An Internet-routing algorithm that tracks electricity price fluctuations could save data-hungry companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon millions of dollars each year in electricity costs. A study from researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and the networking company Akamai suggests that such Internet businesses could reduce their energy use by as much as 40 percent by rerouting data to locations where electricity prices are lowest on a particular day.
My friend Sanyakhu-Sheps Amaré , Executive Director of Phoenix Communities, Inc., and I are putting together NECST (pronounced “Next”): Northern Eastern Electricity Community Systems and Technology, i.e. an an internet think tank hub on electrical micro-grid clearinghouse publishing scientific and Community Economic Development social impact papers on Micro-Grids. Contact me at benoit@hardyvallee.net if you are interested in providing thought leadership in this area.
The first paper we are discussing to be developed is on the need for governments and municipalities to simultaneously include in their national and regional grid infrastructural upgrade equal focus Micro-grids development. Here is a powerpoint that present the approach. The idea is to have a micro-grid (a community smart-grid) as a tool for Community Economic Development. You can also read an interview with Sanyakhu here
“The smart-grid vision is nice; we all have our color PowerPoint slides, I think people kind of get the vision by now. Now it’s time to get stuff done.”
- Don Von Dollen, manager of intelligent-grid research at EPRI.
2009 will be the year of the Smart Grid . Recent activities suggest that we have reached the tipping point:
General Electric and Google teamed- up joined to push for better federal and state policy to enable the grid and organized a public event, “Plug In to the Smart Grid“.
An article in the Technology Review shows how smart-grid technology is a necessary condition for green tech and renewable energies.
The energy consulting market is forecast to increase at a CAGR of 8.3% through 2011, the growth of which will outpace that of the overall global consulting marketplace. The needs for consulting within the energy industry are both significant and varied. The most forcible trends currently impacting the industry include: business model alignment, determination of future energy mix, acceleration of major capital projects and “run for the resources.”
Working in a Management Consulting firm (SBR Global), I blog
about organizations, decision-making and energy. My background includes
cognitive science, economics and philosophy of science.
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