Trilliant forms UK smart meter interoperability group

Smart grid solutions company Trilliant has launched what it calls the Industry Interoperability Group, which aims to bring together providers of home energy management devices.

The UK Government is planning for 52 million smart meters to be installed in 30 million homes and businesses in the UK between 2014 and 2019. But one barrier is the technical complexity of the multiple energy management devices on the market that will need to communicate with meters if the full benefits are to be achieved. By bringing together the manufacturers, Trilliant hopes to make it easier for companies to roll-out stand-alone equipment and provide a simpler offering for utilities.

The Interoperability Group is based on using the Trilliant Communications Hub. The company claims to be the first to come to market with a certified network product, so wants to share the standards-based technology with other companies. The Group members will between them bring to market a range of products, technologies and approaches to give consumers better information about their energy consumption. 

Trilliant says that the advantages of the collaboration will be lower development costs, better consumer choice and less complex deployments. It should also mean that utilities will be able to start delivering smart meters more quickly. In turn, households can start to benefit from the estimated annual savings of £938m a year (according to research from the European Smart Metering Industry Group) from measuring and managing their electricity use.

Eight industry players and in-home display providers have come together to form the Group, including energy and water resource management manufacturer, Itron, as well as Onzo a provider of data and analytics for utilities, plus Chameleon, a manufacturer of smart meter in-home displays. There are other companies involved but Trilliant is not naming the meter vendors. The expectation is that 25-30 companies will be in the group within six to nine months, although once development is underway the need for the group will diminish.

 

There is certainly some momentum behind smart meter activity in the UK at the moment as decision time approaches for the government to appoint the Data and Communications Company (DCC) and the start of the meter rollout draws ever nearer.

Trilliant has a point with this move. Interoperability will make it simpler and more flexible all round for utilities to make decisions about smart meters and other energy management devices. The company is in the fortunate position of being there first with its network solutions so has most to gain from interoperability. But there will be lots of players involved in the smart meter infrastructure and the devices that hang off of it (100 million devices are expected to be installed in the first five years of smart meter implementation), so the company is unlikely to have it all its own way.

Smart grid company invests in data centre power management firm …

US data centre energy management software company Power Assure announced last Tuesday that Dominion Energy Technologies has invested $1m in the company. Dominion Energy is an affiliate of Dominion Resources, one of the largest producers and transporters of energy in the US.

The investment adds to Power Assure’s existing haul of $28.75m plus a $5m matching-fund grant from the US Department of Energy. It was only in September that the company raised $13.5m from a funding round, with ABB the lead investor. Dominion’s investment will contribute to growing Power Assure’s sales and marketing, but it will also be used to increase engineering investments in the area of smart-grid integration for data centres.

 

It’s the use of the money that’s interesting here. Dominion is involved in smart grid solutions to increase grid efficiency and the investment seems to be at least partly based on the prospect of integrating data centres more closely with smart grids. Given the amount of power that large data centres use, there’s a lot of sense in being able to more dynamically manage their power availability and Power Assure’s energy management software could be an important part of that process.

One of the main reasons for needing smart grids is that renewable energy is increasingly part of the power mix. The grid needs to be able to accommodate a variety of variable inputs from these sources as well as better matching demand with supply, for example through the use of demand response tariffs, i.e. cheaper power at off-peak times when renewable energy is plentiful.

Given the power consumed by data centres, they may well be significant players in this smart grid future. For example, data centres could schedule their work to take advantage of favourable off-peak tariffs. Companies with multiple data centres could dynamically switch the computing load between locations to take advantage of tariffs elsewhere. Applications can already be easily and seamlessly switched between locations.

It’s not something data centre managers are going to do in a hurry, their priority is the reliability of the service they supply so they’re not inclined to step away from the safe path. Nevertheless, data centres are expensive things to run, so if money can be saved without impacting business it’s not something that will be ignored forever. Power Assure seems to be positioning itself for this future move.

GHG Protocol releases draft ICT footprint standards for comment

New guidance is being developed on how ICT companies and customers should calculate the carbon footprint of ICT products and services. A key part of this process is to get public comments on the draft guidance and two chapters on desktop managed services (DMS) and telecommunications network Services (TNS) are now available for comment.

Back in March I reported on this collaboration between The Carbon Trust (the UK government’s low-carbon agency), the World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) – the two organisations behind the Greenhouse Protocol Initiative - and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), responsible for the Smart 2020 report. NGOs, government experts and academics and ICT companies are also involved.

The aim is to develop sector guidance for the greenhouse gas assessment of ICT products (including goods and services) to support the GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard. The guidance is intended to be used as a practitioners guide to measuring emissions. The overall structure of the ICT guidance is shown below.

The draft standard for desktop managed services was published on 28 October and for telecommunications networks on 9 November.

Given the heavyweight organisations behind them, these are going to be the de facto standards for ICT footprinting, so there’s a lot at stake.

The documents are comprehensive and detailed (30 pages for DMS, 54 pages for TNS). The standards need to be clear and thorough, but after a quick look through it strikes me that they will not be easy to implement. In the case of DMS, it’s going to be primarily down to suppliers and will depend on the type of service required and the nature of the customer, as well as relying on information from other product and service providers. There’s going to be a law of diminishing returns in terms of the level of detail used for a particular assessment. But then again, these documents are guidelines for the definitive analysis, it’s down to companies themselves to decide how detailed their assessment needs to be.

There’s more information here. If you want to make any comment I’m afraid you will need to be quick – consultation apparently closes on Friday December 5th (the 5th isn’t a Friday, but I guess this is the last week for comment). More chapters of the draft guidance are due to be released for public comment in December and there will also be a webinar for discussion.

CSR claims – are they just talk?

UK companies making claims about social and environmental achievements may be using incorrect and irrelevant data. The finding comes from researchers at the University of Leeds and Euromed Management School (France) who analysed more than 4,000 CSR reports, rankings and surveys published by companies worldwide over the past 10 years. They found unsubstantiated claims, gaps in data and inaccurate figures.

For example, researchers found a range of surprising facts in UK telecoms company BT's 2007 sustainability report, including:

• 99.8% of the company’s international waste is produced by just a handful of office workers in Belgium.

• Its Irish and Dutch employees did not travel at all during the entire year.

• Employees throughout its Southeast Asian and Australian operations only travelled by plane and consumed no water at all.

Other odd company claims uncovered by the research included:

• In its 2009 report Italian energy company ENEL said that its carbon emissions amounted to 122,089 million tons - the equivalent of four times the emissions of planet earth.

• Multinational ABB overstated its Sulphur- and Nitrous-Oxide emissions by a factor of 1,000 over several years.

• Volkswagen and E.ON made a power plant and an annual amount of 2.5 million tons of CO₂ disappear.

• Ford reported more mineral waste generation in North America than worldwide (including North America).

 

While the findings highlight the fact that CSR reports should be treated with caution, in the case of the UK they may give a false impression. A survey released last week by consultancy KPMG claimed UK firms lead the world in corporate sustainability reporting. The KPMG survey assessed CSR reporting by the 100 largest companies in 34 countries and found that out of the UK's 100 largest firms, all published a CSR report in 2010/11. The 100% reporting rate for the UK compared to a 64% average reporting rate across all the 34 countries, making the UK the "lead country" for reporting.

So there is above average CSR reporting in the UK, but is it accurate? Well, the Leeds research looked at reports published over the last 10 years and with the best will in the world it can be no surprise that some companies got the data wrong in the early days of reporting. Although that’s not always an excuse. Dr Ralf Barkemeyer, a lecturer in CSR at Leeds University said: "Some examples show that the quality of environmental data in sustainability reports remains appalling at times, even today. In financial reporting leaving out an undisclosed part of the company in the calculation of profits would be a scandal. In sustainability reporting it is common practice. How can stakeholders assess or compare performance without exactly knowing what the data actually covers?"

What has changed in recent years is the increasing use of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards for sustainability reporting. In the KPMG survey, 80% of companies that took part used the GRI, which is intended to bring consistency and transparency to CSR reporting.

There is now a range of GRI-certified software and tools available to help generate reports. Hopefully an area where Green ICT can improve the way sustainability data is reported.

AT&T video on mobile phone recycling and environmental sustainability

I try not to do adverts, but this video from AT&T gives some idea of the way phone manufacturers are thinking when it comes to mobile phone recycling and sustainability. It’s not just about how you dispose of the device, it starts with design and includes packaging, reuse, recycling and getting consumers involved.

 

 

Of course AT&T is not the only company making these efforts – ask your mobile/cell phone provider the question next time you get a new phone.

(If the video doesn’t run, try the YouTube version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pwvKXhOCxA)

Solvay spins out HSE outsourcing company eSpheres

International Chemicals group Solvay has announced that it has spun-out a company in health, safety and environment (HSE) information management called eSpheres. The new company will offer outsourcing services and a suite of HSE information management solutions and consulting services based on SAP software.

eSpheres’ aim is to deliver HSE services more efficiently, based on better information, and more consistently compliant with regulation and legislation. The new company will support key HSE areas, including product regulatory compliance, product safety, environmental performance, industrial hygiene, employee incident and accident activities, as well as sustainability performance.

Brussels-based Solvay will provide support and in-house expertise to eSpheres. The new spin-out company’s services will be delivered on demand (Software-as-a-Service) so available from any location and with minimal upfront investments.

According to Stefan Vanhelleputte, CIO at Solvay, “The combination of full HSE and sustainability domain coverage, on-demand delivery via the cloud, including integration with a customer’s own data and preconfigured SAP software is unique in this field. We are convinced we can offer our customers strong value by integrating HSE management and information solutions with SAP software”.

 

Much of the Green IT solutions market growth comes from either new sector start-ups, such as the range of new carbon management software suppliers, or from existing companies in related fields, for instance health and safety systems companies increasingly expanding into broader environmental and sustainability areas. (That’s partly because health and safety has often been the internal department first given the responsibility for carbon management and other corporate sustainability issues).

What we haven’t seen much of (yet) is new spin-out operations from experienced corporate organisations, such as this, but there will undoubtedly be more. Large commercial operations that have acquired specific skills in niche sustainability and related markets may well see the growth opportunity in spinning out these skills, particularly in an otherwise slow market.

UK data centre market – large, mature and looking to save energy

According to the DatacenterDynamics Industry Census 2011, the UK is now one of the largest data centre markets in the world, with up to 7.6 million square metres of data centre space.

The full census brought together data from 5,400 interviews carried out with data centre operators in more than 70 countries, allowing analysis of 22 key markets, including the UK & Ireland. The interviews were conducted during June and July 2011.

Based on the UK responses, DatacenterDynamics estimated that the UK has:

• 7.6 million square meters/81.6 million square feet of dedicated data centre space.

• Maximum power consumption of 6.44 GW - about enough to power six million homes and 2.4-3.1% of total energy consumption in the UK.

• A ‘population’ of just under two million racks.

• A total amount of white space (empty space that can accommodate future racks or cabinets) equivalent to the area of 900 full sized football pitches.

However, given the size of the industry, growth figures, whether for facility or investment expenditure, are relatively low.

According to the census, like the US and other ‘Tier 1’ European markets, the UK data centre industry relies on a workforce that is reasonably well paid in absolute terms, low on academic qualification but experienced. But the Census found that the UK exhibits some of its own market idiosyncrasies:

• A low level of outsourcing.

• High levels of monitoring, due to the relative sophistication of operations and the time the UK industry has had to prepare for carbon taxes (such as the CRC Energy Efficiency scheme).

• Concern about energy costs (although the census says costs are not high by European standards) but relatively lower concerns about energy availability. (This last point is one that I would think is likely to change, given the uncertainty of energy supply in the UK in coming years as aging power stations are decommissioned).

 

The census brings the UK data centre industry and its power consumption and emissions into focus. It gives the impression of a large, mature industry with plenty of experience. Growth is slowing, so some focus is turning to better monitoring and managing of energy use, which must be a good thing for Green IT.

Even if growth is slowing, it will still be significant, given the move to cloud computing. But the increasing use of modular data centres is also a factor in reducing energy and emissions. These solutions are increasingly available from a range of suppliers – see HP’s recent announcement.

The Green Grid has recently come out with a White Paper on modular data centres which summed up with the comment that: ‘This new containerised/modular approach to the construction and deployment of a data centre can be expected to be rapidly deployed, have lower operating and capital costs, and be equipped with higher density and energy-savings targets’. It’s not clear whether these modular designs were part of DatacentreDynamics’ analysis, but they offer a lot of flexibility as well as being very energy efficient, so are likely to be an increasing aspect of the market in the future.

ITU adopts the GSMA Energy Efficiency Methodology

The GSMA’s Mobile Energy Efficiency (MEE) benchmarking methodology has been incorporated in a global standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The MEE, which benchmarks the energy efficiency of mobile networks, is included in the ITU’s ‘Methodology for Environmental Impact Assessment of ICT Goods, Networks and Services’.

The MEE Benchmarking methodology is a way to analyse the performance of a network by comparing it with other (anonymous) network providers. The analysis is ‘normalised’ to allow for like-for-like comparison of networks and provides indications as to how to improve energy efficiency. It also allows users to track progress and report back to stakeholders. According to the GSMA, there are possible savings of 20-25% in energy costs and carbon emissions for underperforming networks.

The GSMA, which represents mobile operators worldwide and comprises nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, developed the benchmarking methodology to help the industry lower its greenhouse gas emissions. It’s part of the commitments set out in Mobile's Green Manifesto published by the GSMA and the Climate Group in 2009 (see The Green IT Review coverage here). The methodology has now been adopted by 35 mobile network operators who run more than 200 networks across 145 countries.

The GSMA has also launched an MEE Optimisation service to leverage the benchmarking approach. It involves a detailed analysis to identify and assess the inefficiencies of a network and provide operators with a cost-benefit analysis and action plan to improve energy efficiency.

 

The GSMA should be congratulated on developing the benchmark and getting it adopted by the ITU (the UN agency for communication and information technologies). It demonstrates some significant collaboration across the mobile industry and between the organisation and the EU. There’s a lot at stake here - mobile use is continually growing as more and more content is pushed over the networks, so its important that operators look to their networks first to see what savings they can make.

Energy efficiency is an increasing priority for mobile network operators globally and there are also some more fundamental technology approaches to reducing energy use. The prime example is Green Touch, aimed at achieving a 1000-fold reduction in communications power use by 2015.

Computer e-waste regulations introduced across Australia

As heralded back in June, the Product Stewardship (Televisions and Computers) Regulations has become the first scheme to be regulated under the Australian Product Stewardship legislation introduced earlier this year.

Under the Act, households and small businesses will be able to drop off their unwanted televisions or computers at designated service points free of charge. Service points will be rolled out across the country over the next two years, with the first available early in 2012.

Initial targets for the program include a 30% recycling rate by 2012. "This is a real increase over current recycling rates and will allow for the development of improved arrangements, collection points, transport and infrastructure providers over time. The target will increase every year,” said Suzanne Campbell, CEO of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).

 

The scheme is based on the Byteback programme that’s been running in Victoria for several years and which showed the viability of an industry-led scheme delivered in partnership with government and the community.

According to the AIIA, the ICT companies associated with this e-waste management trial included Apple, Brother, Cannon, Dell, Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, HP, IBM, Lenovo and Lexmark. Well done to those companies for their support in getting this green ICT initiative, and legislation, up and running across Australia.

Study identifies the UK cities that will get most benefit from smart meters

According to a study from geographic information systems (GIS) company Esri UK and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), Nottingham is the UK’s number one ‘Smart Meter City’. The study identified two key zones of the UK as smart meter hotspots - the Midlands Hub and the Trans-Pennine Corridor - due to their concentration of potential Smart Meter Cities.

The assessment is based on the potential for smart meters to benefit consumers by reducing electricity consumption and household bills. The study is aimed at raising awareness of smart meters and highlighting the benefits in reducing electricity bills. It also shows where utility companies should invest time and resources in the smart meter roll-out. The result is the Smart Meter Energy Consumer Choice Indicator (SMECC), ranking the top 20 UK cities likely to benefit most from smart meters.

The study identified the primary zone for investment as the Midlands Hub, with Nottingham ranked in first place, Wolverhampton in second, Birmingham (4), Leicester (6), Coventry (9) and Stoke-on-Trent (11). The second zone was the Trans-Pennine Corridor with Liverpool (5), Manchester (7), Hull (8) and includes Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield. An interactive GIS-based map of the UK hotspots is available here.

 

Other findings from the study include:

• UK cities where there is a high proportion of lower income inhabitants stand to reap the most benefits as Smart Meter Cities.

• London ranks only 20th in the UK because it will not benefit from smart meters as much as other cities - energy consumption and bills appear to be more manageable.

• Glasgow and Edinburgh are the only cities that have higher energy intensity (consumption per person) than the UK average. Households in these cities may need to change their electricity consumption behaviour to reduce bills.

• There is no North-South divide in smart meter potential and that utility companies and the Government should adopt a city-by-city approach, rather than by region, in the smart meter roll-out.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the company also says that Geographical information systems are critical in minimising roll-out costs of smart meters and reducing household electricity bills.

 

An interesting study, although I’m not sure what its value is. The smart meter roll-out in the UK is due to start in early 2014 and to be completed in 2019. The process has been under discussion for some time and is now in a testing phase - I’m not sure whether there is enough flexibility to prioritise installation or otherwise favour areas that would get the most benefit.

AIIA releases ‘Greening Your Business Through Technology – Version2’

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has updated its GreenIT eBook. The GreenIT eBook Version 1 -  Greening Your Business Through Technology, published in 2009, has been superseded by Version 2, which focuses more on addressing the needs of Small to Medium sized businesses.

The GreenIT eBook points out why Green IT is important from an industry capability perspective and provides an overview of a generic GreenIT roadmap. It also uses 16 different case studies to highlight how organisations have benefited from implementing Green IT initiatives. The case studies have been revised to present them in a way that is more aligned with the AIIA GreenIT whitepaper, published last year, which puts more focus on ICT as a low carbon enabler, and highlights economic, environmental and social benefits.

You can download the new GreenIT eBook here.

Infor moves into energy management with ENXSuite purchase

Business applications software company Infor has acquired ENXSuite (previously known as Carbonetworks), a cloud-based energy performance management platform. ENXSuite provides feedback on energy use that helps companies plan, analyse and manage their energy and sustainability footprint.

The ENXSuite product line will augments Infor10 EAM, the company’s existing demand reduction and conservation solutions, by enabling users to transform their energy, carbon, water and waste assets into manageable financial assets. Infor10 EAM Enterprise Sustainability solution monitors asset health and behaviour, detects trends and anomalies, forecasts performance issues and measures and manages performance against targets.

 

Actually the acquisition was almost a month ago, but it’s worth a mention.

Infor claims to be the third largest provider of enterprise applications and services, helping 70,000 customers in 164 countries. I talked to the company about its green IT activities a couple of years ago and was quite impressed by their product development – they had been working on sustainability aspects since the start of 2008. It seemed to me then the Infor had the advantage of being privately held, with its own financial backing, which allowed it to invest early in the sustainable aspects of its product range in anticipation of market demand. At the time Infor was well ahead of most of its enterprise market competitors in developing new green IT solutions. (Competitors I spoke to at the time were still playing a wait-and-see game).

The main focus of Infor’s approach back then was to add capabilities to current solutions to help customers minimise the environmental impact of existing operations. But this is a company that was built on acquisition (Systems Union, SSA Global, Baan, Datastream, Mapics and Infinium Software among them) so it’s no surprise that the company bought the additional capabilities it needed in energy and carbon management.

One other thing I noted back in 2009 was that infor’s green efforts were very much confined to its product offerings – the company had made little effort to address emissions internally and nor was it involved in any green lobbying groups or industry organisations. If the web site is anything to go by, that still seems to be the case.

Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics – HP is the new leader.

I’ve reported on Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics in the past (just search The Green IT Review for details), but it’s been more than a year since the last analysis - previously the NGO published rankings quarterly. Now, though, the analysis has been revamped and a new ranking published.

A total of 15 electronics companies, mostly in the ICT industry, have been assessed on energy, greener products and sustainable operations. HP has come out on top with a score of 5.9 out of a possible 10 points, followed by Dell, Nokia and Apple. Full details of each company’s performance are available here.

The scoring criteria have changed somewhat for this delayed ranking, but briefly there are three areas of assessment:

• Criteria on energy and climate, which requires disclosure of GHG emissions, commitment to reduce the company’s own Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, a Clean Energy Plan to implement these cuts in GHGs, and advocacy for a clean energy policy at national and sub-national level. (The Guide is now part of Greenpeace’s wider Cool IT campaign to persuade IT industry leaders to become climate action leaders).

• Criteria on greener products, which covers aspects of performance such as energy efficiency, use of hazardous substances, use of recycled plastics, and product durability, re-usability and ease of repair.

• Criteria on sustainable operations, including things like reducing embedded energy in products, better chemicals management, a paper sourcing policy, supply chain disclosures and take-back programmes.

 

HP, which was joint third in the last ranking, now leads due to a high score for measuring and reducing carbon emissions from its supply chain, reducing its own emissions and advocating for climate legislation.

Dell, previously in tenth place, takes second position with a score of 5.1. The PC maker scores well for having the most ambitious climate target, with a plan to reduce its emissions by 40% by 2020, and a strong policy on sustainable paper sourcing.

Nokia (4.9) has slipped from first place to third, after holding the top position for as many years. The Finnish phone maker could regain its position by demonstrating how it will reduce future emissions through energy efficiency and renewable energy use.

RIM enters the table for the first time, but in last place with a score of just 1.6. However, the Canadian company does score well on the important conflict minerals issue and sustainable paper policy.

Microsoft and Nintendo are no longer included in the rankings because of their limited product portfolio, which must be a relief for Nintendo, given that it was in last place in the rankings every time it appeared. Motorola and Fujitsu have also been removed because of reductions in their global market share. Microsoft will now only be assessed in the Cool IT Leader board due out in 2012. The next Guide to Greener Electronics ranking is due in the second half of 2012.

 

I’ve not always been completely supportive of Greenpeace’s views of how well the ICT industry has been doing and the Guide’s analysis, but that’s been more of a failing on my part rather than the NGO’s.

The organisation has continually pushed for ICT companies to do better (reflected in the fact that the average score for the rankings this time round is just 4.0, down from 4.5 last time). But it’s clear that the industry has to keep up its efforts to become more sustainable and having Greenpeace biting at its heels certainly helps.

I’m also pleased that Greenpeace is making much of the role of ICT companies in pushing for clean energy policies. It’s always been my view that the industry should stand up and be counted in the energy debate – they certainly have nothing to lose, given ICT’s role as a low-carbon enabler.

Mouchel launches a Carbon Management Centre

Infrastructure and business services group Mouchel has partnered with Bournemouth Borough Council to launch a Carbon Management Centre of Excellence (CMCoE) at Bournemouth University's Executive Business Centre.

Mouchel is working with the Council to tackle climate change while also generating local jobs. To help do this the centre includes a virtual team that is helping to source, fund and introduce cost-effective technology into the UK to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Part of the CMCoE will be a new service called CRedIT (Carbon Reduction Innovation Team) which works with organisations to reduce their carbon footprint and energy costs by providing access to carbon emissions reduction technology. Mouchel will independently verify technology suppliers' operational and performance data.

 

Actually the Centre was opened in October, only a month after Mouchel announced that it was partnering with Greenstone Carbon Management to provide Greenstone’s green IT solutions and services to Mouchel’s UK clients. I guess the company had the Carbon Management Centre in mind at the time.

But Mouchel is not a happy organisation at the moment. It’s financial results, due in October, have been delayed till the end of November amid problems paying off debts, lower than expected profits and recently replaced CEO and Chairman. The Carbon Management centre may well end up as part of a different organisation.

BT finds potential power savings in broadband delivery

Trials at BT’s Martlesham R&D centre in the UK have established the possibility of significant power savings on the equipment used to deliver 21st century networks (21CN) broadband services.

BT engineers have apparently configured the latest generation of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) line cards to operate in a way that means the broadband service is always available, rather than always fully on. For the moment the project is still in development stage, but after the laboratory test and customer trials the development team believes it can develop the technique further.

This ‘cool broadband’ concept could reduce each line’s energy consumption by around 30%. For a UK wide 21CN access network it could save several million pounds a year in electricity costs and make a considerable reduction in greenhouse gases emissions. BT’s network infrastructure currently accounts for more than 60% of its carbon footprint and the access network represents a large part of that.

 

There are still some technical challenges to be overcome before the technology can be applied across the network, but it’s this sort of green ICT breakthrough that we’re going to need if we’re going to keep chipping away at the energy used by technology itself.

The Open Data Centre Alliance and the Green Grid form a strategic alliance

It was only last week that I commented on the progress report from the Open Data Centre Alliance (ODCA) after its first year in operation. The organisation, which aims to ensure the highest level of interoperability and standards for  IT systems and services in the data centre, seems to be making great strides. But I expressed my concerns about its lack of urgency around carbon footprinting, which doesn’t seem to be an ODCA priority.

Well I’m sure it wasn’t my doing, but on Monday the organisation announced that it had formed a strategic alliance with The Green Grid, which has the aim of promoting efficiency in data centres. The two organisations will use The Green Grid’s efficiency metrics, including Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE), to align with ODCA’s cloud usage model. The initial focus will be to define a standard unit for measuring the carbon footprint for both existing and new ODCA usage models and The Green Grid metrics. The aim is to accelerate the development of standards related to energy efficiency in the data centre. Initial delivery of joint work is expected in the first half of 2012.

 

Well at least the ODCA is getting involved. There is already a lot of work being done on data centre energy efficiency metrics, in particular:

• Last year a broad industry group including ASHRAE, The Green Grid, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, US Department of Energy’s Save Energy Now Program, US Energy Star Program, US Green Building Council and the Uptime Institute (among others) started work on common data centre energy efficiency metrics. In May this year it published Recommendations for Measuring and Reporting Overall Data Centre Efficiency.

• Internationally, a number of global organizations – primarily from the US, Europe and Japan - have been working on a standard approach to energy efficiency metrics. In February 2011 the group published a progress report entitled Harmonizing Global Metrics for Data Centre Energy Efficiency. Work is ongoing and the group is looking at measuring work output compared with energy used.

In both cases it has been agreed that the Green Grid’s PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) measure should be the basis of any data centre metric, so the ODCA seems to be talking to the right organisation. In any case, this collaboration is taking it one stage further, looking at actual footprinting, not just measuring relative efficiency. It will be interesting to see what it comes up with.

Smart grids are driving mobile M2M communications growth

A report from Pike Research predicts that the use of mobile networks by utilities for smart grid communications will push the shipment of M2M (machine-to-machine) communications nodes to 73 million worldwide from 2011 to 2020.

The Report ‘Public Carrier Networks for Smart Grids’ maintains that much of the growth is due to utilities rolling out smart grid infrastructure, including smart meters, distribution automation and substation automation, that are increasingly using the mobile networks to handle the associated M2M communications infrastructure.  

The cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts that global unit shipments will peak at 10.7 million annually in 2015, coinciding with the peak in the build-out of neighbourhood area networks for smart meter connectivity. After that, unit volumes will gradually decline to 8.2 million nodes annually by 2020.  Revenue from the sale of cellular communication nodes to utilities will reach $1.9bn during the forecast period.

For those who are familiar with mobile technologies, Pike says that in the coming decade 3G network technologies including UMTS/HSPA and EV-DO will constitute approximately 54% of the total market for cellular M2M node shipments in the smart grid sector. By comparison, 2G technologies such as GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 1xRTT will capture 25% of the market, despite their age and technological limitations. Emerging 4G networks will represent the fastest growing segment; LTE networks will achieve a 19% share of the total utility market between 2011 and 2020, with WiMAX networks capturing 2%.

 

Well predicting global smart grid growth over the next nine years is a challenge, given the funding issues, competing technologies, political will and (in some places) consumer resistance. Add to that the uncertainty of what communications technologies will be used and predicting market shares over a nine year period looks like a tall order. But I guess you have to start somewhere.

In the UK, for instance, it’s not too difficult to come up with an estimate of the number of devices, but it’s still an open question as to what communications technology is going to be used. But the report also includes profiles of active carriers, utilities and vendors involved with using public cellular networks to enable smart grid communications, which may also be of interest.

Green electronics rating’s environmental benefits report published

Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), the green electronics rating system, has published its 2010 Environmental Benefits Report. It’s the fifth such report and shows that the number of EPEAT registered products (mostly desktops, notebooks and displays) has more than doubled since 2009, which the organisation sees as supporting a trend towards greener industry standards for electronics.

EPEAT is managed by the Green Electronics Council, itself a programme of the International Sustainability Development Foundation (ISDF) which ‘envisions a world where commerce, communities and nature thrive in harmony’. EPEAT’s manufacturer subscribers must annually report on their sales of all EPEAT registered products, which is the basis for the report. 

There are currently more than 3,200 EPEAT registered products from over 45 manufacturers registered in 41 countries. According to EPEAT, between July 2006 and January 2010 more than 300 million EPEAT registered products were sold worldwide, all of which went through a registration process that required reduced energy consumption and more efficient design and recycling standards to reduce the overall impact on the environment.

Highlights from EPEAT’s 2010 Environmental Benefits Report include the fact that over their lifetime EPEAT registered electronic products purchased worldwide in 2010 will:

• Reduce use of toxic materials, including mercury, by 1,156 metric tons.

• Reduce use of primary materials by 15.7 million metric tons.

• Avoid the disposal of 59,525 metric tons of hazardous waste.

• Eliminate the equivalent of more than 16,052 US households’ annual solid waste—31,991 metric tons.

Since EPEAT’s requirement includes the latest Energy Star efficiency specifications, these products will also consume less energy, resulting in:

• Savings of over nine billion kWh of electricity — enough to power 757,416 US homes for a year.

• Avoidance of 36 million metric tons of air emissions (including greenhouse gas emissions) and over 77 thousand metric tons of water pollutant emissions.

• Reduction of over 1.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions — equivalent to taking nearly 1.1 million US cars off the road for a year.

 

EPEAT (and Energy Star) have certainly made an impact and helped make desktops and laptops a lot less harmful to the environment than they would otherwise have been. The organisation has expanded its sphere of influence quite a lot over the last year or so through international collaboration. It just needs to keep pushing away at upping the standards, broadening the scope (imaging equipment and televisions are expected to be added next year) and building the geographic influence.

It’s also nice to see that the UK is in fourth place in terms of purchases of EPAET registered desktops, notebooks and displays, behind China, the US, Canada and Germany.

ITU has announced the Green ICT Application Challenge winner

Back in April I reported on the Green IT Application Challenge launched by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to find the best and most innovative idea for a climate change focused app. But I didn’t report on the winner – a “Smart Recycling” application designed by Designed by Lis Lugo Colls, from Spain.

The application aims to help mobile users locate recycling and garbage bins within their area and provide advice generally on recycling. It’s designed to benefit citizens, government recycling programmes and private recycling companies through community engagement and eco-design.

Four special mentions were also made by the jury for applications that touched on related issues such as raising awareness of the impact that lifestyles have on the environment, monitoring energy and water consumption in hotels, promoting car sharing and sharing traditional and indigenous knowledge on biodiversity and conservation. There’s more details here.

Overall 54 applications were received covering topics such as monitoring climate change, measurement of GHG emissions, adaptation and mitigation to climate change, and community engagement.

IBM rolls out solar arrays designed for data centres

IBM is rolling out the first solar-power array specifically designed to run high-voltage data centres. It integrates AC- and DC-based servers, water-cooled computing systems and related electronics.

The array is spread over more than 6,000 square-feet on the roof of IBM’s Software Lab in Bangalore. It can provide 50-kilowatts of  electricity for an average of five hours a day up to 330 days a year, providing almost 20% of the data centre energy requirements.

Using high-voltage DC power conditioning, the system also reduces AC-DC conversion losses. IBM says that it can cut energy consumption of data centres by about 10%. The system is effectively tailoring solar technology for wider use in industrial IT and electronics installations.

High-voltage, DC computer servers and cooling systems are beginning to replace traditional AC-powered equipment in the data centre, but IBM maintains that it’s Bangalore array is the first to integrate solar-power, water-cooling and power-conditioning into a package suitable for massive configurations of electronic equipment. For a data centre, the solution can provide a compute power of 25 to 30 teraflops using an IBM Power Systems server on a 50kW solar power supply. IBM plans to make the new solar-power technology available to clients.

 

It looks an interesting proposition with wide application. As well as reducing data centre power requirements it also raises the prospect of setting up a data centre that doesn't need the grid.

It’s a more IT market-focussed approach than Google, which announced earlier in the month that it was entering the residential solar market. Google has joined up with a company in San Francisco to fund solar power system installations and charge the home owner a monthly fee. The monthly cost will be no more than what was originally paid to the utility.

Open Data Center Alliance progress

The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) held a press conference today to give an update on progress after just one year in operation. The organisation says that membership has quadrupled and now represents over $100bn in collective IT spend and that the members expect their cloud deployment to triple in the next two years.

The ODCA’s objective is to define usage models that will help IT users choose open, interoperable, industry-standard solutions in their data centres, particularly as we move to cloud computing. The organisation has estimated that delivering industry standard solutions will help accelerate over $50bn in cloud investment in the next three years. At the same time, adoption of more efficient solutions will save $25bn globally - simplified cloud management is a critical aspect of achieving this increased efficiencies.

The organisation made three main announcements today:

• Collaborations on potential standards with the Cloud Security Alliance and DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force).

• The release of the ODCA’s first industry best practices paper, offering seven best practices for cloud application development and resiliency.

• The addition of Hewlett Packard (HP) and Computer Associates (CA) as members. It means the Alliance now includes representation from over 90% of the virtualisation software market and over two-thirds of the server hardware market.

 

For more background on the ODCA see my previous blog. I get the impression that its rapid progress over the last year has surprised even the organisation itself. It suggest a fight back from users who are concerned about the range of disparate, and often proprietary, systems in the data centre that are becoming increasingly hard to manage.

If you add a layer of energy and emissions monitoring and management on top of that (also using a variety of technologies and standards) then detailed and effective management of data centre power use is a complex process. It’s no wonder that many IT departments have limited themselves to the easy stuff, such as virtualisation. From there on it gets harder.

There lies my only concern about the OCDA. Carbon footprinting is one of the usage models it’s working on, but managing power is apparently not a priority of its members – which I find surprising. I wonder who the survey respondents were. I suspect that if you asked the CEO of these organisations then power use and carbon footprinting might have a higher priority. And you can bet your shirt that if it isn’t now it will be soon.

I would like to see the OCDA getting stuck into the data centre power management debate, helping to set standards, enable comparisons, produce best practice documents, etc. I know the organisation is reluctant to tread on the toes of other groups working on these issue, such as The Green Grid, but as a user organisation it should be much more closely involved to help champion and push through universally accepted standards. One of the organisation’s roles must surely be as a green IT educator, leveraging the experience of its most knowledgeable members. Leaving power management until it’s a priority for all members could prove costly, in more ways than one.

Verdiem unveils the latest version of its PC power management product

Verdiem has launched Surveyor 6, the latest version of its energy management software, extending the capabilities to monitor and manage energy consumption and utilisation to a wider range of network connected IT devices.

The company says it is helping Cisco develop components of its EnergyWise network energy management technology. The result is that Surveyor 6 can measure and manage energy consumed by a variety of network connected devices including IP phones and power distribution units (PDUs).

Verdiem has also integrated Information Builders’ business intelligence platform into the product so that customers can optimise their energy consumption and make better decisions about reducing IT operating costs. The analytics help assess actual device usage to find out which ones are underutilised and where they can be consolidated.

 

 

The company points out that within a typical organisation IT consumes 25% of the energy and half of that is consumed by PCs, Macs, monitors and network connected devices such as IP phones, routers, switches and PDUs. This is the market that Verdiem (and many others) are addressing. It should be an easy decision for IT departments to adopt power management, given the quick payback, but with a fragmented market Verdiem is one of a wide range of solutions.

It’s interesting to track the different approaches of companies in the market as they try and create product differentiation. Verdiem is going for the highly configured, detailed reporting energy management solution primarily aimed at desktops, only now straying into new network-connected areas. By comparison, its main rival, 1E, has chosen to approach the market from an efficiency standpoint, offering a range of products aimed at making PCs, and increasingly servers, work more efficiently, so saving energy and other IT costs.

By way of contrast, Joulex, a relatively new company making a lot of noise in the market, has chosen an agentless software approach, which means no software is installed on individual PCs. It makes it much quicker and easier to install, but doesn’t have the depth of capabilities of its rivals. But Joulex is taking the approach into the data centre, so offering the capability to a broader range of IT.

In the current market there’s room for all three approaches, but there’s a long way to go yet.