Climate Neutral Campus Volume 2

• Grid optimization applications

Supports the emerging complexities being added to the grid, including electric vehicle charging, variable pricing, and support for renewable energy resources.

In providing these applications, intelligent energy management solutions will address the peak demand problems facing the grid today while paving the way to the future. Going forward, intelligent energy management will also serve as the operating environment that empowers next generation applications coming onto the grid. These applications, while not necessarily prominent today, are on the roadmap and any energy management solution needs to be able to support the increased complexities they will bring.

Evaluation criteria

For a utility or C+I customer considering an intelligent energy management solution, several key criteria should be considered. To be truly intelligent and deliver the best results and returns on investment, intelligent energy management technologies should provide:

•   Support for open standards

A technology based on open standards offers greater flexibility and support for a wide range of applications. An open standards-based technology also makes it easier to add future service and product upgrades.

•   Ability to measure and verify results

Any insights into energy use and demands should be presented in clearly measurable ways. And that data should be easy to verify and validate in order to ensure the measurements being collected are the measurements you want and need.

•   Insights and analysis

While data are helpful, intelligent energy management technologies should also help you understand the implications of those data in an intuitive format of some kind.

•   Accessibility and portability

While a user-friendly meter is helpful for managing energy use, the ability to also enable data analysis and control through a variety of end-points — web-based portal, in-home display, smart or thermostat, etc. —is critical. The more easily you can manage your energy consumption, the greater control you’ll gain over usage and costs.

•  Control and automation

Finally, the technology you choose should provide a variety of ways to act on the insights and analysis you gain to both reduce your energy consumption and make that process as easy as possible. This should include, for example, automated options for taking advantage of lower off-peak electricity prices.

Within any given utility environment, there are multiple groups and functions responsible for implementing technologies that help meet energy efficiency mandates. Therefore, any intelligent energy management solution must also address the needs of multiple stakeholders within a utility, including demand side, customer care, grid operations and supply-side SOU.

An offering can be considered complete only when it offers solutions to these audiences but also takes into account the business process the key stakeholders in these utility business units must adhere to. For instance, the needs of systems operators, IT, marketing and AMI deployment teams are all different, but must be met with a single, integrated solution.

For example, a utility company’s marketing department will benefit from an intelligent energy management solution that enables it to identify the customers most likely to be interested in a new service, while the firm’s technicians will want an intelligent energy management offering that provides automated alerts for outages and other problems. The customer support team, meanwhile, will need a system that delivers detailed usage information for each account, along with automated trouble ticketing and real-time work order tracking.

Therefore, when evaluating an intelligent energy management solution, utility companies must also pay close attention to its ability to meet the requirements of the various utility stakeholders.

The same is true for C+I users, where multiple stakeholders have a vested interest in energy efficiency efforts. A steel mill operator looking to reduce energy costs, for instance, will want an intelligent energy management offering that can not only generate the desired savings, but can also deliver the validation and data that compliance officers need to provide to regulatory agencies, create detailed billing statements for accounting, and integrate services across multiple buildings for facilities managers.

A truly intelligent energy management system that delivers the best results and returns on investment should offer certain features:

•  Support for open standards

Technology based on open standards offers support for a wide range of applications as well as the flexibility to easily add future service and product upgrades.

•   Ability to measure and verify results

An energy management platform should present clearly measurable insights into energy use and demand. It should enable customers to easily verify and validate measurements to ensure they are receiving the data they need.

•   Insights and analysis

While data are helpful, intelligent energy management technologies should also intuitively format the data to help the customer understand the implications of the information.

•   Accessibility and portability

A system that incorporates a variety of data portals—web access, in-home display, smart meter, thermostat—better enables control of energy usage and cost management.

•  Control and automation

The data generated by the intelligent energy management technology should drive a variety of easy approaches to reducing energy consumption. For example, a system should offer customers automated options for taking advantage of lower off-peak electricity prices.

•  An integrated platform

For both utility and C+I customers, an intelligent energy management solution must address the needs of multiple stakeholders. Within the utility, it must support those employees concerned with demand, supply, grid operations, customer care, and business operations to ensure the utility works cohesively and efficiently for its customers. The same is true for C+I, where multiple stakeholders have a vested interested in energy efficiency efforts.

Looking ahead: The future market for intelligent energy management

In coming years, government legislation will open a global market for intelligent energy management. Lawmakers around the world continually adopt new regulations to improve energy efficiency, cut carbon dioxide emissions and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. In the U.S., the federal government has directed billions of dollars toward the development of clean and efficient energy.

According to politicians, rebuilding the economy and remaining globally competitive depends in part on investing in renewable energy sources and efficiency measures. The European Union has focused on smart meters as a way to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and meet climate change goals. The European continent strives to have 80 percent of all households equipped with smart electricity meters by 2020, while the United Kingdom has set its goal at 100 percent of households.

Developing economies such as China, India and Brazil will also depend on developments in intelligent energy management. Their burgeoning middle classes are straining their energy infrastructures as millions of new customers acquire refrigerators, air conditioners, televisions, home computers and other energy hungry appliances.

Large organizations such as Cisco, IBM, Siemens and GE all see huge growth potential in the market for intelligent energy management and smart-grid offerings. They are all pursuing partnerships and investing in new products and services with an eye toward establishing a solid foothold in that market.

IBM, for example, is pursuing a global “Smarter Planet” strategy that will require “green infrastructures that are instrumented, interconnected, and enabled by intelligent energy management.” It works with numerous business and government organizations to help implement such systems around the world, and is currently working on 150 smart grid-enabling projects in both developed and developing countries.

Cisco, meanwhile, expects the market for smart-grid communications infrastructure alone to reach $20 billion per year over the next five years. Company executives say they believe that smart-energy networks could eventually grow to be “100 or 1,000 times larger than the Internet.” GTM Research sees the smart-grid market for the U.S. alone growing to $9.6 billion a year by 2015. The largest segment of that market, it predicts, will be distribution automation, followed by advanced metering infrastructure, smart utility enterprise and home area networks.

“This new power scenario has placed the onus on utilities to integrate smart-grid technology to cope with load management and next-gen obstacles such as ‘green blackouts,’” according to GTM Research.

All combined, these developments will contribute to an ongoing and global demand for intelligent energy management technologies and services in the years to come.

Summary

With pressures on the electricity grid compounding, but a fully “smart” solution still many years off, intelligent energy management products, software, and services can help now with reducing energy use and improving energy-efficiency by offering several improvements:

• Two-way, real-time communication between utilities and customers for service alerts, consumption management and more.
• Greater control over home and C+I energy use through intelligent end-points that customers can manage remotely.
• Intelligent sensors that provide data on energy use so customers can easily identify areas in which to can reduce consumption and costs.
• More predictable energy loads through smart control of electronic appliances.
• Faster response to changing conditions, with cash incentives to encourage conservation measures.
• Automated energy management that works with existing building systems to manage demand and shed load.
• Quicker, easier service changes via two-way, wireless communication.
• More efficient distribution networks across the grid.
• Support for smart-grid applications such as time-of-use pricing, electric vehicle charging, and renewable energy sources.

Put into place properly, these intelligent energy management solutions can bridge the gap from today’s inefficient electricity system to tomorrow’s smart, automated, fast-responding grid, while also reducing the increased complexities of managing this type of advanced system.