in smart grid initiatives has been highlighted in a recent report from Pike Research.  With a range of technology vendors in the home energy management (HEM) market, from small device start-ups to the likes of Microsoft and Google (Powermeter), and governments and utilities around the world investing heavily into smart grid and smart meter deployments, sales of HEM systems are expected to grow rapidly over the next few years.  Pike Research says that global market for EIDs will reach five million in-home devices by 2015, mostly in the US and Europe. 

One point that the executive summary of the report makes is that whilst the free Microsoft and Google web-based dashboards are a means for utilities to get some feedback on attitudes and behaviours towards home energy management, they come at a cost.  Utilities have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and many months developing feeds of customer usage information for Microsoft Hohm and Google PowerMeter.  They need to be sure they are getting the right return, in terms of information and assessment, on which to base future consumer programmes.

Greenpeace has reported version 15 of its Guide to Greener Electronics

Greenpeace has released its latest assessment of the top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

Nokia and Sony Ericsson continue to be well ahead of the pack and have increased their lead.  Nokia has a slightly increased score of 7.5 (up from 7.3) as the result of phasing out some chemicals in new products and also for the CEO’s statement in support of 30% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in industrialised countries by 2020.  Sony Ericsson stays at 6.9, but the company is the best performer on the toxic chemicals criteria of all the ranked brands, being the first to score full marks on all chemicals criteria.

The most significant changes in the rest of the field were the dramatic falls of Toshiba, LG and Samsung.

Toshiba was marked down from 5.3 to 3.5 and drops dramatically from 3rd place to 14th.  This was mainly due to a penalty point imposed for backtracking on its commitment to make all new models of its consumer electronics products free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) by 1 April 2010.  Further points were lost for not setting a new timeline for their elimination and also for the company’s lack of third party verification for its calculations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

LG Electronics’ score was cut from 5.1 points to 3.7, resulting in a fall from 6th to 12th place in the rankings.  Most of the loss was due to the energy efficiency of its products.  The company had received maximum points for its compliance with the Energy Star standard for its chargers, PCs and TVs, but, according to Greenpeace, this was not the case in both the US and Australia.

Samsung score also dropped from 5.1 to 3.7, falling from 7th to 13th place.  The company now has two penalty points.  The first was for backtracking on its commitment to eliminate BFRs in new models of all products by January 2010 and PVC vinyl plastic by end of 2010. The second for apparently not owning up in advance to not being able to meet the commitment.

Most of the other companies had very similar scores to the last assessment, although rankings have changed due to the three big fallers.  Dell did make some progress, though.  Whilst still suffering from a previous penalty point for backtracking on its commitment to eliminate PVC vinyl plastic and BFRs, the company gained ground through supporting restrictions on PVC and BFRs in the revised EU RoHS Directive and also for putting on the market the first completely PVC and BFR-free monitors. Dell has also released a BFR/PVC-free mobile phone in China.

 

It’s an interesting, if idiosyncratic, assessment from Greenpeace.  I bet the companies concerned have a lot to say in their defence, but it puts pressure on the manufacturers, allows Greenpeace to amend its criteria over time and keeps the debate going, which is as it should be.

I said last time around that it would be useful if Greenpeace would show the companies’ scores over time, so we can see what progress they’ve made.  Lo and behold we now have it.

China Mobile is on course to make a significant contribution to China’s emission reduction target

The extent to which ICT can help reduce CO2 emissions has been made clear by a recent study by WWF and China Mobile. 

The report, with the title ‘Low Carbon Telecommunications Solutions in China: Current Reductions and Future Potential’ was presented at a conference in Beijing (there’s an English summary here).  It estimated China Mobile prevented 48.5 million tonnes of direct CO2 emissions savings from low carbon telecom solutions provided in 2008 - just over six times the company’s own emissions- rising to 58.2 million tonnes in 2009.  The 2008 savings were estimated to be of similar size to the total CO2 emissions of countries like Sweden, Denmark or Finland.

The estimates come from an analysis of 14 low carbon technologies offered by China Mobile, which were categorised into smart logistics, dematerialisation, smart work and smart appliances.  The estimates are also said to be conservative, since they don’t allow for indirect savings, e.g. online publication accounts for the energy savings from not using paper, but not the transport and storage implications.

Teleworking, part of the smart work focus, makes the biggest single contribution to reducing emissions, estimated to reach 340 million tonnes of CO2 China-wide by 2020.  However, savings from virtual meetings will increase at a much greater rate to an estimated 623 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030.

Overall, by 2020 the potential savings from smart logistics, dematerialisation and smart work are expected to reach 615 million tons of CO2, rising to 1298 million tons by 2030.  This would make a significant contribution to China’s target to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 45% by 2020.

 

The figures bring home the scale of savings that can be made by ICT, particularly in a developing economy, where it’s that much easier to introduce new technologies and different working practices along the way.

It’s also important to highlight the positive aspects of what’s being done, which is not always the case with some environmental organisations.  As Dermot O’Gorman, the Country Representative of WWF China pointed out; “It is important to pay attention to the companies that deliver the solutions society needs, and not only focus on those that are big emitters.  We want to support China and Chinese companies to take the lead in a solution approach that can deliver results not just in China, but globally.”  Couldn’t agree more.

US climate change bill emerges in the Senate

Whilst in the UK we’ve been waiting to see how a new (coalition) government will impact policy on climate change and the environment, in the US the draft of the long-awaited climate bill made it’s first appearance in the Senate.  It’s officially known as the American Power Act and was introduced by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)

The emissions reduction targets included in the bill are along similar lines to those in the Waxman-Markey bill that was narrowly passed (219-212) in the House in June 2009. The bottom line is:

• a 17% reduction (from 2005 levels) in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, 42% reduction by 2030 and 83% reduction by 2050.

• The principal mechanism will be a cap-and-trade system with prices starting at $12 per ton and effectively capped by a $25 per ton reserve price, escalating at 5 percent per year over the inflation rate. The bill would stop individual states from implementing their own a cap-and-trade programmes, which would end initiatives such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, started back in 2008. 

Heavy power users will be the main target for the legislation, although the introduction will be a year or two behind the timescale originally proposed by Waxman-Markey.

• There is a provision for up to two billion tons of offsets a year through a programme managed by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and USDA (US Department of Agriculture). The Futures Trading Commission will manage carbon markets. 

• The legislation would also include protection for US industry from unregulated foreign competitors, with the EPA distributing rebates to eligible industrial sectors.  In fact the EPA will be responsible for working out the detail of how the policy will work in practice, but will lose its own right to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act.

• Other aspects include encouraging nuclear power, a national strategy for carbon capture and sequestration and a national low carbon transportation plan addressing the infrastructure needs of electric cars.  Offshore oil drilling is promoted (primarily aimed at appeasing Republican opposition, but it may have backfired in the light of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill) although coastal states will be able to opt out.  There are also grants to support the development of green jobs.

 

The proposal has general support from environmentalists and some industry sectors.  (Included in that are are companies that provide carbon emissions management solutions, since the legislation would require extensive reporting of emissions and energy use).  But opposition is strong, with almost no Republican support, so the chances of getting the 60 required votes in the Senate are questionable.  Added to the woes are the fact that the EPA is already under fire for its climate change actions, the Republicans are defensive because of splits within its own ranks (the Tea Party) and their are mid-term elections in November. 

Much will depend on the support that the proposals get from the business community, so it’s a time for ICT companies to stand up and be counted.  But it still might not be enough for a bill to be passed this year.

Wipro collaborates with SAP around sustainable solutions

It seems that Hitachi is not the only company teaming up with SAP around green ICT (as we reported last week).

In fact before the Hitachi announcement Wipro had announced its own agreement with SAP to develop and deliver green solutions.  The two companies have agreed to collaborate on sustainability performance management and energy management solutions.

The companies will work together to combine green IT services from Wipro with SAP solutions for sustainability, including the SAP Carbon Impact on-demand solution, SAP BusinessObjects Sustainability Performance Management and SAP EHS Management applications.

The idea is that the combined offerings will help companies address compliance and business risk around people, health and safety, improve product safety and stewardship and support environmental compliance.  Wipro already offers green IT strategy, assessment, planning and implementation services.

 

These two SAP agreements give an indication of the weight of enterprise software companies in the sustainability solutions market.  It’s the large players with the solutions pedigree that are likely to be the first choice providers, hence the collaborations with SAP.  Other IT services players have developed (or bought in) there own solutions, particularly around Carbon Emissions Management Solutions (see www.cemsus.com).  It’s the smaller, specialist solutions providers that will have to fight to maintain their market share, or sell out to a bigger player. 

HP proposes cow-powered data centres

With the new UK government’s stated aim of increasing energy from renewable sources, research from HP into cow-powered data centres could be good news.

It’s not the cows themselves that power the data centre (visions of cows in treadmills) but rather what the cows leave behind.  HP labs has worked out (in some detail) that the methane produced by dairy farms could be used as the data centre power source.  The research appears in a paper presented at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Phoenix, Arizona, earlier this month.

Methane is a largely untapped source of energy, generated by manure on farms around the world.  If released into the atmosphere, it is 21 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide, but it can be captured and used to power electrical generators.

The HP paper shows that a farm of 10,000 dairy cows could generate 1MW of electricity, enough to power a typical modern data centre.  Not only that, the heat generated by the data centre could also be used to more efficiently process the animal waste and thus increase methane production.  The net result is a process that both reduces farm pollution and makes data centres more environmentally sustainable.

 

 

It’s an interesting idea, although dependent on having a dairy industry with farms of sufficient size.  Building such a symbiotic system would also need some assurance that both operations will be around in the long term.

But that’s not really the point, particularly since this is just one way that data centres can be integrated with renewable resources and local businesses and communities.  As Chandrakant Patel, HP Fellow and director of HP’s Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab, put it “Our goal here is to see if we can take the data centre completely off the grid.” 

That really is the aim.  It would free much of ICT from its ‘energy hog’ reputation and allow the industry to get on with helping the rest of the economy address climate change.

UK coalition government green strategy – players, policies and green ICT implications

Now the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition has finally formalised its policies for the next five years, it’s worth reviewing who’s now in charge of the UK climate change and environmental policy and what that policy is.

Well the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is now run by Liberal Democrat Chris Hune, supported by Conservative ministers Greg Baker and Charles Hendry, with Conservative peer Lord Jonathan Marland managing the legislative programme in the Lords.  This seems to be the main team, although it’s still to be confirmed exactly who does what. 

It does, though, seem likely that Hendry will handle nuclear issues because of Chris Hune’s previous opposition. The coalition has agreed that the Lib Dems will abstain on any vote relating to plans for new nuclear reactors, allowing the Conservatives to implement their own plan for a new wave of nuclear power plants.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is run by an all-Conservative team headed by secretary of state Caroline Spelman (previously an agriculture industry lobbyist) who will also focus on climate change, biodiversity, the Environment Agency and Natural England.  Jim Paice is minister for agriculture and food and Richard Benyon is parliamentary under-secretary for natural environment and fisheries.  Conservative peer Lord Henley will be responsible for environmental regulation, nanotechnology, chemicals, sustainable development, waste and recycling, biofuels and climate change adaptation, which means that he is likely to be the most involved with green industry issues.

Yesterday the coalition published ‘The Coalition: our programme for government’ which sets out its proposals across a range of policy areas, including energy and climate change.  The full document is here (see page 16), but among the main points (as quoted in the document) are:

• We will push for the EU to demonstrate leadership in tackling international climate change, including by supporting an increase in the EU emission reduction target to 30% by 2020.

• We will seek to increase the target for energy from renewable sources, subject to the advice of the Climate Change Committee.

• We will establish a smart grid and roll out smart meters.

• We will establish a full system of feed-in tariffs in electricity – as well as the maintenance of banded Renewables Obligation Certificates.

• We will introduce measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.

• We will create a green investment bank.

• We will introduce measures to encourage marine energy.

• We will cancel the third runway at Heathrow.

• Through our ‘Green Deal’, we will encourage home energy efficiency improvements paid for by savings from energy bills. We will also take measures to improve energy efficiency in businesses and public sector buildings. We will reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months.

• We will give an Annual Energy Statement to Parliament to set strategic energy policy and guide investment.

• We will deliver an offshore electricity grid in order to support the development of a new generation of offshore wind power.

• As part of the creation of a green investment bank, we will create green financial products to provide individuals with opportunities to invest in the infrastructure needed to support the new green economy.

• We will work towards an ambitious global climate deal that will limit emissions and explore the creation of new international sources of funding for the purpose of climate change adaptation and mitigation.

 

All of the policy items detailed above have the potential to impact the UK green ICT market in some way.  Pushing for an increase in the EU emissions reduction targets will increase pressure on emissions reductions in the UK.  The smart grid support clears the way for current developments and the offshore electricity grid will add to the smart grid flexibility and potential.

My reservation is around the reduction of central government carbon emissions by another 10% within 12 months.  Clearly this is a commendable target, there is no harm in challenging the public sector to further achievements and it should be setting an example to the private sector (although it would be a lot better if the target also included local government).  The problem is that the additional reduction is also likely to be applied to ICT, which should be seen as a green enabler for the rest of the organisation.

To be fair, ICT’s enabling role has started to be recognised in the public sector, but as yet emissions reductions do seem to be targeted across the board, i.e. including ICT.  In any case, a target for carbon neutrality by 2012 is already in place, which only seems achievable by buying carbon offsets.  This additional, unplanned reduction will penalise departments that have already made significant moves towards previous targets and is likely to prevent ICT from making the contribution that it could potentially make. 

Yes, the public sector should be doing more, but it needs realistic planning and a recognition of ICT’s on-going role.  But with the new government also planning to take a hard look at large-scale ICT deals (for which read the NHS’ failing National Programme for IT) it’s unclear whether green ICT will get the recognition it deserves.

We’ll keep you posted.

Hitachi Consulting announces a new Environmental Sustainability Solutions practice

Hitachi Consulting has announced a new Environmental Sustainability Solutions practice, offering a set of solutions designed to help companies shift to a more resource efficient and environmentally responsible business. 

The practice will help companies measure and manage their environmental impact reduction initiatives through strategy, research and implementation services.  The aim is to provide cross-industry, environmentally focused solutions, including risk mitigation and proactive management of energy consumption, fuel usage, chemical compliance, water conservation and material reuse.

Hitachi is looking to leverage the progress already made by Hitachi Ltd in Asia and Hitachi Consulting in Europe.  It’s also looking to help introduce sustainable product innovations from sister companies, including Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Power Systems and Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems.

At the same time, Hitachi Consulting has launched a new energy consumption and carbon emissions reduction service, which combines SAP’s Carbon Impact on-demand solution with Hitachi Consulting’s methodology.  The package helps customers create a blueprint for an enterprise-wide environmental impact reporting strategy.  Hitachi Consulting itself recently implemented SAP Carbon Impact solution in-house.

This new service offering will be tailored to a set of target industries to address immediate sustainability reporting requirements, including the EPA greenhouse gas mandatory reporting regulations, consumer products companies responding to retailer carbon footprint transparency reporting initiatives, etc.

 

Perhaps a bit late in the game, but Hitachi has the internal experience, ICT offerings and wider group portfolio to call upon to address the environmental concerns of customers.  Collaborating with SAP for the enterprise emissions reduction solution makes a lot of sense and I would expect the company to partner with other IT software and solutions companies to fill out its green consulting portfolio.

IBM teams with Hildebrand to prove household power monitoring reduces energy use

IBM has announced it is working with energy consultant Hildebrand, who’s monitoring system enables real-time analysis of electricity usage.

Hildebrand received EU funding for a 30-month research project to enable stakeholders from local authorities, private businesses and universities to study energy monitoring and its effect on human behaviour.  The idea is that through real-time analysis of electricity usage, even down to individual appliances, people will be able to make better decisions about energy efficiency in the home and minimize their environmental impact.

As part of the project the company has installed energy monitoring devices at groups of homes in five European cities: Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester in the UK, and Plovdiv and Ivanovo in Bulgaria.  Homeowners have online access to electricity usage and can perform analytics, such as calculating costs against the users' electricity tariff or comparing their usage to the average for their group, which enables them to make more informed decisions about energy management.  The test sites will provide real-world energy data and enable the study of behaviour and attitudes towards energy management.

The project involves gathering massive amounts of data, which is where IBM comes in.  In the first proof-of-concept the company was able to capture nearly 50,000 readings per second using only a quad-core, dual-processor Intel server, which means that energy monitoring for millions of homes or more can now be a practical proposition.  The data is stored on an IBM Informix database.

 

To be really effective in changing user behaviour around energy use, smart meters alone won’t be enough.  It’s the analysis of that energy use, including comparisons with other users and indications of the impact of a change of behaviour, that will make the difference.  But it’s clearly a massive IT challenge to gather the data and feed it back to consumers in a useful format, hence this collaboration. 

Perhaps more interesting will be the analysis of the user behaviour.  There is a general assumption that more information will lead to energy savings, but that may only really happen when smart grids provide differential energy rates that directly reward changed usage.

Google invests in wind farms

Google has done a lot to make its operations greener (although still without publishing details of its own emissions or reduction targets) but a couple of weeks ago the company announced (via a blog post) its first direct investment in a renewable energy project.

The company has invested $38.8m in two wind farms developed by NextEra Energy Resources.  Located in North Dakota, they generate 169.5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 55,000 homes.

The project apparently uses some of the latest wind turbine technology and control systems, making it one of the lowest-cost sources of renewable energy to the local grid.  The turbines can continuously adjust the blade pitch angles to maximise efficiency and there is also remote 24/7 monitoring and operation control systems.

Google’s aim is to help “accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects”.

The risk of climate change is climbing the business agenda.

Ceres, a US coalition of investors, environmental groups and others working with companies to address sustainability challenges, has published a report on the perceived risks associated with climate change.  Called ‘Climate Change Risk Perception and Management: A Survey of Risk Managers’, the survey-based report was backed by Zurich Financial Services and the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA).

In all, 202 people responded, from a range of industries, including agriculture, heavy emitting industries such as power producers, manufacturing and mining, financial services, insurance and others.

The chart above shows the respondents’ views on the likely impact of five types of climate risk: regulatory, physical, competitive, legal, and reputational.  (‘Competitive risk’ is a bit of a misnomer – it’s more of a market risk).

Anyway, a majority thought that regulatory, physical, competitive and legal climate risks are likely – either ‘very’
or ‘somewhat’, with competitive/market risk the very clear leader.  Reputational risk was, surprisingly, the only area where less than half of respondents thought there was a potential risk.

 

The responses make the point that there is a significant perceived business risk from climate change.  In this study it’s the heavy emitting industries – power generation and heavy industry – that showed the most concern about likely impacts.  There was little or no mention of the retail industry in the analysis, a sector that might also have been more concerned about reputational and competitive risks.  It may be that public pressure is less of an issue in the US.  In any case, I would think that the risk assessment across the board would be higher in Europe.

Clearly, though, the risk from climate change is high on the business agenda.  All of the five aspects in the above chart have the potential to call on ICT to help minimise the risk, though greater process efficiencies, better information and analysis, faster response to climate issues, closer monitoring of environmental impacts, etc.  It’s certainly a topic that ICT companies should be discussing with their clients.

US and UK governments adopt a cloud computing strategy – have they thought it through?

It seems a long time ago now, but on Earth Day Nexgov reported on US government plans to focus on cloud computing as a means to deliver greener ICT operations and a greener economy as a whole.  Federal CIO Vivek Kundra was quoted as saying that by consolidating data centres, working from home and sharing IT resources through cloud computing, agencies will become more environmentally responsible. 

Apparently in February Kundra sent a memo on data centre consolidation to agency CIOs pointing out that federal data centres grew from 432 in 1998 to more than 1,100 in 2009.  More recently he has said that agencies are using only about 6% of their IT infrastructure.  His February memo directed agencies to look for data centre consolidation that provides opportunities for cloud computing.  The idea is to incorporate plans into fiscal 2012 budgets by the end of August.

Cloud computing is becoming a focus for greener IT delivery for two main reasons.  Firstly, providing on online solution service – the one-to-many model such as Software-as-Service (SaaS) – is much more efficient than in-house installations in small data centres or on local servers.  The other reason is the flexibility.  Users can work from anywhere, as long as they have access to the cloud, so working from home is easier and commuting reduced.

The US is not alone in looking to the cloud.  As we reported in January, the UK government has made cloud computing part of its new ICT strategy - ‘Smarter, cheaper, greener’.  One of the key measures is the establishment of a Government Cloud, or ‘G-Cloud’ as it’s being called, providing multiple services from multiple suppliers.

In both the US and UK cases the move to cloud computing is accompanied by efforts to improve the efficiency of data centres from where the cloud is provided.  In the US the EPA is addressing the issue with better energy monitoring and planned Energy Star data centre certification.  In the UK, government data centres are to be consolidated down from ‘hundreds’ to 10-12.

This is really the crux of the issue.  Cloud computing will inevitably increase data centre use, so its success in reducing emissions in the long term depends on the extent to which emissions are reduced in data centres.  Making the move is the easy first step.

In its report ‘Make IT Green - Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change’ Greenpeace expressed its reservations about the move because of future data centre emissions and posed four essential questions for cloud-based computing data centre investment:
• How big is the cloud in electricity consumption and GHG emissions and how big will it become?
• Where will the cloud be built and what sources of energy will be
powering it?
• How may large data centres impact the surrounding load centre’s demand for fossil fuels?
• To what extent will efficiency and design improvements reduce the rate of growth?

Clearly moving to cloud services should be accompanied by a long-term strategy, bearing in mind the sorts of issues that Greenpeace raises.  However, in the US and UK it’s likely that much of these public sector cloud services will be provided from the data centres of IT services companies, many of whom are making significant progress in data centre efficiency and the use of renewable energy. 

Most major IT suppliers are now building comprehensive cloud services to meet the demand.  Fujitsu, for example, launched its global cloud strategy at the end of April, no surprise, given the company’s role as a major public sector supplier in the UK.

Greenstone helps Serco (and its clients) manage carbon emissions

Carbon solutions company Greenstone Carbon Management has announced that services company Serco has implemented Greenstone’s Acco₂unt carbon accounting software.  The solution will be used to measure and manage Serco’s emissions globally and also ensure that the company meets its UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) deadlines.

UK-based Serco is a services company with 70,000 employees and clients in over 35 countries.  The company provides a broad range of services for governments and companies, including managing change, introducing new technology, consulting and management support facilities, implementing IT systems (the company bought local government IT services company ITNET in 2004) and the creation of entirely new businesses.

Before implementing Acco₂unt Serco apparently used internal bespoke systems, but the complexity of the organisation and the arrival of CRC in the UK forced the company to look for a better alternative.  Tim Davis, Head of Assurance Reporting at Serco said, “The complex nature of Serco’s business operations demanded an easy-to-use enterprise carbon accounting tool that would help us aggregate, measure and manage carbon emissions – quickly, accurately and cost effectively.  The software also allows us to model the carbon impact of future business scenarios, benchmark performance across different parts of the organisation and address internal and external reporting requirements with minimum effort.  Acco₂unt will enable us to automate much of the manual process and to provide carbon reduction services to our clients in the public and private sectors.”

The comment is a good summary of why companies need specialist carbon solutions; complexity, compliance and the ability to model the impact of business changes on carbon emissions. 

It’s a very good win for Greenstone.  As well as adding another large company to its client base, which already includes Virgin Group, Fujitsu and Ocado, Serco brings with it the possibility of sales to its own broad and diverse customer base.

Power technology company ABB acquires energy management software vendor Ventyx

Power and automation technology company ABB, which had revenues of $32bn in 2009, has acquired software company Ventyx from Vista Equity Partners for $1bn.

Atlanta-based Ventyx provides a range of software to energy, utility and communications businesses, from asset management to energy analytics and solutions for planning and forecasting electricity needs, including renewables.  The company has a large installed base in the US market and Europe and operates in more than 40 countries, with 2009 revenues of about $250 million.

One of Ventyx’s key applications enables the better matching of electricity generation with consumption, down to the household level, helping utilities to generate revenues from smart grids and carbon trading.  The company’s load forecasting software can also help to integrate large amounts of unpredictable renewable energies, such as wind and solar power.

ABB plans to combine its network management business with Ventyx to form a single unit for energy management software solutions. ABB gets broader access to the utility enterprise management market and the energy management software market as a whole.

 

What fascinates me about the evolving smart grid sector is the way its development mirrors much of what has gone on in the past in the ICT market as a whole.  I’ve mentioned before about the potential for small niche players to sell out to bigger rivals who need the expertise, not just in smart grids, but across the green ICT spectrum. 

At the other end of the scale is the coming together of larger companies from very different markets to leverage their joint capability.  In the ICT sector, history tells us that cultural differences in such mergers/acquisitions can pretty much negate the paper advantages.  Think Capgemini/Ernst and Young, HP/EDS, or, in the UK context Serco/ITNET.  It’s arguable whether any of these deals paid off.  I’m not saying that ABB/Ventyx is not a good idea, but it takes great management to mix an industrial conglomerate and a software vendor and make the whole as much as, let alone more than, the sum of the parts.

IBM smart office survey – employees want greener offices

According to a survey from IBM, inefficiencies built into US office buildings are taking a toll in lost productivity and added costs, and there’s a desire among workers to help remake their offices into greener environments.

IBM’s Smarter Buildings study surveyed almost 6,500 office workers in 16 US cities on issues ranging from office building automation and security to elevator reliability and conservation.

Rich Lechner, vice president, Energy and Environment for IBM said "Even as automobiles, transportation systems, electrical grids and other modern systems are achieving greater efficiency, many office buildings remain rooted in the past.  Bridging this 'Intelligence Gap' can create huge savings in energy and maintenance costs and improve a company's bottom line, as well as create a healthier, more productive workforce." 

Among the statistics the report has extrapolated from the responses is that the total accumulated time that office workers were stuck in elevators in the 16 cities in the past 12 months totalled 33 years, whilst another 92 years was spent waiting for them!

In terms of environmental responsibility, only a third of respondents rated their office buildings "somewhat high" or above, and almost two thirds said they would participate in the redesign of the workspace in their office buildings to make them more environmentally responsible. Other responses revealed that:

• 79% of respondents conserve resources such as water or electricity as part of their regular routine at work.

• 75% say they would be more likely to conserve resources if they were rewarded for the effort.

• 14% report that their office buildings make use of solar energy or another renewable energy source.

 

The survey results make the point that employees are keen to do more about making their workplaces more efficient and environmentally-friendly.  Some of this is simply down to making their lives more comfortable (e.g. not being stuck in a lift!) but a proportion is down to environmental concern.  So not only is taking action on these issue a potential direct benefit, in terms of efficiencies, to the employer, it also leads to a happier staff.  We have always been of the view that employees are one of the stakeholders that companies need to listen to in becoming more environmentally-friendly, and this research backs that up.

The bigger picture is that (according to IBM’s press release) buildings consume 72% of all electricity, 50% of which is ‘wasted’, and generate 38% of electricity-related greenhouse gases.  ICT can help manage buildings more efficiently, which is IBM’s angle, part of the company’s Smarter Planet initiative, hence the survey.

Doubt hangs over UK government green policy

In fact it’s not just green policy, given the indecisive result in the General Election last week.  The Conservatives won most seats, but not a majority, so are currently in discussion with the Liberal Democrats over a likely coalition. 

Whilst we wait to see who rules Britain, it’s worth taking a look at how the environment has featured, since it will impact ICT demand.

Policies.  Green issues certainly did get more coverage this time round than ever before.  All parties had specific green policies and produced manifestos with clear commitments.  Unfortunately there was a tendency for the issues to be separated out from the mainstream policy discussions and rather treated as an issue for minority interest.  Also, the fact that the policies were pretty anodyne meant that they didn’t get discussed much in the media.  Nor did they generate much discussion in the televised leadership debates, where the party leaders seemed to quickly agree with each other and move on.  It seemed like a topic they didn’t really want to engage with.

Candidates.  What differences there are between the parties is more down to the individuals.  This was highlighted by UK NGO Friends of the Earth.  During the election campaign, supporters contacted their candidates to get them to commit to the environmental charity's four climate pledges.  Support was expressed by 285 Green Party candidates (out of around 300), 156 Liberal Democrats, 85 Labour, but just two Conservatives.

Friends of the Earth's Executive Director also sent the party leaders a letter asking them to commit to real action to tackle climate change. Towards the end of April the NGO reported that only Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) had replied.

Elected MPs.  The most significant win was for Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green Party, who won the party’s first seat in Parliament.  However, the Greens failed in the other two constituencies they were particularly targeting.  The party secured around 1.5% of the overall votes.

Other prominent winners included multi-millionaire Zac Goldsmith, former editor of the Ecologist magazine, who became the Conservative MP for Richmond.  He has put it on record that he will fight for green policies and will stand down if election pledges are broken. Labours energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband held on to his seat.  He’s been tipped as a possible future leader of the Labour party (but then so has his brother, David, Foreign Secretary, who seems a more likely candidate).

The new government. As discussions continue (at the time of writing) about who will get to live in Downing Street, environmental and climate change policy seems to have become one of the key discussion points between the Tories and Lib Dem.  It’s certainly one area where the Conservatives seem prepared to adapt their views in order to secure some time in government. 

So a hung parliament may actually turn out to be a good thing, at least for the environment, although there are some significant sticking points before a coalition is agreed.  For instance, the Liberal Democrats are the only party opposed to building new nuclear reactors.  The Liberal Democrats want a one-year green stimulus plan, whilst the Conservatives have suggested cutting back on the current renewable energy subsidies.   One thing is for sure, the third runway at Heathrow is doomed – neither the Tories or Lib Dems supported the proposal.

 

Postscript:  Since I started writing this, Gordon Brown (Labour leader) has announced his resignation, seemingly to open the door for in-depth discussions between the Lib Dems and Labour about forming a government.  It would be a greener solution, but its not over yet …

IT users are turning to IT vendors for ‘green’ advice, but should they be looking further afield?

Following on from my comments about Greenpeace’s Cool IT Leader Board and Connection Research’s conclusions on green IT in Australia, the latter has made some comparisons between the two pieces of research in terms of vendor influence on the market.

Greenpeace’s Cool IT Leader Board evaluates IT vendors’ ‘green’ performance based on “efforts to offer economy-wide technological climate solutions that contribute to global greenhouse gas reductions, initiatives to reduce emissions from their own footprint, and their active engagement in political advocacy and support for science based climate and energy policies”. 

In the survey for Connection Research’s report: Green IT in Australia 2010, a similar assessment is made based on responses to the question “Who are the most important Green IT vendors?”. 

Microsoft, Dell, IBM, HP and Google all feature in both the vendor rankings.  Connection Research concludes that there may be a correlation between vendor ‘green performance’ and ‘importance to users’.  There is support for the view in that both assessments show similar overall improvements in the last year - the Greenpeace Cool IT Leader Board has improved by 26% overall and the Connection Research Green IT Readiness Index finds IT users in Australia are 25% greener.

In fact when Connection Research asked, in the survey for the report, “Who is the most important source of information about Green IT?”, computer vendors were at the top of the list.

It does seem that users are paying most attention to vendors –   but should they?  The vendors’ ‘green’ performance is still relatively low, Greenpeace gives them an average score of 37.5 out of 100. 

It’s also been clear in the UK that vendors have been reluctant to push the green issue too hard for fear of being seen as ‘tree-huggers’ and/or putting off some potential clients.

As Connection Research put it, if users were to give more consideration to other sources of information and focus less on that provided by the computer vendors, their Green IT awareness and efficiency could well improve at a much higher rate. With sustainability, technology is important, but behaviour and innovation counts for more.

Interrupted access to The Green IT Review

Just a warning to readers of the online version of The Green IT Review that access to the site may be interrupted over the weekend. 

It’s for technical reasons related to the development of the new web site (now in production!) and will only be temporary.  Normal service will be resumed by Monday morning.

Apologies for any inconvenience, but it’s a step nearer a new, integrated web site.  If you want to be sure you don’t miss anything, then sign up to the email feed (preferably before the weekend).

Accent launches a smart meter platform

Semiconductor integrator Accent has launched what it says is the first Clean Tech System-on-Chip (SoC) platform, called ASMgrid.  The chip is aimed at improving the performance of smart meter and Home Area Network (HAN) end-products.

The opportunity’s clear.  According to Pike Research’s managing director Clint Wheelock, "Smart meters are the vanguard of smart grid deployments and will represent a $3.9bn global market by 2015, with penetration in that year still only reaching 18% of total installed electric meters”.

Accent has seen the business potential in improving the performance of smart meter equipment and networks and the need for optimised solutions.  The company claims that the new chip integrates the functionality typically found in five semiconductor devices and that it will enable developers to significantly reduce development cost, time and risk and manufacturers to benefit from better silicon integration.

 

Not only has Italy-based Accent introduced the new chip, but smart grids and meters have become the new company focus.  Accent’s business is semiconductor integration of communications and metering technologies and the recent acquisition of Wipro’s RF engineering team, together with some WiFi technology, and the opening of a Wireless IP development centre in France seems to be all part of this new company focus.

 

Markets don’t get much bigger than this so Accent may well benefit from a first mover advantage, but I doubt that the company will be out on its own for long.  There’s going to be stiff competition and given the volumes involved it’s likely to develop into a market where ever-increasing chip functionality is accompanied by ever increasing competitive price pressure.  Sound familiar?

Cisco and Verdiem combine power management of the desktop and network devices.

Verdiem, an enterprise software company focused on PC Power Management and Green IT, announced last week that it had signed an OEM agreement with Cisco to deliver Verdiem’s energy management software as part of Cisco’s EnergyWise Orchestrator offering. 

EnergyWise Orchestrator  is claimed to be ‘the first unified energy management solution for PCs and networked devices’.  Co-developed by the two companies, it brings together PC power management and the capability to measure, manage and monitor energy consumed by Cisco EnergyWise enabled devices, including IP phones, wireless access points, edge switches and other devices.

The solution will be EnergyWise Orchestrator branded (is that the best name they could come up with?) and sold worldwide by Cisco. 

 

It’s an interesting integration of energy management capabilities, covering a potentially diverse range of desktop and networked devices.  Apparently customers who have deployed Verdiem’s PC power management solution, 400 organisations in total, have achieved energy savings of 30-60% with payback within 6-12 months.  EnergyWise Orchestrator extends the potential savings to a wider range of IT devices and end points.  It’s another step towards a complete ICT energy and emissions dashboard, which is what’s really needed.

Green IT in Australia – improving, but could do (a lot) better

Connection Research has released its second annual Green IT report on the Australian IT market.  The survey-based research shows that whilst Australian organisations have become considerably greener in their IT use in the last 12 months, the rate of improvement varies considerably.  As yet, though, IT efforts are less than halfway down the path to effective Green IT.

The level of Green IT maturity is measured by Connection Research’s Green IT Readiness Index, which quantifies five different areas: Lifecycle, End User, Enterprise, Enablement and Metrics. Over 200 companies provided the input on which the Australian assessment was made.

Overall, the Green IT Readiness Index for Australian organisations has improved from 36.5 (out of 100) in 2009 to 49.2 in 2010.  Graeme Philipson, Connection Research’s Research Director is quoted as saying “This indicates substantial improvement over the last year, but there is a long way to go. Most IT departments still don’t even know what their electricity consumption is.”

 

The chart shows comparisons between 2009 and 2010:

• Lifecycle – declined from 2009 to 2010.  Last year it was the highest rated component of the index, now it’s in third place behind End User and Enterprise (the big improvers).  It shows a general lack of interest in improving green procurement and disposal practices.

• End User – has improved considerably in 2010, indicating a much stronger awareness and implementation of practices such as improved PC power management.

• Enterprise – the biggest improvement of any index component, from 30.5 (the second lowest) in 2009 to 54.8 (the second highest) in 2010. It reflects the much higher profile of enterprise energy efficiency issues, particularly in the data centre.

• Enablement – the improvement in score to 47.3 in 2010 shows that organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the role IT can play in reducing the whole organisation’s carbon footprint.

• Metrics – perhaps the most disappointing, with just a small improvement over 2009.  It shows the relative immaturity of most organisations’ Green IT strategies - if you don’t measure the energy consumption of the IT process it’s difficult to make effective improvements.

 

It’s an interesting analysis of green IT progress, produced in collaboration with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.  It seems to show how the popular, headline aspects of green IT have gained ground, i.e. end-user behaviour and data centre energy use, whilst the harder and less obvious aspects – procurement and enablement – are slower.  It seems to me that a lot hangs on the metrics aspect – you need a base measure to work from and many Australian companies haven’t taken that fundamental step yet.

I have to confess to some bias here as I work with Connection Research from time to time, but it’s clear how useful the Readiness Index can be in measuring and comparing the green IT progress in countries, industries or companies.  Expect to see more.

More cleantech investor events from Cleantech Investor NEXUS

The following landed in my inbox shortly after my previous post:

The first of a series of investor events, under the collective title of Cleantech Investor NEXUS, will take place in London on 12th May 2010.  The event will be streamed live to a global audience of investors.

The event will include a presentation by Clare Brook, fund manager at WHEB Asset Management, followed by a series of presentations by cleantech companies. Cleantech Investor NEXUS events are free for accredited investors to attend or to view online.

The event is open to cleantech companies of all stages for either short pitches for early stage companies or longer presentations for those more established.  Most presentations take place at the live event but a limited number of slots are made available for companies to present from other locations, using a live streaming video link.  Each pitch is also made available live followed by on demand viewing on the Cleantech and Nexus websites. 

If you’re a start-up or an investor, there’s more information here.  Of course the event covers a range of green technology, not just green ICT.

Low Carbon Start Up Fest – Bath, May 14th.

A note to UK readers that there’s an opportunity for cleantech start-ups to present to investors at the Low Carbon Start Up Fest in Bath on Friday 14th May.

Companies already signed up to present include Xsilon, which offers what it calls Home Area Network technology.  The company’s idea is that once smart meters are installed and generate consumer awareness of energy use, users will want more information about which appliances are using the power and how it could be reduced.  People will want energy measurement sensors and controllers for individual appliances around the home and coupling these to a smart meter or controller requires the use of a Home Area Network, hence Xsilon’s technology.

Simon Bond, director of the event, said: “The Low Carbon Start-Up Fest is an exciting opportunity to showcase ventures from this sector each looking to raise between £250k and £5m in the next 12 months.”

It doesn’t cost to present and there’s some free publicity included, so if you’re interested you can apply by completing an Expression of Interest form available from www.lowcarbonsouthwest.co.uk.  The event is being run by the Low Carbon South West network, set up by the University of Bath with the aim of building a cleantech community and establishing links between companies and universities.

 

By the way, if your running any similar free investment events or seminars, conferences, exhibitions etc. that have a green ICT element (please not otherwise) then get in touch and I might be able to help get the word out.

Greenpeace has updated its Cool IT Leader Board – Cisco and Ericsson are out in front

Greenpeace has published the latest version of its Cool IT Leader Board, which I’ve reported on in the past (see the comments last October).  What I like about this assessment is the coverage; to use Greenpeace’s own words “The Cool IT leaderboard evaluates company performance on their efforts to offer economy-wide technological climate solutions that contribute to global greenhouse gas reductions, initiatives to reduce emissions from their own footprint, and their active engagement in political advocacy and support for science based climate and energy policies”.  This is a much broader assessment than Greenpeace’s more product focused ‘Greener Electronics’ rankings.  In particular, the emphasis on political advocacy is something I’ve been banging on about for some time.

The last time that Greenpeace published the leader board the rankings were presented alongside the names of the CEO’s of the respective companies, which I think was a good thing, since these initiatives really have to come from the top to be effective.  This time round, though, we just get a score. Companies are scored out of 100 - 50% on the extent to which they’re providing climate solutions, 35% on their engagement in political advocacy for climate change policy and 15% on the extent to which they are reducing their own carbon footprints.

Cisco vaults to the top of the (alphabetically-ordered) Leader Board, overtaking IBM, HP, Fujitsu and Google.  According to Greenpeace, the company doubled its score by demonstrating the effectiveness of its greenhouse emissions-saving solutions, including smart grid technology and office energy management.

Ericsson enters the rankings in second place, ‘on the strength of its real world case studies, which measure how its solutions are driving down emissions’.

Overall the scores seem to have improved – the top 10 averaged a score of 29.8 last time and 37.5 this time, but apart from Cisco and Ericsson, scores were little changed – IBM, HP and Intel down one point, Google up one, Fujitsu up three.  In fact Microsoft was the third best performer, up from a score of 23 last time to 31 this.

Greenpeace did highlight some example of what it saw as IT solutions leadership including:

-Cisco’s aggressive move to drive smart grid technology

-Google’s PowerMeter smart meter tool

-The fact that both Ericsson and Fujitsu have developed a strong methodology for measuring net impact of their solutions.

Greenpeace praised Google for its top score for political advocacy and it has certainly been clear to me that the company has been active on a number of fronts.  But Greenpeace also rightly criticises Google for a lack of emission reduction targets or any disclosure of its own emissions (it’s CDP response is dismal).  Transparency is critical and Google’s non-disclosure seriously undermines the company’s effectiveness as an advocate for more action on climate change and its overall green ICT approach.