Energy Today Features Austin Energy's Smart Grid 2.0

ENERGY TODAY MAGAZINE
Interesting Times

July 2009

Features
Written by Matt Bolch

Congress authorized $500 million in spending for smart grid development in 2007, and President Barack Obama made energy one of the planks in his winning campaign strategy. Now that the federal stimulus package has added more than $4 billion in spending for such projects, utilities across the country have begun to explore this technology in earnest.

Austin Energy has been traveling the smart grid path for nearly seven years. The project started as a way to streamline the business and find a new operating model for the future, explained Andres Carvallo, CIO. The utility generates, transmits, and distributes energy, as well as selling to wholesale and retail customers.

During the initial visioning process, utility executives discussed distributed energy, renewable energy sources, distributed generation such as solar PV and micro wind devices, and energy efficiency as ways to control costs and enhance value to customers. Investment in smart grid technology is a logical extension, allowing customers to monitor and optimize energy use.

Austin’s smart grid project will cover 100% of its service territory by August, encompassing 440 square miles, 500,000 devices, 100 terabytes of data, 1 million consumers, and 43,000 businesses. Phase one of the project focuses squarely on the utility side of the grid. It is all about systems integration, communications, safety and reliability of electric operations, better and new services, and improved customer service. It goes from the central power plant through the transmission and distribution systems, all the way to the meter, and back.

Smart grid technology might allow the extension of current energy supplies as new nuclear plants come on line and utilities investigate alternative energy sources such as geothermal, solar, wind, biofuels, and others.

Dire prediction
The North American Electric Reliability Corp, which oversees electrical-grid operators, predicts power outages in the Northeast, West, and in Texas within two years after the economy gets back on track. That dire prediction, coupled with consumer demand for alternative energy sources and the promise of stimulus funds, has spurred renewed interest in upgrading the power grid.

“We have a quite good transmission system, designed for a model where electricity is generated locally, with some interchange of power when plants are down for maintenance or unforeseen circumstances,” said Branko Terzic, the top executive for regulatory and policy issues involving the energy industry for Deloitte. He is a former commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and currently heads up a United Nations committee on cleaner energy.

Transmission grids can be more efficient if electricity flows are closely monitored through the use of smart meters and software. The distribution side, however, is under pressure to not only distribute power to the system but to accept power inputs from consumers and businesses that generate their own electricity and have excess capacity.

“Electricity now flows both ways when a building has more power than it needs and pushes that to the grid,” Terzic said. “That requires investments in telemetry, measurement, hardware for balancing, and a smarter distribution grid.”

A more intelligent grid system will increase access to lower cost and/or lower carbon energy sources and allow the transmission grid to handle loads more efficiently or shift distribution when problems arise without new investment in lines. A huge benefit to consumers will be fewer line losses and access to demand-side management. Smart meters will allow homeowners and businesses to make choices that have dollar-and-cents impacts, delaying running appliances or machines during peak hours, for example.

Overarching the interest in smart grid technology is a hodgepodge of state public service commissions that control transmission lines and distribution to users. Demand-side management, distributed generation, and the ability for a nonutility power producer to connect to the distribution grid are a few issues still under the purview of state governing bodies.

“Much of the authority to implement new technologies is still exclusively in the hands of the states,” Terzic said.

Beyond the meter
Even before Austin Energy’s smart grid project wrapped up, utility officials unveiled plans for what it calls Smart Grid 2.0, developed in conjunction with the Pecan Street Project. The project is a partnership among Austin Energy, the city of Austin, The University of Texas, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Environmental Defense Fund, Dell, GE, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor, Sematech, GridPoint, and several others.

Smart Grid 2.0 focuses on the grid beyond the meter and into the premise (e.g. home, office, store, mall, building) with integration back to the utility grid. “Our Smart Grid 2.0 is about managing and leveraging distributed generation (solar, micro wind, etc), storage, plug-in hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, and smart appliances on the customer side of the meter,” Carvallo writes on his blog, CIO Master (www.ciomaster.com).

The power and transportation sectors are the number one and number two users of energy in the US, combining for nearly 70% of the total. The vision of the Pecan Street Project is to solve the energy problem in Austin by reinventing the power sector via moving into new energy models, including interconnecting with the transportation sector.

The first phase will be complete by the end of August 2009 and will focus on developing an action plan for Austin Energy and identifying key barriers that must be overcome for success.

“We want to transform Austin Energy into the urban power system of the future while making the city of Austin and its local partners a local clean energy laboratory and hub for the world’s emerging cleantech sector,” Carvallo said.

“In doing so, we seek to prove that it is possible to remake the way we produce, use, store, and trade energy in a way that is simultaneously consistent with our economical, environmental, social, and security objectives.”

http://www.energytodaymagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6972&Itemid=109

GE Smart Grid Technology Symposium 2009

I have been asked to speak on my vision and plans for Smart Grid 2.0 at the GE Smart Grid Technology Symposium 2009. We already designed and built our Smart Grid 1.0 in Austin, TX servicing 1 million consumers and 43,000 businesses. The questions is what is next? Our Smart Grid 2.0 vision is on Distributed Generation, Storage, Smart Appliances and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Electric Vehicles at the premise (home, Office, school, factory) and interconnected to the Utility grid.

The GE Smart Grid Technology Symposium deals with basic and in-depth Smart Grid concepts, plans, and lessons learned from deployments.

What's happening in the electricity sector is analogous to what already has happened in the telecommunications sector. It's becoming mobile, intelligent and all encompassing. In telecommunications, fixed telephone lines have given way to cell phones that allow us take pictures, watch TV, record video, correspond by e-mail, browse the web and of course, have mobile phone conversations from virtually anywhere. The electricity sector is evolving in much the same way. We're transitioning from a stationary, centralized, and fixed power distribution system to one that will be more mobile, more distributed and more diverse in where we get our power. In essence, it will become the future Smart Grid.

http://www.ge.com/smartgrid/

Top Ten Smart Grid Categories and Leaders

Thank you to Jeff St. John and Greentech Media for publishing the top ten smart grid categories and the leading players in each.

By Jeff St. John April 30, 2009

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/top-ten-smart-grid-3605/N10/

Top Ten Smart Grid

What companies are leading the charge toward a smart grid of the future? And, who are the utilities that are taking the lead in giving them a market? We’ve broken down the smart grid sector into a number of broad components areas – smart meter manufacturing, neighborhood-area meter networking and communication, in-home energy management, demand response, meter data management, other smart grid software and services, and the broader role of integrating these areas.

10. Utilities: Austin Energy

There are much larger utilities deploying aspects of smart grid developments – smart meter deployments, integrating renewable source of power, energy storage – but Austin, Texas-based municipal utility Austin Energy has something close to a complete smart grid up and running.

Austin's "Smart Grid 1.0" has deployed 410,000 smart meters, and expects to have all of its customers equipped with a smart meter by late summer, said Andres Carvallo, Austin Energy CIO. The utility has also installed 86,000 thermostats that it can control remotely to cycle off during peak load events, as well as about 2,500 distribution grid sensors across its service territory.

Now Austin Energy is preparing for the Pecan Street Project (www.pecanstreetproject.org), meant to incorporate renewable energy, energy storage, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles and energy monitors and smart appliances for customers' homes. The project includes a who's who of high tech companies, including Dell, GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPoint.

Of course, other much larger utilities are busy putting the pieces of the smart grid together. A well known example is Xcel Energy and its SmartGridCity pilot project – a $100 million project aimed at bringing smart meters, "smart" substations, and a host of support systems for distributed generation, plug-in vehicles and home energy use controls

And then there are other utilities pushing ahead with different pieces of the smart grid infrastructure in a big way.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has set a milestone for smart meter deployment, recently announcing that it had installed 2.3 million smart meters so far, more than any other utility in the nation.

And American Electric Power has been taking big steps in integrating energy storage into its grid, with plans to install 25 megawatts of storage by next year and 1 gigawatt by 2020, including large-scale and community-level storage (see Green Light post).

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/top-ten-smart-grid-3605/

Top Ten Smart Grid

What companies are leading the charge toward a smart grid of the future? And, who are the utilities that are taking the lead in giving them a market? We’ve broken down the smart grid sector into a number of broad components areas – smart meter manufacturing, neighborhood-area meter networking and communication, in-home energy management, demand response, meter data management, other smart grid software and services, and the broader role of integrating these areas.

1. Top Smart Meter Maker: Itron

When it comes to smart meters, Itron Inc. (NSDQ: ITRI) is top dog. The Spokane, Wash.-based smart meter manufacturer holds the top spot for market share in North America and worldwide, according to the company's most recent data. It got its early lead with so-called AMR (automatic meter reading) meters, which broadcast but do not receive data, and has leapt out to a lead with two-way communicating meters in the so-called AMI (advanced meter infrastructure) market as well.

Big AMI contracts include Southern California Edison (about $480 million and 5.3 million meters), CenterPoint Energy (about $350 million and 3 million meters), DTE Energy (about $350 million and 3.3 million meters) and San Diego Gas & Electric (about $260 million and 2.3 meters).

Itron is also noteworthy for having pioneered the radio mesh technology that has emerged as the preferred way for smart meters to "talk to" one another in neighborhood area networks – though Itron's "OpenWay" RF mesh system isn't part of every deployment (Silver Spring Networks has been the chosen vendor for that function for many projects).

That's not to say that competitors aren't eager to take the top spot. Swiss-based Landis+Gyr and Silicon Valley-based Echelon are particularly strong in Europe, and fellow smart meter makers Sensus, Elster and General Electric are all competitors worldwide.

2. Smart Meter Networking and Communications Provider: Silver Spring Networks

In the field of giving smart meters new ways to talk to one another, Silver Spring Networks has captured the interest of investors and utilities alike. The Redwood City, Calif.-based startup has inked deals with utilities including Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Florida Power & Light, American Electric Power and others.

All are adding Silver Spring's RF mesh, IP-enabled networking technology to smart meters made by other companies, with the goal of allowing meters to send data from one another to collection points that connect with utility "backhaul" networks – up to 5,000 meters per collection node, the company says.

Silver Spring expects to see about two million meters with its technology deployed by the end of 2009 (see Green Light post), and as of this spring had about $500 million in backlogged orders, a figure that could quadruple by the end of this year, CEO Scott Lang said recently. To bring its technology to market, Silver Spring has raised about $167 million since 2007, including $90 million since October (see Silver Spring Grabs $75M and Green Light posts here and here).

But while Silver Spring has led in terms of mind share, another smart meter networking company has outpaced it in terms of deployments so far. That's fellow Redwood City, Calif.-based startup Trilliant, which announced its millionth device deployed in January. Using an altered version of the 802.15.4 wireless standard to allow meters to mesh with each other and with concentrator points, and fueled with investments including a $40 million round from MissionPoint Partners and zouk ventures, Trilliant has landed deals with more than 100 utilities, including a multimillion meter deployment underway by Ontario, Canada's Hydro One.

And then there's SmartSynch, the Jackson, Miss.-based company that deploys meters with devices that allow them to communicate over existing cellular networks. With a recent announcement that it would partner with AT&T to bring that technology – until now limited to commercial and industrial clients -- to the much larger residential market, SmartSynch could present a challenge to the dominant RF mesh paradigm.

3. In-Home Energy Management: Tendril Networks

The Boulder, Colo.-based startup Tendril has been an early backer of ZigBee, the 802.15.4 wireless standard that is emerging as a favorite for carrying data from smart meters to in-home devices. While it makes an array of devices – in home energy monitoring screens, wall sockets, it has also licensed its software out to third-party device makers, including smart meter manufacturers (see Tendril Targets Meter Makers).

An increasing number of startups making in-home energy monitoring devices are looking at a similar model, given the challenge they face in making their own gear. One startup that focused on software from the get-go is Greenbox Technology, the San Bruno, Calif.-based startup founded by the creators and designers behind Flash. Its web-based dashboard manages data from smart thermostats, appliances and household devices and has been tested with customers in a pilot project with Oklahoma Gas & Electric and Silver Spring Networks.

But all those startups have some heavyweights entering the field to contend with. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has unveiled a prototype home energy management platform called PowerMeter that it would like to see adopted on a wide scale, and Cisco Systems, fresh from its push to network offices for power savings, has joined forces with General Electric and others to help do the same in a residential smart meter project in Miami (see Google Gets Into Home Energy Management, Cisco Jumps Into Energy Management for Computers, Buildings and A Million Smart Meters for Miami).

4. Building Management and Networking: Echelon

It isn't easy to pick a clear leader in the business of networking commercial and industrial buildings to improve energy efficiency. Several huge players – Johnson Controls, Honeywell, Siemens – incorporate energy efficiency into their building automation offerings.

But among those giants – Johnson Controls being the top pick among analysts for market share – many share the use of a technology for building networking developed by Echelon Corp. And the San Jose-based company, which also has a smart meter business, is hoping its LonWorks platform will serve as the backbone for a new generation of building energy efficiency systems tied into upcoming smart grid deployments (see Echelon Beefs up LonWorks).

While almost all of Echelon's smart meter contracts are in Europe, it is working with Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy in a 60,000 smart meter project in Cincinnati and is hoping to play a role in multi-hundred thousand smart meter deployments the utility is seeking permission to start in Indiana and Ohio.

And Duke's Chief Technical Officer Dave Mohler has said that LonWorks could be a good platform to integrate into the utility's smart grid deployments, given that it's already in place in a lot of commercial buildings.

That being said, Echelon is more dependent on its LonWorks as a share of revenues than are any of the industrial giants that use it for their building automation lines of business – and those giants also offer their own proprietary systems for the task.

In the meantime, a host of startups – Sentilla, Arch Rock and Millennial Net among them – are emerging with wireless solutions (see Sentilla Raises $3.75M To Compete in Data Center Power Fray and Arch Rock's Wireless Energy Optimizers).

Others such as Cimetrics, Tririga, HID Laboratories and Optimum Energy are focusing on specific systems like lights, air conditioning or real estate energy use analysis (see Controlling Energy Consumption, A Million Square Feet at a Time).

And then there's the entry of Cisco Systems into the field, with its EnergyWise platform that will help cut energy use for phones, computers, building HVAC and lighting systems and other commercial office space energy wasters (see Cisco Jumps Into Energy Management for Computers, Buildings).

5. Meter Data Management: eMeter

Once utilities have millions of smart meters in place collecting data in near-to-real-time, the question of how to manage it will arise. To meet that need, utilities have turned to a number of companies offering meter data management services – software that can integrate the new flood of data with utility systems for billing, customer account management and a host of new uses that are expected to emerge.

San Mateo, Calif.-based eMeter has emerged as one of the favorite stand-alone meter data management companies (see eMeter: Data-Keeper for the Smart Grid). It has contracts with utilities including with CenterPoint Energy, Alliant Energy and Southern California Edison, which plans to install 5.3 million meters through 2012.

Others are competing for the market, including smart meter makers themselves. Bloomington, Minn.-based Ecologic Analytics is a startup that has received attention for landing the meter data management contract for Pacific Gas & Electric's multimillion smart meter deployment, among others. And Oracle Corp., with its 2007 purchase of meter data management company Lodestar Corp., could be a big contender in the future.

6. Demand Response: EnerNoc

EnerNoc (NSDQ: ENOC) has built a portfolio of more than 2,000 megawatts under management as of the end of last year – twice the size of its portfolio at the end of 2007 – and has since added another 310 more megawatts in contracts with utilities in Idaho and Maryland. Given that every megawatt that can be curtailed equals a megawatt of new generation capacity utilities don't need to build, that puts EnerNoc in the position of being a bit like a power generator of its own (see In New England, A Demand Response Company Gets Utility-Sized).

But EnerNoc, while a leader in the field, is far from alone in the scope of its business. New York-based CPower has about 2,200 megawatts under management, as does East Hanover, N.J.-based Comverge (NSDQ: COMV). Comverge has distinguished itself in another way – it has made large-scale inroads into residential demand response programs, with about two-fifths of its total megawatts under management coming from homes (see Demand Response: The Home vs. C&I Debate).

An honorable mention also has to go to Foundation Capital. The VC firm invested in EnerNoc, Silver Spring and eMeter, making it the firm with the strongest track record in the field.

7. Grid Automation Software: General Electric

Nobody should be surprised that General Electric is a major player in smart grid efforts – not to mention one with the cash on hand to run Super Bowl ads pointing out the fact. But beyond the smart meters GE is making, or the wide-area network WiMax radios it's deploying to support smart grid projects (see GE Offers WiMax Smart Meter Solution), the engineering giant is also a provider of a wide range of software aimed at helping utilities optimize grid operations, said Rick Nicholson, vice president of research for IDC company Energy Insights.

GE has been providing grid-management software to utilities for decades, with a most recent iteration deployed by utility American Electric Power in September. But the giant has been pushing into new smart grid fields, acquiring companies with software to manage field automation technologies, grid cybersecurity, and other aspects of smart grid operations.

GE is far from the only company looking to help make the grid smarter with software, of course, Oracle and IBM are providing similar services, and startup GridPoint has raised more than $200 million with the promise of providing a wide array of software to solve the smart grid's challenges of integrating home energy monitoring, distributed energy generation and plug-in vehicles into the grid. (see GridPoint Gets $120M, Buys V2Green and GridPoint to Manage Wind Power Battery Storage).

8. Smart Grid Integration: IBM

IBM's integration work starts with its Global Intelligent Utility Network Coalition, a group of utilities working with the computing giant on smart grid efforts. As part of that, IBM has smart grid pilot projects with utilities including CenterPoint Energy, American Electric Power and Consumers Energy (see IBM Snags Another Smart Grid Deal), and is also part of the first nationwide smart grid project in the island nation of Malta (see IBM Brings Smart Meters to Malta).

IBM also is working on a wide range of research projects, including a collaboration with French utility EDF to develop modeling and optimization technology for integrating smart grid features (see IBM, EDF to Research Smart Grid Tech).

It also is testing new technologies for integrating intermittent energy sources like wind power into grids that are supporting large numbers of plug-in electric or hybrid vehicles (see IBM Tests Smart Charging in Denmark).

9. Energy Storage: NKG Insulators

Energy storage at the utility level is now accomplished almost entirely with the old-fashioned method of pumping water uphill at low electricity demand times, then letting it spin a turbine when demand is high. But there aren't too many more places to build new pumped hydroelectric projects – and integrating intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar power will require a lot more storage.

While solutions like compressed air energy storage are being promised at prices approaching those of pumped hydro – $250 to $500 per kilowatt-hour – it is limited to sites with power plants and underground caverns able to hold the air (see Startup ES&P to Store Electricity in the Air).

So for distributed storage so far, the largest-scale grid power storage projects underway have used sodium sulfur batteries - and so far, the leading maker of those high-temperature, high-volume batteries is NGK Insulators.

The Japanese company has installed its batteries in wind power storage projects with American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), Xcel Energy and Tokyo Electric Power Co., which had partnered with NGK to develop the batteries (see Batteries for the Grid and GridPoint to Manage Wind Power Battery Storage).

Sodium-sulfur batteries have high efficiencies and the ability to deliver energy at full power without reducing lifespan or reliability – important considerations for grid storage (see Green Light post). Their problem remains high price – about $4,000 per kilowatt-hour for AEP's project, and still about $3,000 per kilowatt-hour, according to Sam Jaffe, senior research analyst with IDC company Energy Insights.

That could open the way for lithium-ion batteries from companies like A123 Systems and Altair Nanotechnologies to compete in the grid storage field they've just begun to enter, Jaffe said. Altair has small storage projects underway with Indianapolis Light & Power and another with regional transmission operator PJM, and A123 has a project with power generation utility AES Corp., Jaffe said (see A123 Batteries to Help Stabilize Electric Grid).

The key for lithium-ion batteries will be economies of scale that come from meeting what is expected to be a boom in demand from electric and hybrid vehicles, he noted. With billions of federal stimulus dollars earmarked for helping lithium ion battery manufacturers expand in the United States, and President Barack Obama pledging to push for 1 million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on America's roads by 2015, lithium ion batteries should become a lot less expensive soon, he said.

10. Utilities: Austin Energy

There are much larger utilities deploying aspects of smart grid developments – smart meter deployments, integrating renewable source of power, energy storage – but Austin, Texas-based municipal utility Austin Energy has something close to a complete smart grid up and running.

Austin's "Smart Grid 1.0" has deployed 410,000 smart meters, and expects to have all of its customers equipped with a smart meter by late summer, said Andres Carvallo, Austin Energy CIO. The utility has also installed 86,000 thermostats that it can control remotely to cycle off during peak load events, as well as about 2,500 distribution grid sensors across its service territory.

Now Austin Energy is preparing for the Pecan Street Project, meant to incorporate renewable energy, energy storage, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles and energy monitors and smart appliances for customers' homes. The project includes a who's who of high tech companies, including Dell, GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPoint.

Of course, other much larger utilities are busy putting the pieces of the smart grid together. A well known example is Xcel Energy and its SmartGridCity pilot project – a $100 million project aimed at bringing smart meters, "smart" substations, and a host of support systems for distributed generation, plug-in vehicles and home energy use controls

And then there are other utilities pushing ahead with different pieces of the smart grid infrastructure in a big way.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has set a milestone for smart meter deployment, recently announcing that it had installed 2.3 million smart meters so far, more than any other utility in the nation.

And American Electric Power has been taking big steps in integrating energy storage into its grid, with plans to install 25 megawatts of storage by next year and 1 gigawatt by 2020, including large-scale and community-level storage (see Green Light post).

Ephemeralization

Ephemeralization is a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller in 1922. It refers to the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing." Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization will result in ever increasing standards of living for an ever growing population despite finite resources.

Fuller referred to Henry Ford's assembly line as an example of how ephemeralization can continuously lead to better products at lower cost with no upper bounds on productivity.

Fuller saw ephemeralization as an inevitable trend in human development. The progression was from "compression" to "tension" to "visual" to "abstract electrical" (i.e. non-sensorial radiation, such as radio waves, x-rays, etc.). Length measurement technologies in human development, for example, started with a compressive measure, such as a ruler. The compressive technique reached an upper limit with a rod. For longer measures, a tensive measure such as a string or rope was used. This reached an upper limit with sagging of the string. Next was surveyor's telescope, a visual measure. This reached the upper limits with curvature of the earth. Next was radio triangulation, an abstract electrical measure. Since then, our technological progression has constantly reached greater and greater length-measuring ability per pound of instrument, with no apparent upper limit.

Moore's Law is another example of ephemeralization. Moore's Law says that the number of transistors in a microprocessor doubles every eighteen months.

Metcalf's Law is another example of ephemeralization. Metcalf's Law says that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of the nodes connected.

NIST Releases Interim Smart Grid Interoperability Roadmap

The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) released today a draft copy of its Interim Smart Grid Interoperability Roadmap, one of its tasks under the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007 (EISA2007). The 291-page document, found at: www.nist.gov/smartgrid/InterimSmartGridRoadmapNISTRestructure.pdf

This Roadmap addresses a variety of issues, including governance and IP, going forward. In addition to outlining the project and describing the work done so far, the Roadmap defines a conceptual model for smart grid and its implementation, identifies the applications in different domains of the grid, discusses the security requirements for smart grid, and finally, recommends several near-term actions that NIST can take to advance the interoperability framework.

NIST will invite comment on the draft, developed by EPRI, within 30 days after the Federal Register notice is released. It will then publish a final draft before September, based on the comments that are received. NIST hopes to have a final Roadmap by the end of the year.

Many of us in the industry over the last two years have had the opportunity to contribute up to this point and look forward to finishing the standards with a final worldwide open stakeholder approach to get all the possible input in place to release the final standards that will drive America to deliver a nationwide smart grid.

Pecan Street Project Launches Website

The Pecan Street Project gets a website to start sharing with the world, after working quietly for six months. 12 teams and 150 professionals are defining what Smart Grid 2.0 is all about in Austin, TX. For Austin Energy, it is a great opportunity to take its success in deploying its Smart Grid 1.0 (first in the US) and work with world class organizations to build on it the next evolutionary step.

The Pecan Street Project was founded by Austin Energy, the City of Austin, The University of Texas, and The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and it became a partnership with The Environmental Defense Fund, Applied Materials, Dell, GE, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor, Sematech, GridPoint, and several others.

The Pecan Street Project will comprise three phases with several parallel efforts. The first phase will be complete by the end of August 2009, and will focus on developing an action plan for Austin Energy and identifying key barriers that must be overcome for success. These barriers will be organized into the following categories: technologies, workforce, markets and business models and policies. The technology section will be further organized into those that 1) are ready for implementation (for example motion sensors for hallway lights), 2) need to be tested and verified when integrated into the grid, and 3) need to be developed, as well as by generation, storage, efficiency, and low-tech options. The second phase will be the execution of the recommendations and pilots approved by the Austin Energy board of directors. And the third phase is a potential new research consortium.

http://www.pecanstreetproject.org/

Andres Carvallo to Keynote Digital Living Conference

Digital Living Conference features executives from controls, networking, entertainment, and CE companies

CONNECTIONS™ speakers address challenges and opportunities that come with converging products and services

Parks Associates has announced the speakers for CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Living Conference & Showcase, including keynotes from Austin Energy, AT&T, Sony Pictures, and Verizon.

The 13th annual CONNECTIONS™, June 2-4 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, features interactive panels with over 80 speakers and consumer and industry research presented by Parks Associates’ expert analysts. This event attracts senior executives from industries associated with the digital home, new media and content distribution, and mobile applications and services.

“CONNECTIONS™ speakers offer an array of expertise covering CE, digital media, content and access services, home controls, and energy management,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president, principal analyst, Parks Associates. “The number of broadband households worldwide will reach 650 million by 2013. These connections will have a ripple effect throughout multiple industries, impacting communications, entertainment, and home management. CONNECTIONS™ features an excellent lineup of speakers covering both the visionary and practical challenges in forging new business models for this changing consumer culture.”

Parks Associates reports the number of mobile TV subscribers worldwide exceeded 30 million in 2008, while more than 26 million U.S. consumers use the Internet at least monthly to catch up on TV programming. Both findings show the growing appeal of place- and time-shifting features and are early indicators of the future directions of the mobile and video markets.

Keynote Speakers:
Joseph Ambeault, Director, Product Development and Management, Video Services, Verizon
Andres E. Carvallo, Chief Information Officer, Austin Energy
Glenn Lurie, President of Emerging Devices and Resale, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets
Mitch Singer, CTO, Executive Vice President of New Media and Technology, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.; President, Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE)

Speakers and Panelists:
Sanket Amberkar, Marketing Manager, Network Systems Solutions, Cisco
Bruce Anderson, General Manager, Global Electronics Industry, IBM
Sean Besser, VP, Business Development, Macrovision
Stephen Blum, President, Tellus Venture Associates
Jeff Bonin, Vice President & GM, Alticast
Brandon Brown, CEO, Zodiac Interactive
Torey Bruno, Director of Business Development, Via Licensing Corporation
Geoff Burke, Senior Director, Corporate Marketing, Calix
Jon Burr, VP, Customer Experience and Operations, CrossLoop, Inc.
Duane Carvalho, Sales Director, North America, Jungo
Steve Cashman, Chief Strategy Officer, Exceptional Innovation
Chenyi Chiu, Strategic Program Manager, HD-PLC Alliance
Paul Dawes, CEO, iControl Networks
Rolf De Vegt, Director, Technical Standards Qualcomm
Jim Denney, VP, Product Marketing, TiVo Inc.
Vijay Desai, Founder, CEO, Aceurity, Inc.
Christopher Deutschen, Senior Manager, Product & Business Development, Direct Energy
Chris Dobrec, Sr. Director Strategy & Business Development, Cisco Systems
Brian Donnelly, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Icron
Ajay Dugar, Executive Director, Paramount Digital Entertainment
Mike Ehlenberger, Vice President of Channel Sales, Actiontec Electronics, Inc.
Jaime Fink, Vice President of Technology and Strategy, 2Wire
Meir Friedlander, CEO, Eyecon Technologies, Inc.
Jonathan Gaines, Senior Vice President - Sales, Xeriton Corporation/BluePhone
Jackson Gates, Director of Business Development, Pandora
Ben Geller, Senior Director of Marketing, Motive Product Group, Alcatel-Lucent
Noam Geri, Co-founder, Vice President Marketing & Business Development, AMIMON
Andrea Goldsmith, Co-Founder and CTO, Quantenna Communications
Pankaj Gupta, Manager, Market Management - Service Providers, Cisco Systems
Mike Harris, CEO, AnySource
David Henry, Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Home Products, NETGEAR
Chris Hock, Senior VP, Product Management, BlackArrow
Jim Hunter, CTO and Chief Architect, 4Home
Brent Hurley, Strategic Partner Development Manager, YouTube
Richard Irving, Managing Partner, Pond Venture Partners
Vipin Jain, President and CEO, Retrevo
Braxton Jarratt, CEO, Clearleap
Brian Johnson, Senior Vice President, Americas and Asia Pacific, mBlox, Inc.
Jason Johnson, Vice-President of Marketing & Business Development, Via Licensing Corporation
Jim Johnson, President & CEO, uControl
Scott Kelliher, Category Director, Telecommunications & Technology, Platform A/AOL
Fred King, VP, Sales & Marketing, PlumChoice, Inc.
Kazuhiro Kitagawa, Vice-Chairman, PUCC
Steve Koepp, Senior Manager, Business Development, Microsoft Corporation
Art Lancaster, CTO, Affinegy
Michael Lantz, CEO, Accedo Broadband
Craig Lee, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Ortiva Wireless
Michelle Leyden Li, General Manager, Home Control Business Unit, Zilog
Sheung Li, Director of Product Development & Marketing, SiBEAM
Alex Limberis, COO, Syabas Technology, Inc.
Ken Lowe, Vice President, Strategic Marketing, Sigma Designs
Robert Malnati, Director, Business Development, Broadband Solutions Group, Home and Networks Mobility, Motorola, Inc.
Wilfred Martis, Director of Platform Strategy and Planning, Digital Home Group, Intel
Theodore May, VP, Content & Value-added Services, Synacor
Steve McKay, CEO, Entone Inc.
Travis Misterek, Technical Analyst, Best Buy
Seale Moorer, CEO, Exceptional Innovation
Mike Noonen, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, NXP Semiconductors
Bogdan Odulinski, Director - Product Management, Enterprise Services Group, SupportSoft, Inc.
Frank Ploumen, Director, Home Applications, Alcatel-Lucent
Mostafa Reza, Product Line Manager, IP Video Solutions Group, Motorola
Micha Risling, VP of Marketing, Valens Semiconductor
Anthony Rodio, Chief Operating Officer, support.com
Avner Ronen, CEO & Co-Founder, Boxee
Vibha Rustagi, CEO & President, itaas, Inc.
Russ Schafer, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Connected TV, Yahoo!
Rick Schwartz, Product Manager, TwonkyMedia Manager, PacketVideo
Loren Shade, VP Marketing, Allegro Software Development Corporation
Parag Sheth, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Hillcrest Labs
Eric Smith, CTO, Control4
Jason Spero, VP & Managing Director NA, AdMob
Kevin Spier, Director of Business Development, Bunchball
Singu Srinivas, VP, Sales and Marketing, Radialpoint
Bill Stanley, Director, Operations Solutions, Telcordia
Jan Steenkamp, Founder Member, Head Market Development America, Irdeto
Rob Tobias, Director, Market Development, Silicon Image
Steve Tranter, VP Interactive and Broadband, NDS
Edgar Villalpando, SVP, Marketing, ActiveVideo Networks
Dr. Kenneth Wacks, Member, GridWise Architecture Council, U.S. Department of Energy
Ian Walsh, VP Business Development, ProVision Communications
Fred Wang, General Partner, Trinity Ventures
Lior Weiss, VP Marketing, Celeno
Stephen White, Director, Business Development, VIZIO
Ken Wirt, Vice President Consumer Marketing, Cisco Systems
Daniel Wong, Director of Product Management, D-Link
Steve Yum, Sr. Director of Marketing, Synerchip
Scot Zarkiewicz, CEO, SingleClick Systems
Eric Zimits, Managing Director, Granite Ventures


http://www.parksassociates.com/events/connections/2009/index.html
http://www.parksassociates.com/events/connections/splash/index.htm

Andres Carvallo Receives Computerworld Honors Laureate Award

My Smart Grid leadership and work at Austin Energy was recognized on Monday June 1st, 2009 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC by the Computerworld Honors Program in a ceremony that started at 4pm and lasted until 10pm. 159 Laureates in ten categories were recognized and inducted into the program archives. From the 159 Laureates only 50 made it to Finalist (five from each category). And then to make it even more dramatic, the judges picked a single winner of each category to receive the 21st Century Achievement Award. 159 Laureates, 50 Finalists, and 10 (ten) 21st Century Achievement Award winners.

To my surprise, I walked out of the building with three awards and being the sole winner of the Environmental, Energy & Agriculture category in 2009 for the Utility of the Future work at Austin Energy that we have been executing like clockwork since 2003.

Established in 1988, The Computerworld Honors Program brings together the principals of the world's foremost information technology companies to recognize and document the achievements of the men, women, organizations and institutions around the world, whose visionary applications of information technology promote positive social, economic and educational change.

Each year, members of the Computerworld Honors Chairmen's Committee, a group of 100 Chairmen/CEOs from leading global IT companies, submit nominations for organizations they feel demonstrated extraordinary use of information technology in 10 distinct categories of industry-related endeavor. The categories are: Business & Related Services; Education & Academia; Environment; Energy & Agriculture; Finance, Insurance and Real Estate; Government; Healthcare; Manufacturing; Media, Arts & Entertainment; Non-Profit Organizations; and Transportation.

Nominees are then asked to contribute a Case Study for submission to the Computerworld Honors Program Global Archives. Each Case Study includes a detailed description of the project, its benefits to society, the role played by information technology in furthering the project, and the ways in which this use of information technology is original or innovative. The Laureates may also submit accompanying digital photographs, video or other supporting materials. Once their documentation has been reviewed and accepted, the nominees become Program Laureates, and their Case Studies become part of the Program's Global Archives. The information becomes available to researchers, students and scholars through http://www.cwhonors.org/, and through digital records housed in national archives in over 100 universities, museums and research institutions throughout the world.

Laureates' achievements are recognized at two distinct events, which occur on the same day in June. During the Laureate Medal Ceremony, Case Studies are formally inducted into the Program's International Archives, and honorees are presented with a medallion inscribed with the Program's mission, "A Search for New Heroes." Later that day, Laureates join members of the Chairmen's Committee and other industry luminaries for the Gala Awards Evening. At that evening event, additional honors are given to 50 Finalists - 5 Laureates from each of the 10 categories, whose Case Studies were selected by Program Judges to be outstanding innovations within the information technology field. That field is narrowed further with the presentation of the 21st Century Achievement Awards. These awards are given to only one Finalist in each category, singled out for special recognition by the Program Judges to be the very best among their peers.

Austin Energy Launches Customer Outage Portal

We have launched our Customer Outage Portal, called "Austin Energy Storm Center" to further improve our customer services and help the media quickly and easily understand when and where there are outages in our service territory.

The Storm Center can be viewed via any Computer and Smart Phone (with a full HTML browser).

The Storm Center provides a “Summary” tab that will show the total number of outages in the utility’s service area and the total number of customers without power at any given time. Users can see the total number of customers currently without power by ZIP code as well as the total number of customers served within each ZIP code.

The Storm Center displays a map of our entire service area, with outages coded to illustrate a small outage (1-200 customers), medium outage (210-500 customers), and large outage (more than 500 customers). Other features include the time the outage began, the estimated restoration time, and total number of customers without power, all zoomable down to street level.

With the Storm Center, customers can see visually what is going on in the Austin Energy service territory, they can check for a specific outage, they can report an outage, and they can contact us.

This project was a great team effort from multiple divisions within Austin Energy. Congratulations to all !

http://my.austinenergy.com/outages/

Andres Carvallo named Technical Chair for NIST's Smart Grid Standards Process

The purpose of the Smart Grid Interoperability Workshop on May 19-20 2009 is to provide an opportunity for the industry stakeholders to meet face to face for a second time to continue the consensus building process for a Smart Grid Standards Interoperability Interim Roadmap.

The key objective of this exercise is to use this consensus based process to select a particular set of interoperable standards for each interface between adjacent Smart Grid environments that support certain high priority Smart Grid applications such as Demand Response, Wide Area Situational Awareness, Electric Storage, and Electric Transportation.

There will be six workshops to define standards for:

1.Demand Response & Consumer Energy Efficiency
2.Wide Area Situational Awareness
3.Electric Storage
4.Electric Transportation
5.Advanced Metering Infrastructure
6.Distribution grid management initiatives, including Distributed Energy Resource (DER) integration, distribution automation, volt/var control, and remote sensing that enables improvements in reliability and improves the efficiency of the distribution system.

In recognition for my industry experience and knowledge, I have been invited to play the role of Technical Moderator and Lead in the Wide Area Situational Awareness, Advanced Metering Infrastructure, and Distribution Grid Management workshops, and Technical Chair for the Application and Data Integration workshop of the Smart Grid Standards Interim Roadmap workshop next week.

Andres Carvallo to Speak at GE's Smart Grid Executive Summit

GE’s Smart Grid Executive Summit will explore the challenges and opportunities of smart grid deployments, as well as the necessary policy and regulatory measures needed to deliver on the promises of a more intelligent electrical network. The event will include the participation of executives from American Electric Power, Ameren, Austin Energy, CNT-Energy, Dominion, Duke Energy, EPRI, FERC, FPL, GE, Galvin Electricity Initiative, Georgia Power, Google, Harvard University, IBM, McKinsey & Company, PG&E, Salt River Project, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, and World Resource Institute.

In addition to the Smart Grid Executive Summit, GE will host its first Smart Grid Advisory Board, to which Andres Carvallo has been named.

Andres will attend the Smart Grid Advisory Board meeting and speak at the first annual GE Smart Grid Executive Summit.

GE’s Smart Grid Advisory Board is comprised of executive representatives from five US utilities. The advice and perspectives shared by these board members will help guide GE’s technology development efforts, and these individuals will play a key role in defining the overall GE Smart Grid strategy.

NERC CEO Testifies at Senate Hearing on Cyber Security

Written Testimony of Rick Sergel, NERC President & CEO Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Hearing on Joint Staff Draft Related to Cybersecurity and Critical Electricity Infrastructure May 7, 2009

"The cyber security of the bulk power system in North America remains an important concern for our nation. When I last spoke in front of a Congressional committee in September 2008, my organization, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), had just launched a major initiative to improve its response to cyber security challenges. I am pleased to report significant progress on this front, which is a clear indication that the framework established under Section 215 of the Federal Power Act is producing results. But I remain firm in the message I communicated nine months ago: the Federal government should be given additional, carefully crafted, emergency authority to address specific, imminent cyber security threats.

"My testimony today will focus on the steps NERC has taken to enhance protection of the North American bulk power system from cyber security threats, and offer NERC’s views on the Joint Staff Draft, which would provide the needed federal authority."

Continue Reading >>


Note:

Rick Sergel and his team have done a great job to accelerate the NERC CIP adoption and verification processes. All utilities are hard at work to be fully compliant, if they are not already.

The real challenge is that we find ourselves balancing the forces of Functionality/Convenience vs. Security vs. Affordability. In the end, my second law of Information Technology says: "When balancing the forces of Functionality/Convenience vs. Security vs. Affordability, one must pick only two forces to drive the project and achieve compliant results." Trying to achieve the three forces at once does not deliver sustainable results. Some grid users feel that Security must trump everything else. While other grid users feel that Functionality/Convenience comes first. And yet other grid users want Affordability to be the focus.

My first law of Information Technology says: "When balancing the forces of Cheaper vs. Faster vs. Better, one must pick only two forces to drive the project and achieve sustainable results."

Austin Energy Plans Its Smart Grid 2.0

After defining, architecting and being almost done building our Smart Grid, which will be live and covering 100% of our service territory by August 2009 (yes this year!). Our Smart Grid covers 440 square miles, 500,000 devices, 100 terabytes of data, 1 million consumers and 43,000 businesses, and we are moving very fast to our next phase of evolution.

Our current Smart Grid Program, which we call Smart Grid 1.0, is focused on the utility side of the grid. It is all about systems integration, communications, safety and reliability of electric operations, better and new services, and even better customer service. It goes from the central power plant through the transmission and distribution systems and all the way to the meter and back.

Our Smart Grid 2.0, which will be defined by recommendations of the Pecan Street Project, will be done with its planning by September and will commence deployment soon thereafter. It focus is all about the grid beyond the meter and into the premise (e.g. home, office, store, mall, building) with integration back to our utility grid. Our Smart Grid 2.0 is about managing and leveraging Distributed Generation (Solar PV, Micro Wind, etc), Storage, Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles, Electric Vehicles and Smart Appliances on the customer side of the meter.

The Pecan Street Project is a partnership between Austin Energy, the City of Austin, The University of Texas, The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, The Environmental Defense Fund, Dell, GE, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor, Sematech, GridPoint, and several others.

Why Smart Grid 2.0? Why the Pecan Street Project?

The power sector, which is responsible for 40 percent of annual energy use in the United States, is the single largest consumer of energy nationwide. The transportation sector, which is responsible for 29 percent of annual energy use in the United States, is the second largest consumer of energy nationwide. These two sectors also depend heavily on depleting resources, are prone to supply or delivery disruptions, and are the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

The vision of the Pecan Street Project is to solve the energy problem in Austin, Texas by reinventing the power sector via moving into new energy models, including interconnecting with the transportation sector.

We want to transform Austin Energy into the urban power system of the future while making the City of Austin and its local partners a local clean energy laboratory and hub for the world’s emerging cleantech sector. In doing so, we seek to prove that it is possible to remake the way we produce, use, store and trade energy in a way that is simultaneously consistent with our economical, environmental, social and security objectives. Implementing this vision will include the following types of innovations:

• Connected homes that incorporate smart end points such as meters, appliances, and local generation, integrated with smart markets and distributed smart grids to enable two-way electricity flow

• Smart home energy control systems/portals that provide citizens with more information, alternatives, and decision support

• Smart appliances and devices that can turn off during times of peak demand or high price, either driven by the energy services provider ’s policies or citizens preferences

• Smart markets that have a price built on supply and demand and therefore varies during the time of day and day of year

• Smart policies and government stimulus approaches that foster the innovation and implementation of these technologies and markets

• Green economy workforce members that can build, design, test, install, maintain, operate, and continually improve and invent sustainable capabilities

• Smart business plans that enable Austin Energy to lead on this reinvention of the energy system without compromising its sound financial footing

• Smart political leadership and popular will that shares the vision to make this project a reality

• Innovative laboratory environments supported by public, educational, private and Non-Government Organization partnerships

• Energy communities and networked information platforms that enable social network community development, markets and open society sustainable economic improvements

• Smart transportation systems that incorporate two-way distributed approaches to information flows, energy flows, and unified information and energy storage

• Smart working alternatives that provide more green options to citizens, from smart working centers with virtual life size video alternatives to alternative mass transportation to alternative routes to stay at home options.

• Connected and sustainable buildings for management of commercial and personal real estate, either by tenants, owners, and energy services providers

• We are hoping for 300MWs of alternative, distributed generation through distributed wind and solar

The Pecan Street Project will comprise three phases with several parallel efforts. Only the first two phases will be described here. The third phase is a potential new research consortium. The first phase will be complete by the end of August 2009, and will focus on developing an action plan for Austin Energy and identifying key barriers that must be overcome for success. These barriers will be organized into the following categories: technologies, workforce, markets and business models and policies. The technology section will be further organized into those that 1) are ready for implementation (for example motion sensors for hallway lights), 2) need to be tested and verified when integrated into the grid, and 3) need to be developed, as well as by generation, storage, efficiency, and low-tech options.

As technologies are verified over the first few years, they will be moved into implementation. As technologies are developed from research, they will be re-categorized as ready for testing and verification. Policies will also be organized into several additional categories that accelerate adoption with incentive approaches for citizens, energy services providers, the city, and private sector. Stimulus approaches from investments through bonds to taxes incentives to R&D partnership are just some of the methods to build out the desired impact of green economy and Information Communication and Technology (ICT) economy jobs. Some policies will be readily identified for implementation (for example, removing the ability for homeowner’s associations or others to prohibit the installation of solar panels), while others be identified, developed, and worked through the appropriate regulatory, policy, and citizen acceptance models. It is recognized to change behaviors toward the positive opportunities Pecan Street project strives for collaboration between city, state, and federal authorities is critical to ensure higher levels of citizen will power, satisfaction, and desire to contribute to a sustainable economy in Austin.

Just as it took a century to invent today’s energy system, the Pecan Street Project will require many years to reinvent it. Consequently, the cycle of technological innovation and implementation is expected to take place continuously. The inflection point of these two aspects will cause a disruption and accelerate the cycles from multiple decades to a decade or less.

Our better days are still ahead!

Smart Grid Stimulus Money Plans Announced

The Obama administration offered more details yesterday on how it plans to distribute $4.5 billion in grants to speed the development of smart grid technologies across the nation's electric power system, from transmission monitors to digital household electric meters.

The administration also announced a top-level meeting in early May with smart grid industry leaders intended to speed up the pace of developing technology standards that will enable smart grid devices and software to work together.

Vice President Joe Biden used a visit to Jefferson City, Mo., to update plans for the grants, authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill. The Energy Department said it is beginning a 20-day comment period on a draft process for issuing $3.375 billion in grants for smart grid technology installations by power companies. The grants, ranging from $500,000 to $20 million, must be matched by the recipients. The agency is also seeking comments on its plans to award grants of $100,000 to $5 million for grid monitoring devices.

Another $615 million in stimulus funds will go to smart grid demonstration projects focusing on regional programs, storage technologies and advance monitoring devices called phasor measurement units that give grid control room operators instantaneous data on power flows. Phasor controls could allow more power to move over the grid without overloading lines and equipment.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said he and Energy Secretary Steven Chu will chair a meeting with grid technology leaders in early May to seek agreements on smart grid standards.
"Industry leaders at the meeting will be expected to pledge to harmonize industry standards critical to developing the smart grid, commit to a timetable to reach standards agreement and abide by the standards devised," Biden's office said in a statement. This session will precede a previously scheduled May 19-20 meeting on smart grid technical standards.

Laying down rules for the energy revolution

The meetings represent the administration's attempt to accelerate a smart grid standards regime, called for in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. The standards would cover equipment, software and communications protocols.

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been under pressure from Congress to complete the standards. NIST Deputy Director Patrick Gallagher acknowledged last month that the process is so complex it has created "a bit of a jam" in setting priorities for the standards. "Right now, what is desperately needed is an overall road map," Gallagher said.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners have collaborated on a set of criteria that they say DOE should use in funding smart grid demonstration projects. Grant applicants should show how their technology will support the reliability of grid operations while protecting the network from cyber-attack, the organizations said.

On the one hand, smart grid advocates are pushing for a common architecture of communications and software protocols to link the parts of the smart grid together. On the other hand, the more open the network is, the more potentially vulnerable it may be, experts say.
"A smart electricity grid will revolutionize the way we use energy, but we need standards in place to ensure that all this new technology is compatible and operating at the highest cybersecurity standards to protect the smart grid from hackers and natural disasters," Locke said.

Grant process moving forward

NIST says it expects to issue an initial set of standards and priorities in early fall, followed by testing and certification that it wants to complete by the end of the year.
Whether smart grid grants can move far in advance of the standard setting was not immediately clear. Yesterday's action "kicks off the process of taking in applications," said DOE spokesman Tom Reynolds.

Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, said there need not be a holdup. "I don't think the NIST process will be a significant barrier at this point," he said. Pilot projects funded by the stimulus grants can help expedite standards development, he added.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/biden-launches-doe-stimulus-program-for-the-smart-grid.ars

NREL Ranks Austin Energy #1 in US Green Power Sales

Annual assessment shows more consumers making clean power choices

April 13, 2009 -- GOLDEN, CO. - The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) today released its annual assessment of leading utility green power programs. Under these voluntary programs, consumers can choose to help support additional electricity production from renewable resources such as wind and solar.

According to the NREL analysis, more than 850 utilities across the United States now offer green power programs. Green power sales in 2008 increased by about 20 percent over 2007, and they represent more than 5 percent of total electricity sales for some of the most popular programs. Wind is the primary source of electricity generated for green energy programs nationwide.

“Despite the economic downturn, utility green power sales continued to expand nationally last year,” said NREL senior energy analyst Lori Bird. “These utilities are the national leaders.”
Using information provided by utilities, NREL developed “Top 10” rankings of utility programs for 2008 in the following categories: total sales of renewable energy to program participants, total number of customer participants, the percentage of customer participation, green power sales as a percentage of total utility retail electricity sales, and the lowest price premium charged for a green power program using new renewable resources.

Ranked by renewable energy sales (kWh/year), the green power program of Austin Energy (Texas) is first in the nation. Rounding out the top five are Portland General Electric (Ore.), PacifiCorp (Oregon and five other states), Xcel Energy (Minnesota and seven other states), and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (Calif.).

Ranked by the percentage of customer participation, the top utilities are City of Palo Alto Utilities (Calif.), Lenox Municipal Utilities (Iowa), Portland General Electric, Madison Gas and Electric Company (Wis.), and Silicon Valley Power (Calif.). (See attached tables for additional rankings).

Customer choice programs are proving to be a powerful stimulus for growth in renewable energy supply. “Participating in green power programs is one way that consumers can reduce their environmental footprint,” NREL analyst Claire Kreycik, who co-authored the report. In 2008, total utility green power sales exceeded 5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), about a 20% increase over 2007. More than 600,000 customers are participating in utility programs nationwide.

Utility green pricing programs are one segment of a larger green power marketing industry that counts Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and colleges and universities among its customers, and helps support about 5,000 MW of new renewable electricity
generation capacity.

NREL analysts attribute the success of many programs to persistent marketing and creative marketing strategies, including some utility partnerships with independent green power marketers. In addition, the rate premium that customers pay for green power continues to drop.

The Green Power study was performed by NREL's Strategic Energy Analysis and Applications Center (SEAAC), which integrates technical and economic analyses and leads NREL's efforts in applying clean energy technologies to both national and international markets.

NREL released its first annual Green Power study in 2000.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

Visit NREL online at http://www.nrel.gov/

Source: NREL

http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/nrel/48751100-nrel-highlights-utility-green-power-leaders

South Texas Project Selects PricewaterhouseCoopers for SAP-Enabled Business Transformation Project

Project Will Leverage PwC's Proprietary Nuclear Generation Template to Help Accelerate the Project and Enable Focus On Performance Improvement

NEW YORK and HOUSTON, April 9, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) has been awarded the initial planning and design phase of a major SAP-enabled business transformation project by the STP Nuclear Operating Company. PwC Advisory professionals will assist STP to plan and blueprint the replacement of more than 60 mission-critical, enterprise-wide legacy applications with the SAP ECC 6.0 platform and applications while improving and sustaining business performance. The scope of work includes replacement of virtually all of STP's current business applications including Financials, Human Resource Management, Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM), along with a number of specialized nuclear plant applications.

To help achieve this business and IT transformation, PwC will leverage their proprietary nuclear generation template and accelerators, based on over 11 years of experience implementing SAP in the nuclear industry. PwC's consulting professionals in the utilities industry have a proven track record of successful SAP implementations into nuclear plants and helping to accelerate the realization of performance improvement benefits at nuclear facilities across North America.

"Replacing the legacy systems of STP with a process-driven SAP-based solution will help STP achieve a transformation in business process and performance that will support the company and provide a scalable platform for planned future units,'' said David Etheridge, PricewaterhouseCoopers partner and U.S. Industry Leader - Utilities and Power Generation. "Our PwC consulting professionals are excited to team with STP and we look forward to working together to help plan and blueprint the transformation.''

The STP Nuclear Operating Company manages the South Texas Project nuclear power plant, a facility that has earned more honors than any other U.S. nuclear power plant. STP is a two-unit nuclear power plant that federal and industry officials have commended as a state-of-the-art and model facility. Its two reactors produce 2,500 megawatts of electricity, enough for more than one million homes and businesses in south central Texas.

"We selected PricewaterhouseCoopers to help us plan this important business transformation because they were uniquely qualified to deliver a team with experience in the nuclear power industry, equipped with a proven nuclear template for SAP and backed by PwC's depth in risk management, change management and IT implementation and design,'' said Mike Meier, STP Vice President, Shared Services. "We are confident that PwC will team with us to put quality and excellence at the forefront of this project.''

Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

About South Texas Project
STP supplies approximately 7.5 percent of the electricity used in Texas. The plant is managed by the STP Nuclear Operating Company and owned by Austin Energy, CPS Energy and NRG Texas. STP's twin reactors produce 2,700 megawatts of carbon-free energy, powering more than two million homes and businesses throughout Texas. To learn more about STP, visit http://www.stpnoc.com/.

About PricewaterhouseCoopers' Advisory Practice
PricewaterhouseCoopers' business advisory professionals provide clients with the confidence to succeed by helping them anticipate, create and manage change. Whether clients are proactively implementing change or reacting to an unplanned event, we leverage our network's resources, deep industry experience, and functional acumen across the areas of operations, finance, organizational strategy and structure, process improvement, human resources effectiveness, technology integration and implementation, risk mitigation and crisis management to help organizations effect sustainable change.

About PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers (http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AqQpXahcMYwV1xQuVPackh7xGZEB/SIG=10o0sir3q/**http%3A//www.pwc.com/) provides industry-focused assurance, tax and advisory services to build public trust and enhance value for its clients and their stakeholders. More than 154,000 people in 153 countries across our network share their thinking, experience and solutions to develop fresh perspectives and practical advice. "PricewaterhouseCoopers'' refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP or as the context requires, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global network of other member firms of the network, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/South-Texas-Project-Selects-pz-14890604.html

Landis+Gyr Technology Enables Austin Energy's Full Service Smart Grid Coverage

Gridstream deployment within Austin Energy’s territory to be completed this year


ATLANTA, Georgia, USA – March 31, 2009 – Landis+Gyr, which began deploying a Gridstream™ two-way smart grid communications network at Austin Energy in 2008, announced it is on schedule to complete the 280,000 meter project by August 2009.

Landis+Gyr is providing support services for the deployment of advanced meters and a turn-key network hardware upgrade as part of its managed services agreement with Austin Energy. The company began deploying the Gridstream two-way RF mesh network as part of an expanded management contract with Austin Energy that was signed last year.

More than 165,000 two-way meters have been installed so far, and integration with the utility’s meter data management system is underway. Landis+Gyr and Austin Energy are testing access to interval usage and metering data, and will soon begin testing other advanced features, such as remote disconnect and load management.

Austin Energy’s deployment will enable the utility to leverage its network for smart grid and demand response applications, including in-home networking, and distributed generation and automation.

“As the deployment proceeds we continue to identify ways in which the Gridstream network will provide value for Austin Energy’s aggressive smart grid initiatives,” said Tracy Moore, Senior Vice President of Services at Landis+Gyr. “Austin Energy is one of the leaders in promoting conservation and alternative energy applications for its consumers. Its smart grid initiatives are supporting those efforts.”

Austin Energy is the ninth largest community-owned electric utility in the nation, serving nearly 400,000 electricity customers in and around Austin, Texas. The utility has used a Landis+Gyr fixed-network advanced metering solution for approximately a third of its customers since 2002.

The Landis+Gyr Gridstream solution combines industry-leading communication technologies for advanced metering, distribution automation and personal energy management with interoperable tools for monitoring and controlling energy delivery to help utilities and consumers manage energy better.

http://www.landisgyr.com/en/pub/media/press_releases.cfm?news_ID=2537

Jeff Han's Multi Touch User Interface Research

I just wanted to share the powerful break through that Jeff Han at his team at NYU has been working on for a long while. His first demo was in 2006. Since then his work has inspired Microsoft and many others to find the new user interface of the future.

You be the judge if Jeff Han's research is going to change the world or not.

Jeff Han's first demo at TED.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLhMVNdplJc

Microsoft announces Surface

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKgU6ubBgJA

Microsoft Surface demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

iBar - Largest Multi Touch Screen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaKehq6qsdY

Austin Energy Launched First Utility Generation Mix Online Game Ever

On Monday, we introduced and launched our "Change Your Generation" game to continue to grow our global leadership in the industry. This is the very first of its kind generation mix simulation game by any electric utility to help stakeholders, partners, professionals, teachers, students and citizens at large to understand and learn the details of our generation mix challenges as an industry and society. The game is open to anyone in the world.

To play the game click here http://changeyourgeneration.austinenergy.com/

Below is an article posted by KEYETV on their website about our game.

---------------------------------------------

Austin Energy launches online game

Monday March 30, 2009

The Who aren’t the only ones talking about their generation.

Austin Energy launched its new program “Change Your Generation” which is designed to help educate energy rate payers and get feedback as to what energy resources people want to use in the future.

This is not your typical website game – there are no levels, enemies or bonus points. Instead, players are given 100 megawatts of energy to distribute among a variety of energy resources in order to determine what combination will help the community.

As participants select options on the screen it shows the consequences or benefits of using or depleting some energy resources such as coal, natural gas, solar power and wind. The goal of the game is to meet the projected electric demand in the Austin area over the next 11 years.

The game is part of a public participation process which began in November to survey community preferences on how to power the Austin area in upcoming years.

http://www.keyetv.com/news/local/story/Austin-Energy-launches-online-game/9dTdZGZshE6sQhzhhggKlw.cspx?rss=909

Austin Energy named Top Tier Smart Grid Utility in the US

Thank you to Jesse Berst for publishing the article below and acknowledging that Texas is a top tier Smart Grid state in the US. Furthermore, I want to thank him for naming Austin Energy the top tear Smart Grid Public Power Utility in the nation and one of the six top tier Smart Grid Utilities in the US.

Austin Energy has been on the Smart Grid journey since 2003. We are currently managing 200,000 devices real-time (smart meters, smart thermostats, computers, sensors, network elements) covering 1/3 of our service territory. By July 2009 (yes, this year), we will grow that capacity to managing 500,000 devices real-time and be servicing 100% our service territory. Effectively, by July 2009, Austin Energy will have the first full service territory Smart Grid ever built by any utility in the US.

Once again, our Smart Grid includes smart meters, smart thermostats, sensors, computers, and network elements across our entire service territory and covering 100% of all our customers (1 million consumers and 43,000 businesses).

Jesse's article follows. And I have included a link to get you there as well.

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Smart Grid Leadership: The Top Ten “Smartest” States in 2009
March 24, 2009 by Jesse Berst

With over $4 billion in Washington DC’s stimulus money now available for Smart Grid improvements and innovations, the burden now falls on the states to use these funds effectively and efficiently. The goal, as Smart Grid News’ Stimulus Scorecard makes clear, is to help consumers, utilities, the nation and the planet win.

Given that the world is moving to an Electricity Economy, modernizing the grid is one of the smartest things any state can do to ensure it will remain globally competitive. But which states have made the most progress? And which are now in the best position to deploy recently released stimulus dollars productively?

I asked a cross section of the brightest Smart Grid experts around the country for the ten “smartest” states in America. To my surprise, there was a strong consensus about who’s leading the charge toward a modernized electricity system. So, without further hesitation, here are the top ten smart grid states, as measured by their progress in policy, planning and implementation:

Tier 1

California: The Golden State is at the top of everyone’s list. On the policy side, regulators are out in front, pushing new Smart Grid practices. For their part, the state’s three big utilities – SCE, SDGE, and PG&E – have each developed best practice studies and frameworks that can help the rest of the country grasp the benefits of Smart Grid improvements. The three utilities are also rolling out smart meters to all of their customers. And, in terms of stimulus readiness, the state’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has vowed to get more stimulus money than any other state in the nation.

Texas: The Lone Star State is just behind California as the current Smart Grid leader. From a policy perspective, however, Texas is not quite as proactive as California. But three of its utilities – CenterPoint Energy, Oncor, and Austin Energy – are as progressive as any in the country, and they are well under way with smart meter rollouts. The next breakthrough here will be integrating a host of digital tools for the Smart Grid.

Tier 2

Florida: The Sunshine State has established a strong build out for the Smart Grid – especially in the area of load control and communications infrastructure. A major utility, FP&L, has many substantive programs and is planning a number of new rollouts that will advance Smart Grid efforts.

Illinois: The Prairie State has been cited for its collaborative approach to the Smart Grid. This involves and engages communities up and down and all across the state. Tight community linkage is crucial for optimal Smart Grid success.

Pennsylvania: The Keystone State is the nation’s leader when it comes to smart meter installation; a 2008 report from FERC indicates that advanced metering penetration has reached nearly 25 percent in Pennsylvania.

West Virginia: The Mountain State is about to unveil a fully integrated statewide Smart Grid plan. Experts are impressed by this comprehensive approach at such an early stage.

Ohio: The Buckeye State has a group of enlightened policy makers who have stressed smart grid education.

Tier 3

New Jersey: The Garden State’s guiding light on the Smart Grid, Commissioner Fred Butler, is a progressive pragmatist who also serves as the Chairman of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), where he is spearheading studies on standards and best practices for the Smart Grid.

Connecticut: The Constitution State is considered a Smart Grid policy and build-out leader. A supporter of Energy Improvement Districts, Connecticut has begun to increase use of distributed generation and demand response programs.

Colorado: The Centennial State has lots going for it in the Smart Grid world: First, Xcel's 100,000-person Smart Grid city; second, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder; and finally, Governor Bill Ritter, who is a big believer in Colorado’s new energy economy.

States to Watch

Michigan: DTE Energy is a forward-thinking utility that will enhance Smart Grid upgrades.

New York: Utilities in the state have done innovative research on the Smart Grid and how it would fare in dense urban areas.

Hawaii: The Department of Energy has selected Hawaii as a Smart Grid test case because of fossil-fuel dependence.

Indiana: Duke Energy’s plan for smart meter installation is currently under consideration by the state.

These informal Smart Grid rankings are a snapshot in time. Our electricity system is about to undergo major changes, thanks – in part – to federal stimulus funding.

In such a dynamic environment, it’s unclear who will be the Smart Grid leaders and followers in 2010. It’s also hard to say which states will be able to stay ahead in all three major smart grid categories – policy-making, planning, and implementation.

That said, there are already many lessons to learn right now – in how to plan, how to set policy, and even how to pursue stimulus dollars – from regulators and utilities in states like California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Connecticut and Colorado. These lessons will be invaluable if we are to keep pace with China, Europe and the Middle East, all of which are aggressively upgrading their electricity grids.

So, as we close the first quarter of a very eventful 2009, these are the country’s “smartest” states.

A version of this article previously appeared in GreenTech Media.

http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/commentary/Smart_Grid_Leadership_The_Top_Ten_Smartest_States_in_2009-546.html

Andres Carvallo to Deliver Opening Keynote at Storage Networking World

I have been asked by Ron Milton to deliver the opening visionary keynote for Computerworld's Storage Networking World (SNW).

SNW is the world’s largest event for IT end-users, vendors, channel partners, press and analysts involved in storage, data center, infrastructure, and business continuity.

At SNW, you can choose from over 190 educational sessions and network with peers from around the globe-plus visit with top solutions providers in the world's largest Expo devoted to storage and related technologies. This is your opportunity to amass reliable, firsthand, practical knowledge in only a few days, set at a luxurious resort environment.

http://www.snwusa.com/

SXSW Interactive 22nd Year Kicks-Off in Austin, TX

SXSW Interactive daily picks: parties, panels and more
What to do and where to go at South by Southwest Interactive? The choices can be overwhelming and you always feel like you’re missing something.

Friday, March 13
Thom Singer writes and speaks about networking, and today he discusses how to make connections at SXSW Interactive during “Core Conversation: The Conference Networking Catalyst” (2 p.m., Room 19B). To read some of Singer’s advice, visit statesman.com/lifeguide. You can also get ready for the rest of the conference at “How to Rock SXSW: The Basics” (3:30 p.m., Room 18BCD).
“The Ecosystem of News” is the first of several panels on the future of the news business (3:30 p.m., Room 12AB).
If you’re facing career transition (and who isn’t these days?), Jonathan Fields reads from his book “Career Renegade” (4:30 p.m., Day Stage).
More panel picks: “Everything You Know About Web Design Is Wrong” (2 p.m., Room A); “Social Engineering: Scam Your Way Into Anything or From Anybody” (5 p.m., Room 18BCD); “Try Making Yourself More Interesting” (5 p.m., Room A).Nighttime events: “Pastries and Pasties! A Burlesque Cupcake Cookoff!” 9 p.m., Emos, 603 Red River St. Free to badge-holders.

Saturday, March 14
Last year’s panel by the staff of The Onion News Network was a hit. This year’s must-see panel for comedy fans is “Comedy on Television and the Web” (5 p.m., Room A) featuring Ricky Van Veen of CollegeHumor.com and B.J. Novak, producer and Ryan Howard on “The Office.”
Tony Hsieh, the popular CEO of online shoe seller Zappos.com, presents the opening remarks (2 p.m., Room A) on how to build a massive audience for a brand.
Where is old media going in a new-media world? Call us curious. Designers at the Gray Lady explain “Designing the Future of the New York Times” (5 p.m, Hilton C).
Last year’s sudden video-game celebrity Jonathan Blow, who made the breakout downloadable game “Braid,” speaks on “Being Indie and Successful in the Video Game Industry” (3:30 p.m., Room 6). The panel also includes Ron Carmel of 2D Boy, the company that made fan fave “World of Goo.”
More panel picks:“Curating the Crowd-Sourced World” (11:30 a.m., Room C), “What Your Startup Can Learn from Barack Obama and Howard Dean” (11:30 a.m., Room 9), “Feed Me: Bite Size Info for a Hungry Internet” (3:30, Room B), “HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility!” (3:30 p.m., Room 18BCD).Nighttime events: Dorkbot (6 p.m., East Tent, Brush Square Park across from Convention Center) is always a mix of cool gadgets and extreme geek culture. The legendary Frog Design Opening Party (8 p.m., Mexican American Cultural Center) never disappoints. Last year, it featured fire dancers and Grupo Fantasma. Free drinks for badge-holders at both events.

Sunday, March 15
Nate Silver, the numbers wiz at fivethirtyeight.com who correctly predicted much of what went down in the 2008 presidential election, is the Sunday keynote interview. (2 p.m. Room A)
Several day events deal with tech and women’s issues including “That’s Not My Name: Beating Down Online Misogyny” (10 a.m. Room 8), “Moms Who Tech” (11:30 a.m. Room 19B) and an interview with Blogher founder Elisa Camahort (3 p.m. Studio SX) by Time Out NY columnist Julia Allison.
Joss Whedon company player Felicia Day (“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”) is on the “No Budget to Low Budget” Web video panel. (10 a.m. Room 12AB).
Singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Burnie Burns of Austin’s Rooster Teeth Productions lead a star-studded panel, “Marketing Meets New Media: Building Your Audience Online” (3:30 p.m. Room 12AB).
More panel picks: “From Flickr and Beyond: Lessons in Community Management” (3:30 p.m. Room A), “Your Personal Blog is Dead” (3:30 p.m., Room 5A), “Video Blogging: Turning Wine Into Gold” (5 p.m. Room A).Nighttime events: Adobe’s 12th-Annual SXSW Web Awards Ceremony (7:30 p.m. Hilton Austin, 500 E. Fourth St.) celebrates the best of the Web, and the Facebook Friends.Get Party hits downtown. (9:30 p.m. Pangaea, 409 Colorado St.) The American-Statesman’s Texas Social Media Awards holds its first party to celebrate social media and award an overall winner. (6 p.m., Ballet Austin, Tickets $15).

Monday, March 16
This year’s lineup boasts some interesting panels about women and the Web, including “Grokking Bloggers: It’s About Love and Underpants” (10 a.m., Room C). Elisa Camahort of BlogHer talks about women’s avid adoption of Web 2.0 tools. It’s followed by “Are Women Taken More Seriously on the Web?” (11:30 a.m., Room C).
Get a double dose of perennial SXSW favorite Kathy Sierra today: She’s part of the “Presenting Straight to the Brain” panel (10 a.m., Room A), and later she presents “Change Your World in 50 Minutes: Making Breakthroughs Happen” (3:30 p.m., Room A).
The best-selling authors of “The Power of Nice” are now talking about “The Power of Small” (10 a.m., Room 10).
Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times talks with artist James Powderly in today’s keynote interview (2 p.m., Room A).
Bruce Sterling’s pronouncements are a SXSW mainstay (5 p.m., Room A).
More panel picks: “Beyond Aggregation — Finding the Web’s Best Content” (10 a.m., Hilton Room A); “Shift Happens: Moving From Words to Pictures” (10 a.m., Hilton Room C); “WhiteHouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government” (3:30 p.m., Hilton Room D). Nighttime events: “Interactive at the Movies: The Two Bobs.” (7 p.m., Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave.). The gaming-themed movie by Tim McCanlies (“Iron Giant” screenplay) plays for Interactive badge-holders.

Tuesday, March 17
“Ur Blog Sux and Print Is Dead” features a lineup of blogging all-stars (Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger?, Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like, Kerry Miller of Passive-Aggressive Notes, Heather “Dooce” Armstrong and ex-Wonkette Ana Marie Cox) talking about, appropriately enough, blogging success (11:30 a.m. Room 18BCD).
We were charmed when the 1960s characters from “Mad Men” showed up talking with each other on Twitter. The perpetrators of it all explain how it happened at “Behind the Scenes with Mad Men on Twitter” (2 p.m. Room 18BCD).
Leaders at popular Web destinations Fark.com, Ars Technica and BlogHer talk about “Building Strong Online Communities” (11:30 a.m. Room A).
Today’s keynote interview features former Apple Fellow and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki interviewing Chris Anderson (“The Long Tail”) about “the power of free” (2 p.m. Room A).
More panel picks: “The State of the Internet Memescape: 2008-10” (10 a.m. Room 18BCD); “Photojournalism in 2009 and The Big Picture” (10 a.m. Room 10); “Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speed” (11:30 a.m. Room B); “Designing Change in America”(3:30 p.m. Room 8).Nighttime events: Media Temple Closing Party (7 p.m. La Zona Rosa, 612 W. Fourth St

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/digitalsavant/entries/sxsw_2009/

Andres Carvallo to Keynote CIO Global Forum

I have been invited to deliver a visionary keynote in day two of the event. I will be delivering my vision of "The New Energy Ecosystem" in which I recount the transformation of the electric industry business models and technologies and possible future scenarios that will create a new powerful worldwide economy.

The CIO Global Forum is an invitation only private conference for the top leading Global CIOs. The Forum is run by an advisory board made of Global CIOs. Prior advisory board members include the CIOs from DirecTV, MaterCard, Kroger, WebMD, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Northrop Gruman, and many others.

The Forum is focus on solving the most pressing issues and forecasting the most relevant new technologies and trends in the hi-tech industry with business value.

http://www.cxogf.com/

Andres Carvallo to Speak at APPA on Smart Grid

I have been invited by the American Public Power Association to deliver my "Building the Smart Grid" presentation, in which I recount the strategy and journey of the nation's very first Smart Grid to be built here in Austin, TX by Summer 2009.

The American Public Power Association has been hosting their annual Engineering & Operations Technical Conference for 53 years in a row. The Engineering & Operations Conference was founded to meet the unique needs of professionals charged with designing, developing and maintaining the electric systems across the country.

http://www.appanet.org/events/index.cfm?ItemNumber=21725

Putting a Jolt in the National Grid

BusinessWeek published an article Feb 19, 2009 in its Smart Infrastructure section, written by Steve Hamm.

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Utilities such as Dominion Virginia, Austin Energy, and Xcel Energy are spending big on cost-saving "smart-grid" technology

When it comes to business opportunities in smart infrastructure, one of the largest is in upgrading America's electricity network. U.S. utilities already spend about $20 billion a year on information technology, and as part of the federal stimulus bill, the government plans to spend another $11 billion over the next 20 months to help modernize the national grid. So it's little wonder that everyone from giants like Accenture (ACN) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to hot startups like Silver Spring Networks are angling for a piece of the action.

The idea is that "smart grid" technology will lower energy consumption and save utilities and consumers money. With smart meters and other technologies that provide power usage information in real time, consumers could make intelligent choices about cutting back. If prices spike early in the evening, they could wait to wash the dishes. Dominion Virginia Power says that in trials, customers with wireless monitors that give them real-time information about their electricity use have cut their usage by as much as 30%.

Utilities don't do this just to be good citizens. If smart technologies get corporate customers or consumers to reduce their electricity usage at peak times, the utilities don't have to build as much generating capacity. By not building new plants or rehabbing old ones, utilities can save billions.

One company in the vanguard of this movement is Austin Energy, which serves Austin, Tex. It started rolling out wireless thermostats for homes and businesses in 2004 and expects to complete its first-generation smart grid this year. The effort has made Austin Energy more efficient because it increasingly uses smart meters and sensors to monitor equipment rather than sending out employees in trucks. "Everybody should come see what we're doing," says Andres E. Carvallo, Austin Energy's chief information officer and architect of its smart grid.

But even the most supportive utilities caution that these are early days for this kind of technology. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy (XEL) is upgrading its system in Boulder, Colo., to create what it calls the first smart city in the nation. It will include everything from smart meters to solar generators to a system for electric-car owners to sell charges from their vehicles' batteries back to the utility when power demand is high. But the company doesn't know which technologies will pay off and which won't. "That's what we're trying to figure out," says Roy Palmer, vice-president for federal and state affairs.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_09/b4121046675316.htm

Andres Carvallo to Receive 2009 Dewey Award for Community Service

I was informed by Hugh Forrest, Event Director of South by Southwest Interactive, that I had been selected as a recipient of the 2009 Dewey Award. I am humbled and honored to receive such recognition.

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The Dewey Winburne Community Service Award celebrates the vision that technology is society's most effective tool to level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots. Like the man whom it honors, the criteria for judging this prize is somewhat open-ended and fluid: candidates need to primarily live in the Central Texas area and be involved with a grass-roots effort to use convergent media to better the lives of this community's less fortunate citizens. Beyond these two stipulations, qualifications for this award are largely dependent on the skill sets of the nominees.

The awards ceremony will take place during the 2009 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival on Monday March 16, 2009.

http://2009.sxsw.com/interactive/

Andres is a Knowbility board member and the Chair of its Air Austin Program since 2007.

Knowbility's mission is to ensure barrier-free I.T. - supporting the independence of people with disabilities by promoting the use and improving the availability of accessible information technology. Access to web-based information and activities has never been more important. Knowbility is working hard every day to improve technology access for all.

http://www.knowbility.org/main/?content=home

The Accessibility Internet Rally in Austin (AIR-Austin) is a unique, award-winning local program that has received national media coverage. AIR-Austin matches teams of Web designers and developers with non-profit organizations to build Web sites that are accessible for people with disabilities. This year, more than 100 professionals teamed up to create 15 accessible non-profit Web sites in one day of friendly competition. Many elements of design make a Web site more accessible to people with disabilities, while at the same time enhancing functionality and visual elegance. The same techniques that help disabled users (including those who use assistive technology) also aid handheld and mobile users. Thanks to those of you who helped to prove this by participating this year.

http://www.knowbility.org/air-austin/

Andres Carvallo to Speak at Carnegie Mellon's Smart Grid Conference

As Carnegie Mellon University prepares for its 5th Annual Electrical Engineering Conference with a focus on Smart Grids, Andres Carvallo has been invited to give his "Building the Smart Grid" presentation, where he shares his insights on how the first Smart Grid in the US is being built. This is a key opportunity to understand Austin Energy's Smart Grid journey and share with other speakers and participants from Carnegie Mellon, EPRI, Duke Energy, A123 Systems, PJM, Navigant Consulting, KEMA Consulting, UC Berkeley, Texas A&M, Cornell University, and MIT.

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~electricityconference/

The Utility of the Future

The question that most utilities ask is how to get to “the utility of the future”. However, you must start with defining what the future is. I see the future as building a utility that is customer-driven, integrated, interactive, optimized, distributed, secure, and self-healing. The utility of the future is:

· One that is capable of decoupling the physical delivery of the electrons from the commercial transaction of who, how, where, and when payment occurs
· One that understands that generation sources will be distributed and not entirely under the ownership of the utility
· One that excels in managing all the elements of the grid as a well orchestrated and self-healing system
· One that offers its customers affordable services and plans that realize true sustainability to its maximum capacity while eliminating the pollution and waste created

Once you have defined the future state, then you must assess the current state in writing and with signed agreement of the executive team. After nailing down the current and the future states, then comes a gap analysis and a plan of action for initiatives that will drive the transformation. That execution plan should be a collaborative effort from key stakeholders. And after the plan is agreed upon, you can declare execution and get to work. Remember that it is a journey.


Austin Energy’s journey

At Austin Energy, our success formula leads with enterprise architecture, followed by deploying smart meters, automated metering infrastructure—with a two-way communications network—and a meter data management system that integrates with the billing system, outage management system and marketing/conservation systems. After that, we closely follow with a distribution management system and integrate all elements to our supervisory data acquisition and control (SCADA) system and energy management system (EMS). As the technology and process transformation takes place, the policy and marketing teams must prepare to enable new services, programs, and pricing offers for all customer types.

What are some of the benefits to our customers? There are many, but let me list a few:
· Faster notification and restoration times from outages
· Better understanding and management of bills through access to usage information via a web portal
· Ability to participate in energy efficiency and demand response programs
· Reduced inconvenience by no longer needing to unlock gates and tie up dogs for meter reads
· Improvements in timeliness and accuracy of billing with fewer estimated bills
· Remote service turn-on and shut-off
· Access to real-time meter reads through a call to customer service or via data on an in-home display or web portal
· Customer can manage appliances via web portal
· Ability to participate in other tariff options

And the benefits to the utility? A few include:
· Reduced operating costs (e.g. fewer truck rolls)
· Improved outage management – ability to quickly determine if power is off or on
· Reduced number of delayed and estimated bills
· Reduced energy theft
· Lower procurement costs
· Improved load profiler
· Improved distribution load management and planning
· Greater historical load and usage data
· Better asset management and maintenance
· Time-of-use pricing, pre-paid pricing, and flat bill pricing programs
· Reduced need for additional generation and transmission capacity
· Support any market price-responsive tariff requirements


The vision: A day in 2015

Let’s fast forward to 2015 and share a day in the life of Ms. Small Commercial Owner (Sco). First to arrive, Ms. Sco opens up shop and goes through her daily routine, but her routine has shifted since she grew more aware of her consumption, and increasingly, of the potential for conservation. She no longer walks through the building, turning on all the lights and pushing down the thermostat setting to get the building cooled off after it warmed up overnight. The building is already pre-cooled according to a predetermined electricity conservation plan and her utility system is programmed to turn lights on and off according to a schedule based on room occupancy.

Instead, she heads straight for the computer to log in to her utility system and prepare for her weekly staff meeting at 9:00 am. As she begins to scan the different screens to track the performance of her business to its preset electricity goals, she couldn't help but recall how much things had changed in the six months since she began taking control of her business electricity use. Her company had already dropped its electricity bill by 20 percent, progress that had eluded her before she had the utility system working in the background on her behalf. She had already incorporated the good news about her new conservation-oriented workplace in the latest marketing collateral—anything to get an edge on the competition—and the new solar panels had just gone up last month. Already, the sun was inching up in the sky and the dial on the computer screen was whirling away, running counterclockwise as the numbers ticked down, not up. One could even say that her business had added a new profit center, given that she was using her rooftop to generate electricity!

As Ms. Sco heads to lunch, she glances at the utility system. It glowed green. She knows that it will move it to yellow as the end of the month came near, giving her and her staff more incentive to be more mindful of consumption in order to meet their monthly goals.

First to show up, last to leave, such was the life of the small business owner. It didn't take nearly as long to shut down the office by clicking through computer screens as it did to walk around the building and inspect light switches, systems, and so forth. No longer strictly reliant on a mental checklist, now she merely quickly reviews the utility system which monitors operational status as well as up-to-the-minute energy consumption levels, comparing them to pre-set goals based on best practices and industry norms. Thanks to the utility system, electric expenses had been transformed from one of the hardest line items on her income statement to manage to one of the easiest.

Nighttime is the major off-peak cycle in any utility service territory, when electricity rates are the lowest. Charging forklifts and other battery-driven equipment—a category that now includes plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs)—is best accomplished overnight to avoid the high spikes in energy consumption that can prove costly under electricity rates that include a "demand" charge.

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I wrote this articled for the new Intelligent Utility magazine debuting last month.
The publication is a great move forward in our industry. The Editor-in-Chief is a great bright friend Christine Richards. Congratulations Christine and her team for a great start!

http://energycentral.fileburst.com/iuonline/2009-1-jan-feb/fa_Balancing_Vision.pdf

Austin Energy to build largest solar power plant in the US

The following article was posted by the Austin-American Statesman newspaper on January 29, 2009.

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Austin proposes nation's largest solar array
Cost of power from 30-megawatt plant raises concerns among city's manufacturers.

By Marty Toohey AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 29, 2009

Austin could soon have one of the largest solar power facilities in the world.

Austin Energy, the city's electric utility, wants to set aside 300 acres it owns outside Webberville in eastern Travis County for a solar array, which would be built and owned by San Francisco-based Gemini Solar Development Co. Austin Energy would be the exclusive client and pay $10 million a year for 25 years for the power generated by the array.

The facility would open in late 2010 and produce enough energy annually to power up to 5,000 homes.

It would also raise the monthly electricity bill of an average Austin homeowner, who uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours, by an estimated 60 cents, according to Austin Energy. And it has generated concern among some of Austin's large manufacturers, who say the plant could raise their bills substantially.

The average monthly electricity bill in fiscal year 2008 among Austin single-family homes was $98.51, the utility said.

The city has already decided to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, and the plant would put Austin Energy on pace to meet its goal of getting 30 percent of its power from renewable power sources by 2020, utility officials said.

"We think this is a good project," said Michael McCluskey, Austin Energy's chief operating officer, "and we think this is a very competitive solar project."

Austin Energy already offers to pay part of the cost of adding solar panels to homes and businesses, but the Webberville array would be the city's first large-scale solar project. The facility would have more than double the generating capacity of the nation's largest solar array, which is owned by Gemini Solar and provides power to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. (At least one planned facility, in Arizona, would provide power to a privately owned utility and would dwarf Austin's in terms of power produced).

Even though the Webberville plant would be huge, it would add a relatively small amount of power — 30 megawatts — to the 2,900 megawatts the city can now generate, Solar energy is more expensive than alternatives such as natural gas, nuclear and coal, which produce more pollutants and political objections.

The City Council was scheduled to hear a presentation today on the solar array. But the presentation and a possible vote were postponed at the request of Austin Energy. The council is being asked to wait because of the concerns of several large manufacturers, including Freescale Semiconductor and Spansion.

They told the city's Electric Utility Commission on Monday that they support renewable energy but are concerned about a lack of concrete information about the cost of the solar power, as well as the hit they expect to take to their bottom line. "If the cost goes up for our utilities," said Roger Wood, a corporate facilities manager for Freescale Semiconductor, "our price goes up for our product." Concerns about cost and public process also were raised last year when the city decided to buy power from a plant to be built in East Texas powered by wood waste.

That $2.3 billion deal was approved by the City Council in August over objections from environmental activists and businesses. Complaints centered around a perceived lack of public input, the cost, concerns about the plant's effect on the environment and questions about whether there was enough "biomass" near the plant to provide a steady supply of fuel.

The biomass and solar plants were planned jointly as part of a broader plan, which the city is still refining, for getting 30 percent of its power from renewable fuels by 2020. With the two plants, Austin Energy expects to hit 18 percent by 2012.

Privacy laws intended to protect the contractor's competitiveness prevent the city from releasing the cost per killowatt-hour that Gemini will charge for the power.

But long-time Austin environmental activist Paul Robbins, the author of the Austin Environmental Directory guide, estimates the cost at 16.5 cents per kilowatt-hour — much more than traditional power sources. He based that estimate on the city's total projected bill and the solar array's production capacity.

But Robbins, who is generally supportive of solar power, cautioned that energy production is a complicated matter that makes comparisons between solar and other types of energy tricky.
The solar plant would operate only about a quarter of the day and provide energy when the city's demand is highest. By contrast, most fossil-fuel facilities operate around the clock.
The cost of solar "is not so bad as it first seems," Robbins said.

Austin attorney Pike Powers says it's the kind of project Austin needs to maintain a strong economy.

Powers, one of the leading figures in Austin's push to attract the semiconductor industry in the 1980s and '90s, says solar energy can help Austin replace the semiconductor jobs it's now losing. He sees several parallels between the semiconductor industry then and the solar industry now.
For instance, he said, if Austin can attract solar plants, they would probably be followed by suppliers, which in turn would be followed by companies that make the suppliers' equipment.
Austin Energy officials say that unlike natural gas and oil, whose prices are volatile and expected to trend upward, the long-term costs of the solar plant would stay relatively stable.

McCluskey, the utility's chief operating officer, said those terms are appealing because they can give Austin a "hedge" against spikes in fossil-fuel cost. If oil and gas do skyrocket, solar may also become a relative bargain in the future, or at least look less costly by comparison, McCluskey said.

Austin would also avoid pumping 51,000 tons of carbon per year into the air by using the solar array versus an equivalent fossil-fuel powered plant, according to Austin Energy estimates. Carbon emissions contribute to global warming.

The 300 acres proposed for the plant are part of a 2,800-plus acre tract at Webberville owned by Austin Energy. The city has been debating whether to use some of the property for a landfill, but the solar plant is small enough and far enough out of the way that it shouldn't affect the landfill discussions, McCluskey said. Hector Gonzales, the mayor of Webberville and a vocal critic of the landfill proposal, likewise said the solar plant probably wouldn't affect the landfill talks. "It's only one part of the property," Gonzales said. "But it's an idea for it I support."

Entering the Petabyte Age

Imagine a world 100% digitized, interconnected, gathering information and content via devices and sensors of all kinds (small to micro to nano to dust) shown via dashboards of all kinds on smartphones, PCs, tablets, readers, watches, and TVs. Well, that world is upon us. And the real challenge will be the amount of data that it will generate and how to make relevant decision making information from it all.

We measure data space (storage) in bytes. A kilobyte, is 1,000 bytes. A megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. A gigabyte is a 1,000,000,000 bytes. A terabyte is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. And a petabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

A petabyte is 2 to the 50th power, or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes. However, petabytes are often estimated as 10 to the 15th power, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. To avoid ambiguity, the exact calculation is often referred to as a pebibyte instead of a petabyte, though both definitions are commonly accepted. A petabyte is 1,024 terabytes and precedes the exabyte unit of measurement.

So how do you get a feeling for what a terabyte or petabyte holds? Let's try a few examples:

1 terabyte goes for less than $200 and can hold some 300,000 songs.

20 terabytes - number of photos uploaded to Facebook each month.

200 terabytes - all the data in the U.S. Library of Congress.

500 terabytes - all the videos in Youtube.

1,000 terabytes or 1 petabyte - data processed by Google's servers every 2 hours.

60,000 terabytes or 60 petabytes - one year of 5 minute interval data reads from all the meters in the U.S.

10 million terabytes or 10,000 petabytes - one year of one minute interval data reads from all the electric appliances/devices connected to the U.S grids.

Computers made possible the digitalization of information sixty years ago. The Internet made that information reachable twenty years ago. Search engine crawlers made it all a single database ten years ago. And now new semantic search products are about to turn all that data into incredibly valuable information to many. Rules engines, correlation engines, predictive engines, autonomic engines all redefining how data becomes information.

With sensors everywhere, clouds of processors, and infinite storage, we could capture, warehouse and understand massive amounts of data that would change how we make decisions on any discipline. How would science, marketing, medicine, financial services, energy, law, and many other crafts change with the true ability to capture every data point and make decisions from it? And how about predicting decisions into the future from the data?

The possibilities are endless for new opportunities.

Top 10 Value Technologies for 2009

In 2009 we shall see a massive adoption across all enterprises of these proven technologies. My following choices offer the greatest value back to any of you for the coming 12 months. These technologies are proven, offer choices from multiple vendors, enjoy a growing adoption, and many of them offer the opportunity to help the environment:

1 - Virtualization
2 - Multi-Core 64-bit Computers and Operating Systems
3 - De-duplication and Compression
4 - Monitor and Control Sensors for Data Centers
5 - VOIP plus Unified Messaging
6 - Content, Collaboration and Social Networking Tools
7 - SOA plus Business Intelligence
8 - Wireless broadband everywhere
9 - Data Encryption and multi-factor authentication
10 - Cloud Computing

Enterprises that accelerate the adoption of some of these technologies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) along with Information Life-cycle Management (ILM) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) tools will realize very Green IT shops.

These technologies speak for themselves and deployed across your enterprise they would increase your efficiency and effectiveness in all fronts. 2009 should see a great deal of investments for enterprises to realize great value by applying these technologies to become greener, create new business models, innovate business processes and increase customer satisfaction.

iPhone 3G: Still Not Ready for the Enterprise!

In May 2008, I wrote .......

"Many colleagues and peers across the land continue to debate if we should support the iPhone at work. First of all, let me emphasize that the iPhone is a great device with incredible technology integration and beautiful design. However, the product has some serious short comings when it comes to Enterprise users and requirements. Here are the few important things that Apple has to resolve to get an iPhone that can not only be supported by IT but endorsed by IT.

1 - Security encryption on the device

2 - Remote access for data locking or data wipe out

3 - Deliver native push email support for POP3 and MS Exchange

4 - Deliver over-the-air sync

5 - Removable battery

6 - Make available to all carriers

Apple knows all these requirements and has been working on several others since the device came out last year. We look forward to version 2."


Only 3 and 4 have been solved by the new software. And while it is clear that the iPhone is a raving success and that the new version being cheaper has exceeded all volume expectations, the iPhone 3G is still not ready for the enterprise. And here is why..................

1) Manageability and Security
When it comes to employees' smartphones, IT managers may seem like the worst kind of control demons. And for good reason -- nothing is as easily lost or stolen (which could be use to hack the corporation) as a smartphone, along with its corporate data. RIM introduced device management software, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), at the same time it launched the device itself back in 1999. Today BES, lets IT managers enforce more than 200 security and other IT policies, as well as create their own.

The iPhone 3G uses the same ActiveSync technology in Exchange 2007 SP1, which only supports 45 policies vs. the 200 policies supported by the Blackberry Enterprise Server. Hence, the iPhone and ActiveSync combo is not secure or practical. Why? Because many ActiveSync features are missing. Those features include the ability to limit users from downloading some or all third-party software, the ability to turn off expensive international data roaming, and the ability to natively encrypt data on the iPhone or its storage card. The lack of built-in management features is in contrast with the iPhone's many built-in consumer features, such as its 2-megapixel camera, its music and video player and fast Web browser. These all create more potential security and compliance problems and ways for the device to be misused.

2) No removable battery and Carrier Choice
Having to send the entire device back for service due to battery issues is just not practical. And having to only work with AT&T is also not practical.


The iPhone 3G software is a great progress over the older version. However, there are still four major challenges to over come. Maybe version 3 will remove 1 and 2, while the battery issue is a hardware problem that will require re-design, and the one carrier support is a business issues that can be fixed when the AT&T agreement expires.

Austin Energy Accelerates Smart Grid Lead

Landmark “Pecan Street Project” Brings Together City of Austin, Austin Energy, University of Texas, Austin Chamber and Environmental Defense Fund To Design Energy System of the Future

National Corporate Partnerships with Dell, GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPoint Announced at Clean Energy Venture Summit

(Austin – Dec. 3, 2008) – Representatives from the City of Austin, Austin Energy, The University of Texas’ Austin Technology Incubator, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) unveiled details of the Pecan Street Project, a bold effort to design a new, clean energy infrastructure, business model and proving ground for tomorrow’s energy technology. Corporate partnerships with Dell, GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPoint were also announced.

“Austin has the opportunity to play the same role in the evolution of America’s energy economy that it did with the semiconductor boom in the ‘80s,” said Austin Mayor Pro Tem Brewster McCracken. “The Pecan Street Project will bring together the best talent from Texas and across the country to address the infrastructure, technology and policy challenges that stand between us and a cleaner, reliable, affordable and modernized electricity system.”

Austin is not the only city embarking on a “utility redesign” or “smart grid” project. But because Texas has its own grid, modifications to the power system do not require federal approval. And because the City Council is Austin Energy’s board of directors, Austin is in a unique position to implement technology changes more quickly and offer its electric grid as a real-world proving ground for tomorrow’s clean energy technology.

“Several other cities are testing clean-generation or efficiency products,” McCracken said. “We’ll do that. But we’ll also test the software, storage and business models we need to make it all fit together."

The project scope includes designing a system that:
· delivers plentiful, reliable and affordable energy to Austin’s growing citizenry;
· is responsible with Texas’ most precious natural resources, like air and water;
· can eliminate the need for more polluting power plants;
· produces a power plant’s worth of energy, generated within the city limits via renewable resources, and that;
· Austin intends to share with cities across America and around the world. This project will help cities map out the creation of the infrastructure it will take to power their economies and preserve the environment.

The City approached EDF this fall, and preliminary planning meetings occurred in October. Staff from EDF’s Austin, New York, California and Washington, D.C. offices are involved in the project.

“Through their work with McDonald’s, FedEx and DuPont, EDF has demonstrated a unique expertise in bringing together industry leaders to address our most pressing challenges,” McCracken said. “Together with our experts at Austin Energy, staff from the Austin Technology Incubator, the Chamber and these excellent corporate partners, EDF will spearhead the nine-month project to develop the technical specifications and sustainable business model for a truly modernized utility.”

Corporate partners will assist the project team by providing staff resources and strategic guidance within their areas of expertise. Partners will also help the project team identify technologies that can be pilot-tested on the local electrical grid once the initial phase of the project is completed.

In addition to the corporate partnerships announced today, the Pecan Street Project will be tapping the expertise of SEMATECH, the world's leading advanced technology consortium, to help structure the clean energy R&D consortium.

Quotes from Partners
“Austin Energy is doing something quite unique: It is trying to reinvent the electric system and to share the lessons it learns with the world. Austin Energy is opening its grid to new clean, cutting-edge resources that will lead to a cleaner Austin and create a model to tackle global climate change. And Austin Energy is so confident in its vision that it is soliciting input from some of the smartest minds from the nation's leading corporations on issues ranging from technology to business planning. As a citizen of Austin, I am proud that our city is leading again on the environment and the new economy.” – Jim Marston, Texas regional offices director and senior attorney, Environmental Defense Fund

“This is an exciting project that underscores the vision set forth by Mayor Wynn and the Austin City Council of exceptional community-wide efficiency in energy use combined with clean, sustainable generation that takes advantage of advancements in distributed energy.” – Roger Duncan, general manager, Austin Energy

“The Austin Chamber is excited to join the City of Austin, Austin Energy, the Austin Technology Incubator, and Environmental Defense Fund in announcing the launch of the Pecan Street Project. The Pecan Street Project will be focused on developing the electric grid of the future right here in Austin, allowing us to use local clean technology resources and collaborate with key industry partners.” – Paul Bury, chair-elect, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, CEO and Founder of Bury+Partners, Inc.

"We see the Pecan Street Project as a major catalyst for the creation of the next generation of clean tech companies. It has the potential to be a start-up magnet for the entire Central Texas area." – Isaac Barchas, director, Austin Technology Incubator

"GE Energy welcomes the opportunity to be engaged in this innovative and important project. We value our ongoing relationship with Austin Energy and look forward to continuing to deploy our smart grid technologies, further enhancing the intelligence of their network. A smarter grid will optimize the integration of renewable energy sources, drive increased energy efficiencies and empower consumers with information to better manage their energy usage and costs." – Bob Gilligan, VP T&D, GE Energy

"Today the energy grid is all about distribution; it's a one-way ride. A smart grid will act more like the Internet - exchanging information and energy among nodes for collaboration across the network resulting in a more efficient, sustainable grid. Cisco is applying its expertise in networks and collaboration to this space, and by working with an innovative city like Austin, together we have the opportunity to determine what our energy future looks like." – Carolyn Purcell, Director, Internet Business Solutions Group for Cisco Systems, Inc.

“Dell knows that increasing the availability and use of renewable energy is integral to a low-carbon economy. Partnerships like the Pecan Street Project are key to these goals and we look forward to playing a role in helping this effort reach them.” – Jeff Krech, Global Facilities Sustainability Program Manager, Dell, Inc.

“Technology and innovation play increasingly important roles in driving solutions to address the world’s environmental challenges. Public-private partnerships like this one are important to not only increase awareness about society’s need to balance energy and environment, but can also demonstrate workable ways toward sustainability.” – Jon C. Arnold, managing director, Worldwide Power & Utilities, Microsoft

“Freescale is excited to be a member of the Pecan Street Project and we are looking forward to working with the other partners and founders to help enable the utility of the future, including renewable energy sources, a smart grid and energy efficiency.” – Vivek Mohindra, senior vice president of strategy and business transformation, Freescale

"Building a sustainable energy future relies on our ability as a nation to radically modernize the energy systems of our major cities. Being one of the fastest growing and most progressive U.S. cities, Austin is the right place to embark on this project and we look forward to collaborating as part of this consortium." – Guido Bartels, general manager, IBM's Global Energy & Utilities Industry and chairman of the GridWise Alliance, a Smart Grid advocacy group

“Today’s aging energy infrastructure demands improvements. As such, utilities are eagerly seeking best practices and successful projects on which to model Smart Grids that will meet their communities’ energy needs. The results of the Pecan Street Project will help guide utilities around the world in choosing and using Smart Grid software and technology to slash energy waste and improve the environmental profile of energy use.” – Quentin Grady, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities

“Intel is happy to provide the core technology that makes the Pecan Street Project possible. The next generation of smart grids, smart buildings, clean energy sources, plug-in vehicles and utility data centers are being enabled and networked by Intel microprocessors and communications technology, and we are excited to participate in this innovative project.” – Lorie Wigle, general manager of Eco-Technology, Intel Corp.

“An intelligent grid is the essential infrastructure that will enable clean energy and electric vehicles to be adopted on the scale necessary to meet our energy and environmental challenges. The Pecan Street Project is a significant step for Austin and also represents a major advancement for the Smart Grid nationwide.” – Peter L. Corsell, CEO, GridPoint

"The Pecan Street Project aims to bring companies and organizations together to develop and test real-world applications of emerging technologies, and build a sustainable clean-energy infrastructure for the 21st century. These objectives certainly resonate with us. As a leading consortium for emerging technology R&D, SEMATECH understands the power of a consortium to accelerate technology innovation and commercialization, and we're proud to support and bring our experience to bear on this groundbreaking initiative." – Mike Polcari, president and CEO, SEMATECH

"Twenty years ago, a fundamental part of Austin's strategy for SEMATECH was training our workforce. We came together as a community not just to improve technology, but also to improve people's skills and opportunities. Now, Austin is coming together again to lead in the creation of a clean energy economy. As a trustee for Austin Community College and the president of the Urban League, I am excited to be part of this mission to solve clean energy's greatest technical challenges and prepare Austinites for opportunities in green collar jobs." – Jeffrey Richard, president and CEO, Austin Area Urban League

Andres Carvallo to Speak at CleanTech Summit

The CleanTech Summit is a two-day, multi-track, multi-industry conference exploring: Intellectual Property creation, protection, and monetization.; Innovation Best practices in converting science into viable, valuable technical innovation; Investment in current and emerging patterns and best practices in Clean Technology investments, both portfolio and strategic, including valuations, timelines, and exit strategies.

More than 20 individual sessions, including in-depth workshops, will focus on business and investment strategies across a broad array of clean technologies, including:
Renewable energy sources;
Bio and alternative fuels;
Energy storage;
Smart Grids;
Water and wastewater;
Green IT;
Hybrid and electric vehicles; and more.

http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=630468

Andres Carvallo to Keynote 9th Annual IT Portfolio Management

The 9th Annual IT Portfolio Management Event is the only conference to take an unbiased, cross-industry approach to building an effective and efficient portfolio with the goal of maximizing every IT investment.

The days of IT as a mere service provider are over. To get ahead IT departments must align with business goals and objectives…and before long, most organizations will see a complete fusion of IT and the business. Are you ready?

http://www.iirusa.com/itpm/welcome.xml

Andres Carvallo Speaks at Knowledge2008

Knowledge2008 is an exclusive conference for CIOs and senior IT decision-makers working in the utility industry and the vendors who provide solutions for them! This “invitation only” event is the most exclusive of its kind in the utility industry. Utility IT leaders face no shortage of challenges. Tasked with developing technology roadmaps to thrive amidst aging infrastructure and rapid market changes, CIOs still must create opportunities to apply new solutions and help grow company profits.

The CIO Summit is an invitation-only event. To receive an invitation, a delegate candidate must hold the title of CIO, CTO or hold the highest level of authority for the annual IT budget at a utility, ISO, IPP or other power generation or distribution business.

http://www.knowledge2008.com/index.cfm

Andres Carvallo named to the HITEC 100

HITEC quarterly event to be held in Atlanta, Georgia titled “Hispanic Leadership Success”, October 10th and 11th, 2008. HITEC will also be announcing at the conference the official HITEC 100; the first time in the IT industry a list of the top Hispanic IT Executives has ever been compiled.

http://www.hitecglobal.org/index.html
http://www.hitecglobal.org/events/Conference_Agenda.cfm

Andres Carvallo named chair of Air-Austin for 2008

On October 2, 2008 over 100 participants in this year’s Accessible Internet Rally joined forces, to continue our mission of Universal Design.

At this year’s kick-off, one could feel all of the dedication, energy and excitement oozing from those in attendance. Many of you have remarked that this was the most enjoyable and inspiring kick off that they have had the honor to be a part of. We feel the same way about you- we are honored and thankful that you choose to be a part of the AIR Family.

AIR-Austin is a unique, award-winning program that has received local and national media coverage. Its purpose is to match teams of web designers/developers with non-profit organizations to build new websites or enhance existing ones to make them more accessible for people with disabilities. Over the past ten years, the Austin community has joined forces to ensure that countless people with disabilities can now access their information and better use the Internet as a tool for gaining knowledge, economic power and exploring job possibilities.

http://www.knowbility.org/air-austin/

Austin Energy and Andres Carvallo recognized by InformationWeek 500

Austin Energy Listed on 2008 InformationWeek 500
Voice Over IP Project Gets National Recognition

Monarch Beach, CA, September 16, 2008 – Austin Energy, the 9th largest public power utility, nationally recognized for its energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, has been listed on the 2008 InformationWeek 500. This is the second year in a row Austin Energy has been named to the InformationWeek 500 list. The 2008 InformationWeek 500 companies were revealed on September 15, 2008 at a gala awards ceremony held during the InformationWeek 500 Conference at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California.

“We are honored to be recognized by InformationWeek for our world class work on telecommunications”, said Andres Carvallo, Chief Information Officer.

Austin Energy deployed a Voice Over IP communication platform throughout the enterprise (1,600 employees in 20 buildings). The VOIP Platform allowed Austin Energy to consolidate to a single supplier thus reducing the amount of annual maintenance costs, reduced network operating expenses by leveraging an existing OC-48 fiber network to every building, reduced overall staff support and employee training costs, decreased service response time by having increased technicians trained on a single platform, increased employee productivity by offering new phone and unified messaging functionality (administrative assistants claim a 20% increase in phone and communication productivity), increased over all customer satisfaction by 11% points. This project delivered a 12 month ROI and customers rave about the solution. This project closed on-time and slightly below budget and it is considered a great success.

“For 20 years, the InformationWeek 500 has honored the most innovative users of business technology,” said InformationWeek Editor-in-Chief Rob Preston. “Year after year, InformationWeek 500 companies harness technology to improve efficiency, boost productivity, drive revenue, and establish a competitive advantage. We applaud this year’s winners, and the CIOs and other executives whose ingenuity and risk taking are at the center of business technology innovation.”

InformationWeek has identified and honored the nation's most innovative users of information technology with its annual listing, now in its 20th year, and has tracked the technology, strategies, investments and administrative practices of America’s best-known companies. The list is unique among corporate rankings because it spotlights the power of innovation in information technology, rather than simply identifying the biggest IT spenders.

Additional details on the InformationWeek 500 can be found online at www.informationweek.com/iw500/.

Andres Carvallo to Speak at GridWeek

GridWeek is the annual gathering in Washington, DC, of Smart Grid stakeholders and thought leaders. GridWeek provides the opportunity for organizations focused onSmart Grid to hold meetings and participate in collaborative sessions,including leading speakers on the Smart Grid revolution.

A realization is emerging that a new view of energy, beyond oil, coal and other fossil-based fuels, will result in decentralized components of the electricity grid, a far cry from the central generation and structured system of the past. A smart information network for the electric grid is seen asnecessary to manage and automate this new world. GridWeek is focused on this vision.

http://gridweek.com/2008/default.asp#home

Andres Carvallo to Speak at Computerworld's Green IT Symposium

While the lower costs and environmental benefits associated with greener IT have long been proven, power consumption by the world's data centers has doubled since 2000 and continues to grow. What's more, this doesn't consider the footprint of technology outside the data center. So what are world-class CIOs and their teams doing to curb power consumption, environmental danger, and ongoing costs? How are early adopters of green IT philosophies creating and managing their green IT game plan? And what regulatory requirements are moving the conversation beyond social responsibility to required action?

The answers are at Computerworld's Green IT Symposium, where world-class IT leaders will examine the issues, and share best practices in reducing their IT organization's carbon footprint. Whether your priorities are to lower costs, comply with regulations, outline a green IT strategy for your entire organization, or to simply find out why 80% of IT executives say green IT is of growing importance to their organization, Computerworld's Green IT Symposium will help.

http://www.greenitsymposium.com/

Andres Carvallo to Speak at EPRI's Advanced IT Requirements of the Electric Power Industry Conference

The purpose of the CIO Workshop is to review the results of the EPRI-funded utility CIO survey carried out in Fall 2007. The workshop will also provide an interactive forum for IT executives from the utility industry to discuss case studies of cutting-edge "Smart Grid" technology implementations that they are undertaking with their colleagues. The workshop will offer a demonstration of the EPRI multi-vendor Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technology testing suite in the Living Laboratory to the attending utility CIOs and CTOs to identify the opportunities and challenges in this critical area of "Smart Grid" development. The workshop will also help identify needs and opportunities for industry collaboration related to the development and implementation of IT for greater grid reliability, security, and availability.

http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/info/summary.aspx?e=23c734c9-0d25-4e55-9bdd-b849a5542fd2

Andres Carvallo to Speak at Next Generation Utilities

The utilities sector is in the midst of unprecedented transformation. Several factors are driving fundamental change: liberalization and increased competition, strategic mergers and acquisitions, regulatory pressure around climate change, systems reliability and convergence of gas, electricity and water concerns.

Today, utilities do business with a highly educated customer base, demanding sophisticated service offerings and competitive pricing.

Utility companies find themselves under increasing pressure to modernize their business processes and enabling technologies. There is a competitive surge in the industry to secure market share with technology enabling the drive. Despite various initiatives, such as smart metering and the intelligent grid, companies struggle to drive a higher level of intelligence and automation across the entire value chain from generation straight through to the customer.

http://www.ngusummit.com/

Andres Carvallo Completes University of Idaho's Utility Executive Course

The University of Idaho Utility Executive Course (UEC) engages the utility industry's best leaders from diverse business backgrounds in a dynamic interchange of knowledge, insight, and expertise. For over 50 years, the Utility Executive Course has been preparing industry leaders with the knowledge and skills they need to produce business results. UEC has earned a worldwide reputation as the premier industry-driven executive education program designed specifically for utility leaders. World-class faculty, outstanding participants, a highly interactive learning environment, and abundant opportunities for network building are hallmarks of the program.

This 3 week long mini-MBA Utility focus crash program is a sensational way to understand the technology, supply chain, financial, regulatory, organizational, and strategic planning trends, best practices, drivers, and issues of the past, today and the future.

The list of participating companies this year was a superb representation of the industry

AlintaGas
Alberta Power Limited
Allegheny Power Service Corporation
Alliant Energy
American Electric Power
Aquila
Austin Energy
Avista Corp.
Bahamas Electricity Corporation
Bermuda Electric Light Company Ltd.
Bermuda Gas and Utility Company Ltd.
BC HydroBlack Hills Corporation
British Columbia Transmission Corporation
Canadian Utilities Limited
CenterPoint Energy
China Light & Power Company, Ltd.
Chubu Electric Power Company, Inc.
Colorado Springs Utilities
CPS Energy
DPL Inc.
Edison Electric Institute
Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
Energy East
Energy West
Entergy Corporation
EPCOR
Equitable Resources
General Public Utilities
Groton Utilities
Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc.
Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc.
IDACORP, Inc.
Lower Colorado River Authority
Maine Public Service Company
Maui Electric Company, Ltd.
Montana-Dakota Utilities
National Grid USA
Northwest Territories Power Corporation
NorthWestern Energy
NSTARNW Natural
OGE Energy Corp
PacifiCorp
Pacific Gas & Electric Company
PEPCO Holdings, Inc.
Perennial Power
PJM Interconnection, LLC.
Platte River Power Authority
PNM Resources
Portland General Electric Company
Puget Sound Energy
Sabah Electricity Board
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Salt River Project
SaskPower
Sierra Pacific Resources
South Wales Electricity, plc
Southern California Edison Company
Southern Company
Southwestern Electric Power Company
Tenaga Nasional Berhad
Terasen Gas
Tucson Electric Power Company
Uganda Electricity Board
West Texas Utilities Company
Xcel Energy Inc.

I highly recommend that you attend this program, if you are interested in running an electric utility.

http://www.uiuec.org/default.aspx?pid=105667

Andres Carvallo Speaks/Moderates Smart Grid Sessions at Clean Technology 2008

Clean Technology 2008 is the only one conference that brings together the clean technology & sustainable communities – whether you are developing, funding, or adopting technologies that are helping to create a sustainable world – Clean Technology 2008 has a broad range of programs to make this the one conference you can’t afford to miss.

http://www.csievents.org/Cleantech2008/

http://www.csievents.org/Cleantech2008/symposia/Energy_Transmission_Storage.html

Andres Carvallo Named Chairman of the LPPC CIO Task Force

The 3rd Annual LPPC CIO Roundtable will be hosted by Austin Energy from May 14 - 16, 2008, and its CIO, Andres Carvallo, has been named chairman for the next 12 months. Of the 24 member CIOs, 16 will be in attendance at the historic event to review the work of several sub-team groups advancing the planning and execution of key activities: strategic planning, performance metrics, security, disaster recovery, project management, quality programs (like ITIL), and enterprise architecture. The LPPC members will discuss at length their progress toward building the utility of the future.

The Large Public Power Council (LPPC) is an organization comprised of 24 of the nation's largest public owned and controlled power systems. The LPPC represents the public interest on national energy issues. From Sacramento to Seattle, from New York to Texas, LPPC members directly and indirectly provide reliable, high quality, low-cost electricity to most of the more than 40 million people served by publicly owned utilities. This includes serving tens of thousands of large and small businesses located in some of the fastest growing urban and rural residential and commercial markets in America.

The LPPC CIO Task Force was created in 2005 to help accelerate the sharing of IT best practices and knowledge transfer among its members as the industry evolves very quickly to adopt new business models, new clean energy sources, new levels of reliability, and new services to customers.

http://www.lppc.org/members.htm

http://www.lppc.org/whois.htm

Is There a Plug-In Hybrid in Your Future?

Friends and colleagues across the nation stop me from time to time and ask, "my wife's car has run its course and it is time to replace it. What car should I buy? Should I wait until the Plug-In Hybrids come out? How long would that be?"

How times have changed. When Roger Duncan, General Manager at Austin Energy (my boss), decided to push for the Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle to emerge victorious and save America from oil dependency several years back, it was not clear that the world would turn so quickly to embrace the long-time green ways that many rejected for so long.

Read all about it at
http://www.pluginpartners.org/

And now, everybody loves green and everyone is rushing to it. Finally! Green makes sense. Especially for America. Here are 10 reasons as to why America needs Plug-In Hybrids:

1 - The U.S. is facing a perfect storm of rising fuel costs, escalating dependence on foreign oil, and increasing greenhouse gases and other air pollution.
2 - Oil is a finite resource.
3 - The U.S. holds only about 2% of the world’s oil reserves, yet accounts for 25% of world consumption.
4 - The U.S. must import more than 60% of our oil.
5 - Dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue because we are dependent for oil on unstable countries and/or countries hostile to the United States.
6 - Two-thirds of all U.S. oil use is consumed by cars, trucks and buses; meaning reduction in oil must concentrate on the transportation sector.
7 - There is a growing consensus that climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gases demand dramatic action.
8 - Oil use is a major contributor to greenhouse gases; for example, it accounts for about 40% of all U.S. CO2 emissions.
9 - The cost of oil, and thus gasoline, has risen dramatically in recent years, directly affecting the price of gasoline for motorists and businesses.
10 - Increasing global demand for oil— especially by China and India— means long term rising costs are likely.

So Detroit and Japan have committed to building some by 2010. But there are several new green auto start-up companies making plug-in hybrids as early as now and into the future:

2008
Tesla Motors
Think Global

2009
Fisker Automotive
Mindset

2010
Loremo
Gordon Murray Design

And I hear that there are more coming. A true renaissance for the auto industry. Personally, I dream of a Plug-In Hybrid Hummer. See, the bigger the car, the bigger the battery. Hence, the longer the ride and fun. So hurry up GM and build me one.

So why am I so interested in Plug-In Hybrids being an energy guy, because you should imagine an America with all cars Plugging-In at night recharging and leveraging the most sophisticated distribution network in the country. The electric grid. It is the most efficient, most reliable, and most effective distribution network ever built.

Now imagine an economy booming with new innovation, new business models, new companies, and renewed traditional companies riding on top of the electric grid renaissance. Imagine portable power (mobile + storage) and transactions redefining services and companies across the nation.

In the meantime, we continue to test with new tools and push the envelope to be ready for the future, now. We are building an electric grid that is intelligent and that will manage portable generation and its transactions.

Smart Grid News Profiles Austin Energy

When Michael Burkhalter called a few weeks ago to inquire about our journey, I was taken by surprise for his knowledge of our transformation. I thank him for sharing our success and congratulate him on a fine online publication.

Here is the content from his article that you can also find in his site by clicking here

http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Industry/Austin_Energy_Delivers_Opportunity.html


By Michael Burkhalter, Smart Grid News

The promise of abundant, reliable hydropower drove Google and Yahoo to building huge server farms in the Northwest. But what brought Google and Hewlett-Packard (HP) to Austin? We don’t think it was for the abundance of hydropower. We think Austin Energy’s progressive approach to laying the track for a Smart Grid was a factor. (See SGN article link below.)

High-tech industry increasingly demands electrical power and services that meet high standards for quality and reliability. Meeting those standards increasingly requires utilities to be ready to employ Smart Grid technologies, which in turn requires a robust IT enterprise architecture. Andres Carvallo, the CIO of Austin Energy, believes that the Smart Grid will be deployed a lot sooner than most people think. He is on a mission to make Austin Energy a Smart Grid leader.

Working under the same constraints as many other public utilities, Austin Energy has cut costs, increased customer satisfaction, attracted new high-value customers to the city of Austin, and established a foundation for a Smart Grid.

About Austin Energy
Austin Energy is owned by the City of Austin, Texas and generates $1.2B in sales. It is the 10th largest public power utility in the U.S., serving 1,000,000 residential customers and 41,000 businesses. They are the number-one seller of green energy in the U.S., according to DOE, and the first electric utility to receive ISO 9001 certification. For Austin Energy, this meant developing a Quality Management System that reflects standards of performance and continual improvement of processes and services to its customer, in this case, in the delivery of electric power. ISO 9001 is the most complete and demanding standard in the ISO 9000 series. (See ISO 9001 link below.)

Moving beyond obstacles
Four years ago, Austin Energy faced the industry’s familiar problems: regulated rates, profit driven by revenue, price- and tax- sensitive ratepayers, and technological risk aversion. With a clear vision, Austin Energy adopted new business guidelines of “People, Planet, Profits” – their so-called “triple bottom line”. With these social, environmental and financial guidelines, they used applied technology, conservation and efficiency to build credible business cases for technology investments. Largely due to a sweeping information technology transformation, they shaved millions of dollars off operating costs and re-invested in even more cost-saving technologies. For example, by applying software virtualization of servers, Austin Energy increased its computing hardware investment by very little while quadrupling its computing functionality.

Rounding up the data
Well-planned and well-applied technologies go a long way to eliminating Smart Grid obstacles. “What most people don’t get is the Smart Grid’s foundation,” says Andres Carvallo. “It must be built around enterprise architecture because there are such huge amounts of information”. (See CIO Master link below.)

Austin Energy uses a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to integrate all the information and applications they need. This has helped the utility to improve not only internally, but also in its customer-facing processes and services. They are now better prepared for new Demand Response programs such as peak pricing, time-of use pricing and prepay pricing as they expand their smart meters and replace their billing system. Getting a rope around huge volumes of data also enables Austin Energy to offer innovative energy management services, which helps explain a respectable customer satisfaction rate of 76%. (The JD Powers national average for 2007 was under 70%.)

Applying other information technologies, Austin Energy has also implemented an updated website, a new customer portal for online bill paying, and a wireless system that supports both automated meter reading and automated field service.

With the help of these technologies and the disciplines used in applying them, the utility has experienced:
New, high-value customers -- Google, HP, and now Samsung will enjoy the flexible services, “digital quality” power and “smart building” expertise offered by Austin Energy.
Cost savings that free up cash -- Austin Energy moved from spending only 15% of its capital on improvements to spending 50% on innovations and 50% on day-to-day operations.
Satisfied ratepayers -- Customers now have easy access to useful web-based portals, effortless transactions and flexible services.

Granted, a utility’s robust IT infrastructure alone will not attract new customers, fund innovative improvements and keep customers satisfied, but it sure can help.

Austin Energy Had The #1 US Green Energy Sales Program For 2007

Austin Energy's GreenChoice is again the #1 green power program in the nation for sales for the 6th year in a row. The program outperforms 600 other utility sponsored programs according to data published by the Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The latest ranking is for the year ending December 2007 when GreenChoice sold 577.6 million kWh.

Currently, sales top 743 million kWh annually due to the new supply of wind, which went on sale January 2008. Austin Energy also had the third lowest green power premium among all utilities and was second in the percentage of power from renewable resources at 5%. Our new wind supply increases that number and after our next wind farm goes on line at the end of this year, our percentage of energy from renewables will approach 12%.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/resources/tables/topten.shtml

Andres Carvallo to Speak at CIO Executive Summit

CIOs are aware of the environmental and fiscal impact of issues such as increased power consumption, data center cooling issues, and waste from IT operations. These effects within enterprise organizations are so tangible that the strategic implications of going green are crucial to remain competitive. Within the business drivers of people, planet and profit, Austin Energy has been initiating innovative energy conservation and renewable resources programs for more than 20 years, making their CIO, Andrés Carvallo proud to lead an IT organization for one of the most progressive utilities in the world. IBM has spearheaded “Project Big Green” where Robert Braddock, VP of Global Infrastructure Services leads broad initiatives for corporate IT infrastructure that focus on the Green Data Center, virtualization, globally integrated enterprises, and business flexibility. In this joint presentation, Carvallo and Braddock examine their best practices in sustainability by outlining where Green IT links to the environment, resource productivity, innovation, and competitiveness; and how integrating Green IT into an overall corporate strategy can be used to track processes, optimize efficiencies, monitor energy consumption, create new business opportunities, and ultimately generate revenue while saving an organization millions of dollars.

The CIO Executive Summit is driven by a Governing Body of leading CIOs who play a vital role in the development of this conference. These CIOs create an agenda that addresses today's opportunities and challenges faced by their peers, thus delivering on the event promise: "by CIOs, for CIOsSM."

The CIO Executive Summit also enhances the power and reach of your professional relationships by providing a seat at the table with hundreds of other IT leaders.

Globally recognized as the most respected IT Leadership conference in North America, the conference is without question, the networking event of the year for CIOs.

http://www.evanta.com/CIO/summit/agenda.php?i=HOU

Andres Carvallo Defines the Smart Grid

It has been a couple of years since I started talking about building the smart grid and in the process the audiences that I have talked to have asked over and over that I define what is a smart grid. So, for all those needing a definition, here it is:

Smart Grid - It is the integration of an electric grid, a communications network, software, and hardware to monitor, control and manage the creation, distribution, storage and consumption of energy.

The Smart Grid of the future reaches every electric element, it is self-healing, it is interactive, and it is distributed.

Andres Carvallo named Advisor by the Center for Electromechanics at UT

The Center for Electromechanics at The University of Texas names Andres Carvallo as an Advisor.

By engaging in both fundamental and applied research activities in the areas of electromagnetics, electromechanical devices, power electronics, and advanced materials, The Center for Electromechanics' (CEM) goal is to be the world's best university source for leading edge concepts and technology for novel generation, storage and use of electric and mechanical energy. To fulfill this vision, CEM will continue to develop and maintain preeminence in the following core competency areas:

- High specific power electromechanical devices
- Coupled electro-mechanical-thermal analysis and simulation techniques
- Composite materials and manufacturing technology
- High specific power converters
- Energy storage systems
- System level design and optimization

As shown in the image above, CEM's approach involves participation in a continuum of research projects, each contributing to their knowledge base and core competencies while leveraging the results and experiences gained in previous projects. CEM intends to always be on the forefront of the new age of electrification by applying our fundamental understanding of the technologies involved to an increasing number of novel application areas.

http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/

Building for The Future

Power & Energy talks to Andres Carvallo, Chief Information Officer at Texas-based utility Austin Energy – the 10th-largest public power utility in the nation – about the IT transformation currently underway at his firm.

http://nextgenpe.com/currentissue/article.asp?art=273073&issue=244

What does it take to be a chief information officer at a company that provides power to one million residential customers and 41,000 businesses? How about an acute technology vision, the ability to run IT as both a business and as a service provider and a commitment to effective best practices, for starters? Andres Carvallo, CIO at Austin Energy, has all these qualities and more. Over the last few years he’s been driving a program of infrastructure re-organization aimed at streamlining Austin Energy’s IT architectures that is the envy of utilities everywhere. It’s been hard work, but Carvallo is convinced it’s been worth it.

“We have really been trying to streamline the IT architectures to be more flexible, while at the same time enhancing the customer service experience and increasing revenues by offering new services across the enterprise,” he explains. “The wireless and service-oriented architecture transformation we’ve been rolling out has created a building block, if you will, for putting together the smart grid, and has involved a number of initiatives. We have been expanding our metering. We have been playing with sensor equipment on the distribution automation side. We have replaced a lot of our old computing systems. We’re in the process of getting a new billing system. And really what we’re doing is laying all the groundwork and preparing ourselves to go live with our smart grid in the near future, and to be able to do things like peak pricing, time-of-use pricing, prepay pricing, and offer all kinds of new energy management services related to demand-side management.”

It’s a pretty daunting proposition for any company, so how did he go about starting on a project of this size and scope? “Well, you don’t say, ‘We’re going to build a smart grid overnight – here’s hundreds of millions of dollars, rip everything out and build it from scratch,’” he laughs. “It’s a project that comes together as you look at how to improve the different front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter aspects of your operation. You need to assess your legacy systems. You need to assess the requirements of the market, and where the industry is heading in terms of capabilities. And you need to refresh the infrastructure that is managing your service delivery – everything from your SCADA systems to your outage management systems to your GIS, your ERP and your CRM. All these products and systems need to be integrated.”

In Austin Energy’s case, this meant re-evaluating its entire system architecture. Before Carvallo’s arrival in 2003, the utility had spent several years building IT silos without a CIO at the helm. There were too many manual processes, multiple redundant systems, companywide IT standards were non-existent, and executives had no access to real-time data for making decisions. Carvallo’s solution? Implement a systemic plan to turn the IT department around. He assessed the utility’s needs by interviewing 500 employees and running an inventory of all its systems, before developing a plan that included guidelines for everything from governance to legacy systems, project management to operational efficiency. Once the plan began, Carvallo measured its success against industry benchmarks and key performance indicators.

It’s all part of a $50 million overhaul of the company’s IT system instigated by Carvallo on his arrival. The end goal is to modernize and streamline IT to shave tens of millions of dollars from business operating costs and reinvest those savings back into the company. “To understand the real scale of the transformation we’ve had here, you need to realize where the money is being spent,” he says. “Four or five years ago, roughly 85 percent of our capital and operational expenditures went on keeping the lights on. Only 10-15 percent was going on doing new things. But in a world where the industry is changing so fast, it is very difficult to react if the lion’s share of your annual investment is tied up in keeping the lights on. So you need to redefine how you’re doing business; try to streamline costs so that you can free up cash on an ongoing basis in order to move from an 85/15 spilt to a 50/50 split, which is where we’re at today. We’re investing 50 percent of our capital on innovation, and only 50 percent on day-to-day operations.”

Right now, this translates into a focus on readying Austin Energy’s infrastructure for the advent of the smart grid. “In our case, this means implementing a services-oriented architecture to make the smart grid work,” he explains. “We’re leveraging web services and all those new technologies around Web 2.0 for better integration. And as we expand the use of this set of integration and transformation tools within the enterprise, our core IT transformation expands too. For instance, a critical next step was to reach out to our mobile workforce and equip them with the right mobile equipment so they can wirelessly access the information they need wherever they are.”

The new plan called for laptops in every repair truck that would tell workers where to go and what to do, which had a dramatic impact on delivery of work, reducing the work order lifecycle from weeks to just hours. And all the while, the customer experience keeps being enhanced. “We’ve added online self-service to make it easier to deal with us,” says Carvallo. “And as we continue expanding our smart grid transformation from within our organization out to the home, we can enable cool things like turning meters on and off remotely. And then we can start controlling thermostats and controlling different elements in the home, which enables us to offer time-of-use rates and peak-rate pricing and so on. With this approach, one development leads to the next.”

Austin Energy has been on its transformative journey for over four years now, and Carvallo explains how one-third of the utility’s fleet is now operating on automated meters, and that it has approximately 65,000 customers currently enrolled on demand response initiatives. “We have been learning from all of these things,” he says. “Part of the journey is about transforming the utility internally, but it’s also about how to interact with the different customer segments. What services do they actually want? As we start offering one service, customers should start realizing different things. So we have saved a significant amount of money by automating and eliminating truck rolls, by implementing automatic turn-offs and things like that, and we have gotten a lot of kudos from our customers as a result. Doing business with us today is a lot easier than it was four years ago, and it’s only going to get easier.”

It’s all good news for Austin Energy; not only is the quality of service that the company is providing getting better, the quality of it’s energy is improving too. And the end result is that the company is able to attract even higher value customers such as data center operators, many of which are moving into the organization’s service area because of the flexibility of services Austin Energy is able to offer. It helps that the company is the first electric utility in the United States to receive ISO 9001 certification for its quality management, which plays into Carvallo’s ultimate aim: to help Austin be the most livable city in the country. “It just shows the commitment of the utility to be nimble and customer-driven,” he says. “We’ve really changed a lot of the old paradigms and have shown great willingness to take a posture of business innovation. That counts for a lot amongst our existing and potential customers.”

He cites the example of the utility’s work in developing energy efficient IT systems as a prime case of how the company is working with its clients to reduce energy consumption, ramp up energy efficiency and, ultimately, reduce costs.

“Being an electric utility puts us in an interesting position regarding energy efficiency, especially as it relates to our own operations,” he says. “We need to be seen to be taking a leadership position. And actually we happen to be the number one seller of green energy of any utility in the United States, through our GreenChoice program.” The success of the Austin Energy program centers on a feature whereby GreenChoice subscribers receive a green power cost that stays fixed for up to 10 years – something that has been especially appealing to businesses. There are more 100 percent green-powered businesses (350) in Austin than any city in the country.

“We have a lot of experience, gained over many years, in smart building certification for green energy, and we have a practice inside the company that is specifically focused on datacenters,” he continues. “We recently won two datacenters for Hewlett-Packard, and a datacenter for Paypal (Google), and we provide our expertise in terms of monitoring controlled systems, cooling, de-duplication and compression. And we use and recommend virtualization. And just like we offer our residential customers rebates for installing a 13 SEER air-conditioner versus a 6 SEER air-conditioner, we also offer datacenters up to $200,000 per datacenter rebates if they use certain technologies that we endorse and we recommend.”

Clearly, it’s been a busy period for Carvallo and his team. To date, the overhaul of Austin Energy's IT organization has included implementing a new systems architecture, an updated website, a new customer portal for online electric payments, a wireless system for an automated meter reading system, a wireless system for field service automation and a series of best practices, such as a new IT governance, a project management office, a new IT Infrastructure Library program. The millions of dollars he has shaved off business operating costs has allowed the company to re-direct into future growth areas. “We’re pretty focused right now on the expansion of our infrastructure to deliver the smart grid,” he concludes. “Developments are happening at a phenomenal rate and things are going terrific for us at the moment. We are testing all kinds of technologies related to wireless and broadband over power line, vehicle to grid control management, and everything in between you can possibly imagine.”
Austin, the most livable city in the country? You heard it here first.

In numbers
Austin Energy, owned by the City of Austin, Texas, is the 10th largest public power utility in the US, with 2700 megawatts of generation, one million customers covering 420 square miles, and earning $1.2 billion in sales. The company’s goal is to deliver clean, affordable, reliable energy and excellent customer care to help Austin be the most livable city in the country.

Wireless revolution
Five years ago, Andres Carvallo began implementing a wireless revolution at Austin Energy. Here he outlines the benefits the rollout has brought.

We started our wireless transformation really to impact the bottom line. We looked at all of the key business processes that were critical to the utility, and out of some 2000 business processes, we settled on changing just 71 of them. And we found we were leaving a lot of money on the table, if you will, by doing things the old-fashioned way. We were manually reading meters, deploying trucks the old-fashioned way, and doing workflow in a manual way without using online documentation, workflow and signature approval – we were basically just executing on a formula that had been created 100 years ago. And we were doing that really well, but we were hitting a wall, and leaving money on the table as a result.

So we jumped into wireless to help the field force to accelerate their working practices; to reduce the number of truck rolls; and also to help improve the productivity of our internal staff, in terms of being able to leverage wireless to get the job done and have access to information wherever they were. And the benefits that we got from that, on multiple business processes, were tremendous. So we have been very focused on leveraging wireless to reinvent the business. And then at the same time, using a service-oriented architecture to make the systems more intelligent.

Right now, one-third of our meters are wireless, so deploying the next two-thirds of our wireless meter infrastructure is a current area of focus for us. Our target plan is to replace the entire infrastructure and add some thousands of sensors to our grid by the end of this year; today we’re managing 192,000 devices, but by the Spring of 09 we’ll be managing 500,000. And on top of that, of course, we need all the underlying intelligence in terms of software and systems to manage the creation of this smart grid. We’ll generate an incredible amount of data, and we’re going to go from roughly 20 terabytes a year to 400 terabytes of data a year.”

iPhone not ready for the Enterprise

Many colleagues and peers across the land continue to debate if we should support the iPhone at work. First of all, let me emphasize that the iPhone is a great device with incredible technology integration and beautiful design. However, the product has some serious short comings when it comes to Enterprise users and requirements. Here are the few important things that Apple has to resolve to get an iPhone that can not only be supported by IT but endorsed by IT.

1 - Security encryption on the device
2 - Remote access for data locking or data wipe out
3 - Deliver native push email support for POP3 and MS Exchange
4 - Deliver over-the-air sync
5 - Removable battery
6 - Make available to all carriers

Apple knows all these requirements and has been working on several others since the device came out last year. We look forward to version 2.

Andres Carvallo Keynotes Next Generation Utilities Summit

The Next Generation Utilities: Technology Summit is a three day critical information gathering bringing together C-level technology executives from leading electricity utilities from North America and Europe.

The inspired and professional format has been used by over 500 CEOs, CIOs and CTOs as a rewarding discussion and learning platform. Held at a Four Seasons Hotel, Austin, Texas, the Summit will address the key challenges keeping technology decision makers “up at night” in this volatile utilities climate.

The main aim of the NGU Summit is to create discussion between busy and focused technology leaders determined to build intelligent utilities. This is an opportunity to debate, benchmark and learn from other leaders in your own utilities market.

http://www.ngusummit.com/index.asp

Austin Energy Signs Agreement to Deliver Smart Grid

Austin Energy Signs Agreement with Cellnet+Hunt to Expand Two-Way Advanced Metering Deployment

Feb 27, 2008 – Austin Energy, the 10th largest community-owned electric utility in the nation, has signed an agreement to expand the deployment of a two-way advanced metering system from Cellnet+Hunt.The agreement calls for Austin Energy to deploy Cellnet+Hunt’s two-way mesh AMI system for up to 234,000 residential and C&I meters in 2008. The utility serves nearly 400,000 electricity customers in and around Austin, TX, and has utilized a Cellnet+Hunt fixed-network advanced metering solution for approximately a third of its customers since 2002. Based on the Cellnet+Hunt RF mesh communications network, Austin Energy’s deployment will enable the utility to leverage its network for smart grid and demand response applications. These may include time-of-use pricing, distribution automation, load shedding, remote disconnect and in-home communication. “This agreement continues our ongoing partnership with Austin Energy and will enable the utility to maximize return on its energy management strategy and achieve its Smart Grid goals,” said Tracy Moore, Senior Vice President of Services at Cellnet+Hunt. “The network infrastructure we are deploying for Austin enables the utility to add two-way metering endpoints anywhere in its service territory.” Cellnet+Hunt RF mesh system is the leading two-way asynchronous RF mesh network combining AMI, DA, SCADA and multi-service utility meter operation functions into one Smart Grid network platform. The Cellnet+Hunt RF mesh system is currently operational at over 200 utilities worldwide.

Austin Energy Named by Computerworld Top 12 Green IT Company in the US

February 15, 2008 (Computerworld) From cars to condos, "green" is all the rage these days — and IT is no exception. Eco-friendly computing promises the twin win of saving money and the environment. In this groundbreaking awards program,Computerworld honors 12 user companies and another dozen vendors that are leading the way (see the full list of honorees).

These green leaders are virtualizing, videoconferencing, turning down the cooling systems and turning off the lights. Want to see how your organization stacks up with the winners? Take our quiz to find out how green your company is now, and how to make it even greener. Also, read how the "Green Dozen" were chosen, view the full survey completed by the participants and see our list of the greenest technology vendors and data center suppliers.

Austin Energy, ranked number 7, is no Johnny-come-lately to energy efficiency among U.S. companies. The $1.2 billion power company estimates that it has saved energy equivalent to the output of a 660-megawatt power plant since 1985, when it launched the first in an extensive lineup of innovative energy conservation and renewable resources programs. Austin Energy's goal is to boost that total savings by an additional 700 megawatts of power by 2020. Also, for the sixth year in a row, the city-owned power company ranks as the No. 1 seller of green energy, including solar and wind power, among all U.S. electric utilities. "We pride ourselves on being one of the most progressive utilities in the world," says CIO Andres Carvallo.

The most important goal of Austin Energy's energy-saving initiatives is reducing reliance on electricity and thus lowering overall carbon dioxide emissions. To reach that goal, it plans to use technologies such as smart appliances to monitor and control power usage at customer sites. The utility also plans to implement new server and storage technology, including multicore CPUs, virtualization, and de-duplication and compression techniques in its own data center. Currently, the company's 1,600 staff has an IT department running just over 600 servers on 150 physical machines. This translates to 40% energy savings, says Carvallo.

Austin Energy's IT group manages 195,000 real-time devices used for automated electricity metering and distribution. That number will increase to 500,000 devices by early 2009. The company also now receives 35% of its revenue online, up from no online payments in 2003.

Henry Wong, a member of The Green Grid consortium, lauds Austin Energy's IT efforts, which have enabled the utility to communicate with customers about their time-sensitive power requirements. A so-called smart power grid, which delivers power when needed and conserves power when it isn't needed, would be impossible without such communication, he says. "We know that technology can facilitate that with better automation and controls," adds Wong. "Austin Energy is willing to become the proving ground by offering that automation to monitor demand and have systems capable of being able to react to that demand."

Austin Energy - First Electric Utility with ISO 9001 Certification

In our quest to become the utility of the future, we have understood the importance of quality, business process innovation and the use of leading edge technologies to deliver clean, reliable, affordable energy and excellent customer service to our customers. The following is the press release that we put out on this great and first in the nation accomplishment by any electric utility.

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Austin Energy Electric Service Delivery First in Country to Receive ISO 9001 Certification.

Austin Energy Electric Service Delivery (ESD), the business unit responsible for the construction, maintenance and operation of the electric transmission and distribution system in Austin has become the first of any utility in the nation to earn ISO 9001 registration.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 9000 is a series of international quality standards designed to ensure that all activities related to providing and delivering a product or service are appropriately quality assured. To earn the registration, applicants must develop a Quality Management System that reflects standards of performance and continual improvement of processes and services to its customer, in this case, in the delivery of electric power. ISO 9001 is the most complete and demanding standard in the ISO 9000 series.

Auditors from the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NASI), the worldwide entity that administers the ISO quality management program, issued the registration on January 3, 2008. The certification followed a rigorous four-day review in December of the ESD Quality Management System by NASI auditors.

“This required developing our quality management system in compliance with very high standards and documenting work procedures for how we perform every aspect of the job of installing and managing our electric system,” said Cheryl Mele, Senior VP, Electric Service Delivery. “Those policies and procedures must now be followed and records maintained that demonstrate consistently that the standards and procedures are met, and most importantly, that our results improve.”

That means, for instance, that if the 140,000 power poles in the Austin Energy system should be inspected once every ten years, records must show that those inspections occurred and that any required maintenance actions were taken.

The ISO auditors noted that procedures and written work instructions had been implemented for more than 530 work activities. “There was not a single instance found where procedures were not followed or consciously disregarded. This speaks very highly of the implementation team and the commitment by employees to fully embrace the system,” said the auditors in their report. The auditors were also impressed with the “tremendous amount of experience” of Austin Energy employees in their respective job functions.

The four-day audit included a review of the ESD quality management system, interviews with as many as 60 management and operational staff and a review of a range of work situations. Austin Energy staff has been preparing for ISO Registration for about a year. There are approximately 250,000 companies worldwide including 25,000 in the U.S. certified in the ISO 9000 series. Austin Energy transmission and distribution work units, however, are the first of any electric utility in the country to be so certified. Austin Energy plans to continue the ISO 9001 registration effort with their Customer Care business unit which includes the utility Customer Service Center, meter reading, billing and collections.

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Having standard processes documented allow for easier automation via business process management and the deployment of a service oriented architecture to orchestrate the electrons, data and transactions that make our services a reality for our customers. Our corporate speed continues to increase as we work faster and faster as one impressively synchronized team.

I highly recommend that you get serious about quality.

Top 10 Value Technologies for 2008

There are many technologies available at different levels of maturity and adoption rates that can add value to your enterprise. My following choices offer the greatest value back to any of you for the coming 12 months. These technologies are proven, offer choices from multiple vendors, enjoy a growing adoption, and some of them offer the opportunity to help the environment:

1 - Virtualization

2 - Multi-Core Computers

3 - De-duplication and Compression

4 - Monitor and Control Sensors

5 - Voice Over Internet Protocol

6 - Rich Internet Applications

7 - Service Oriented Architecture

8 - Business Process Management

9 - Business Intelligence

10 - Wireless Broadband

Enterprises that deploy some of these technologies (virtualization, multi-core computers, monitor and control sensors, de-duplication and compression) along with Information Life-cycle Management and ITIL tools can realize very Green IT shops.

The technologies speak for themselves and deployed across your enterprise they would increase your efficiency and effectiveness in all fronts. 2008 should see a great deal of investments for enterprises to realize great value by applying these technologies to become greener, create new business models, innovate business processes and increase customer satisfaction.

New Energy Bill Opens The Gates of The Future

If you have not been paying attention, our President and Congress have passed an Energy Bill that includes the first federal building blocks for America to deploy a nationwide smart grid.

And you might ask me again, what is a smart grid?

Well, a smart grid is the seamless integration of a power grid, a telecommunications network covering its service area, plus the necessary hardware and software to monitor, control and manage the creation, transmission, distribution, wholesale, and retail of energy for industrial, commercial and residential customers.

Here are the highlights for the electric industry from the new energy bill

Title XIII Smart Grid; Sections 1301 -1309:

Establishes a statement of policy supporting modernization of the grid; authorizes a biennial status report and survey of barriers to modernization;

Establishes a public/private advisory committee to work with the Secretary of Energy on modernizing the grid and a federal employee task force to coordinate federal grid modernization activities and regulation;

Authorizes research, development demonstration in areas including smart meters, distributed generation, energy storage and demand management and interconnection to access to energy stored in vehicles; authorizes $100 million for 5 regional demonstrations of advanced technologies for grid modernization, for 2008-2012;.

Directs NIST to develop protocols and standards to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems; authorizes $5 million/year for 2008-2012;

Establishes a federal matching fund for 20% of qualifying smart grid investments;

Amends PURPA to require state consideration of smart grid investments prior to making non-smart grid investments;

Authorizes a study of the laws and regulations impacting siting of private distribution wires; and Authorizes a study of the quantitative benefits of smart grid deployment on electricity infrastructure and operating capability.

And of course the new energy bill will bring more fuel-efficient vehicles into auto showrooms and require wider use of ethanol.

During a signing ceremony at the U.S. Energy Department Wednesday, President Bush called the legislation "a major step" toward energy independence and an easing of global warming. The new law also obliges automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 per cent to an industry average of 35 miles a U.S. gallon, or 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres, by 2020. It also ramps up production of ethanol use to 136 billion litres a year by 2022. President Bush said the new requirements will help address U.S. dependency on foreign oil by reducing demand for gasoline and diversifying the nation's fuel supply.

The energy industry is entering the most fantastic renaissance period of any industry ever. The transformation, job and wealth creation from the next 25 years in the energy industry will dwarf any prior technology revolution recorded.

Hold on to your seats. Enjoy the ride!!!

Building The Smart Grid

We at Austin Energy pride ourselves for being one of the most progressive utilities in the world. We are the number one seller of green energy by any electric utility in the US six years in a row, while also managing nuclear, coal, and liquid natural gas power sources. We have already saved the equivalent of a 660 mwh power plant with conservation and DR programs since 1985 and we have a new goal to save another 700 mwh by 2020. We are leaders in distributed generation and renewable energy (7% of our mix already today and target for 30% by 2020). And we are leaders in the use of information technology solutions (We already manage 195,000 devices real-time for metering, distribution automation, and demand response, and plan to expand to 500,000 devices by early 2009. We manage $1 billion in hedging transactions per year. 35% of our revenues are received online today from zero in 2003. And we deployed a service oriented architecture in 2004 to integrate and manage all our systems).

The steps to build our Smart Grid have been driven by the need to simplify our infrastructure, improve decision making, adapt to faster changing business needs, improve disaster recovery and business continuity planning, improve regulatory compliance, increase quality standards, increase customer satisfaction and reduce operational costs.

Our Smart Grid will be powered by our Software Oriented Architecture that follows the principles of delivering presentation, process, and information as services to all stakeholders. This new architecture gives us the ability to integrate, manage and control central power plants, distributed energy plants, the wholesale energy system, the transmission and distribution grid, the meters, smart appliances at customer sites, plug-in-hybrids while connected to the grid, and the delivery of timely information via portals to all customer types. Our Smart Grid will be the combination of an information grid that mirrors our electric grid. In other words, it will be the seamless blending of power, telecommunications, infrastructure and software to deliver cleaner, affordable, reliable energy and excellent customer service.

Since 2003, we have created/installed/matured a new Technology Governance Framework, a new Project Management Office, an Enterprise Architecture : SOA, a NERC Compliant Security Architecture, a Business Process Innovation Program, a Portfolio Management Ranking Process, a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Program, hundreds of miles of new fiber, a new VOIP network, new Server and Storage technology (multi-core CPUs, virtualization, de-duplication, etc), 3 new wireless networks, an application replacement and integration program, a new Software Development Lifecycle framework (based on RUP), 2 new data centers, a new Technology Control Center, a new employee rewards and recognition program (CIO Awards), new quality initiatives (ITIL, ISO, CMMI, Digital Documentation), new websites and portals, new smart phones, 130,000 wireless meters, 65,000 wireless thermostats, new wireless PCs for mobile crews and their processes, new PCs, wireless sensors, and a BPL pilot deployment to better understand the technology.

The next years will see the maturity of the technology building blocks enable new functionality, new business processes, and new services to all customer types. We are Austin Energy and we are the Utility of the Future.

Andres Carvallo to Speak at the Power to Innovate Symposium

Attend the Power to Innovate Symposium to better understand Energy & Utilities industry trends, developments, and IBM’s unique ability to help provide industry specific solutions to meet your needs. You will experience a first hand view of innovative industry solutions through presentations and interactive sessions led by IBM clients, executives, and industry leaders.

http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/utilities/doc/content/event/leaf/2776170119.html?g_type=hpfeat

Andres Carvallo to Keynote Knowledge 2007

Utilities are looking to technology to solve an extraordinary challenge: how to insure the future of a reliable public power supply in the face of major and very difficult issues; among them, increased demand that is taxing the capacity of existing plants; environmental, political and other pressures that inhibit the building of new plants; an aging workforce; an uncertain fuel supply and increased costs for fuel; and so on.

Knowledge 2007 will help expose key topics and answer some of the most important questions, such us:
-How other utilities are moving towards the Intelligent Enterprise, the problems they face, and the solutions they’re employing.
-Which paths are working, which are not?
-Inside views of the future of regulatory and political developments.
-Where three key vendors (SAP, Oracle, and IBM) are headed and how they see the industry – including the ability to ask these vendors tough questions and get straight answers without product hype.
-CIO Roundtables and Workshops are strictly off the record: no recordings, media, vendors or lower level IT staff.

http://www.spintelligent-events.com/knowledge2007/en/index.php

Andres Carvallo to Speak at InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum in NY

InfoWorld's ninth SOA Executive Forum provides fresh insight into best practices to build Service Oriented Architectures that scale to meet the needs of dynamic enterprises. Interactive sessions will illuminate key planning and implementation issues, while real-world case studies reveal proven solutions for technology and governance challenges. A new tutorial track taught by leading practitioners will help attendees craft a successful SOA strategy that fulfills the unique requirements of their organizations now and in the future.Leading industry experts and Fortune 500 end users will share their experiences from best-laid SOA plans to successful implementation and management, with all of the detours, challenges and lessons learned in the process. Attendees will leave with practical strategies and best practices for transforming their IT infrastructures.

http://www.infoworld.com/event/soa/07/november/

Andres Carvallo to Speak at Innotech Austin 2007

InnoTech Austin is Central Texas' premier annual one day conference & exposition highlighting Austin's innovation & technology development opportunities. InnoTech is built for Business and Technology Executives, guided and directed by executives in Austin and throughout Central Texas.

Michael Beamer - National Instruments, Sam Fatigato - Ascendant Technologies, Brent Jackson - Dell, and yours truly will participate in a panel titled "SOA for the executive".

From Structured Programming to CORBA to Object-Oriented development, the software world has been on a quest to deliver applications better and faster by maximizing software reuse. Most will agree the goal has not been achieved. Is SOA the answer? The SOA approach has been around for about five years. While it offers great potential, many companies still struggle with their implementation. Come listen as some of the top industry leaders share their perspective. SOA Discussion Topics

1. What is SOA and what are the primary business reasons for taking a SOA approach to solving your business problems?
2. Over the years there have been many different attempts to leverage software reuse on a large scale. Why is SOA different?
3. What is needed to successfully implement SOA?
4. What are the Governance considerations around SOA?
5. What are some of the "basic considerations" that we must not overlook?
6. What are some of the lessons learned by the early SOA adopters?

http://www.innotechconference.com/austin/Event/Austin_CIO_Summit2007.php

Andres Carvallo and Austin Energy recognized by InformationWeek

For 19 years, the InformationWeek 500 has tracked the technology practices of the nation's most innovative companies. Documenting the business-technology strategies, investments, and administrative practices of some of America's best-known companies, this study offers a unique opportunity to understand and benchmark -->compare your company's IT approach against the most innovative users of technology. Compare your company's initiatives against the businesses in one or more of the 21 industries examined in this study or across the full IW 500.

On Monday September 17th, Austin Energy and its CIO, Andres Carvallo, were selected as honorees to this prestigious worldwide award.

http://www.informationweek.com/1154/;jsessionid=TGF1HJ2WLPYSGQSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN

Andres Carvallo to Speak at Information On Demand 2007

Information On Demand 2007 is the global information management conference.

Information On Demand is about getting the right information to the right people and processes at the right time to act on emerging opportunities and competitive threats. It is about creating business value and reducing risk by integrating, analyzing and optimizing all types and sources of information throughout its lifecycle.

Information On Demand 2007 global conference will provide innumerable opportunities for you to build skills to improve application and database performance, increase personal and team productivity and prepare your company for the future. If you only attend one conference this year, here are the reasons that Information On Demand 2007 is the one to attend

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/conf/

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/conf/keynotespeakers.html#carvallo

In Memory of Bill Walsh

It is not every day that I get to share the stage and a few precious hours of my life with a genius, idol, and celebrity all in one. As an honoree to the worldwide prestigious CIO100 Award last year, I got to hear Bill Walsh's keynote on innovation and leadership. More on this in a few moments......

Bill Walsh, known in football circles as "The Genius" for coaching the San Francisco 49ers to three NFL championships and designing the "West Coast offense" that has attracted countless devotees in the college and pro ranks, died at his Woodside, Calif., home Monday morning on July 31st. He was 75.

Diagnosed with leukemia in 2004, Mr. Walsh had been in failing health for several months, according to officials at Stanford, where he coached for five seasons (1977 to 1978 and 1992 through 1994) and served as special assistant to the athletic director from early 2004 until his death.

Cerebral, introspective and innovative, Mr. Walsh had an uncanny eye for scouting players and designing refined game plans. His offensive scheme — predicated on short, timing passes — fueled a dynasty in San Francisco with Super Bowl victories after the 1981, '84 and '88 seasons.

Mr. Walsh retired from NFL coaching in 1989, after leading the 49ers to victory over Cincinnati in Super Bowl XXIII. Including playoffs, his pro record was 102-63-1. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

.....As Mr. Walsh addressed the attendees of the CIO100 in 2006, he went on to share his philosophy and framework for innovation and leadership. Mr. Walsh talked about how he turned around the San Francisco 49ers from the worst team in the NFL to the best in 10 years. And how you might ask, did he do that? Simply stated by him, "you must have a standard of performance and open participation. Build a culture of openness and respect. Always push the envelope, but be aware of pushing too far. Don't count on getting lucky. Focus on what you can influence. Develop a plan and a contingency plan. Prepare for the worst and execute for the best. Planning, planning and more planning is the key. Also remember that success is dangerous and that people get changed by success. More success required more authority and focus on the plan. Focus on the job. Do role playing for every important part of the plan. And cross train your team members to do multiples jobs. In the end, it is the standard of performance what defines you and builds your success. And of course, make your contingency plans anyway.

I was very fortunate to have shared with Mr. Walsh that keynote and a few hours after it. His candor, humbleness, and curiosity made you feel that you knew him all your life. What precious moments to remember. What a great source of wisdom. I tip my hat to the Football genius and fabulous human being that Bill Walsh was.

Thank you Coach for all the wisdom and thrills. We will miss you!

Andres Carvallo to Speak at CIO100 2007

Meet your like minded peers at this exclusive event for CIOs and senior IT executives. There will be in attendance some of the most respected and recognized names in industry, along with the new CIO 100 winners, many of whom you won't meet at any other event.

Network with IT leaders from Aflac, AT&T, Austin Energy, Best Buy, Capital One Financial, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Coty, Craig's List, Dell, Delphi, Department of Homeland Security, Discover Financial Services, Dow Chemical, EMC, FedEx, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Hess, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals, Marriott International, Mayo Clinic, Merrill Lynch, Northrop Grumman, PNC Financial, Progressive Insurance, Raytheon, Schering-Plough, US Department of Justice, Unisys, University of Pennsylvania, Verizon, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Wells Fargo, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Xcel Energy and countless others.

Come to learn how CIOs in every industry fostered, developed and implemented innovative ideas that challenged prevailing business models, shook up the competition and delivered ROI to the enterprise. You'll hear about the latest advancements in technology bringing value to the enterprise and putting IT in the forefront of strategic business development. You will be able to explore how Web 2.0 is creating a collaborative approach to business that is opening up new possibilities and opportunities globally and locally.

http://public.cxo.com//conferences//index.html?conferenceID=9

http://public.cxo.com/conferences/speaker_detail.html?conferenceID=9&aid=2382

Andres Carvallo named chair of AIR-Austin 2007

2007 marks the 10th anniversary of the award-winning Accessibility Internet Rally for Austin (AIR Austin). In the past ten years, hundreds of teams of designers and developers have created accessible, well-designed websites - in one day of friendly competition. The result is that countless people with disabilities can now access information and better use the Internet as a tool for gaining knowledge, economic power, exploring job possibilities and more. AIR Austin matches teams of web designers & developers with area non-profit organizations in order to build new websites or enhance existing ones that are accessible for people with disabilities. Put your web design and development talents to the test and join us for AIR Austin 2007! Non profits – Join and take that step towards increased accessibility for your web site. Here are some lists of the Non-profit organizations who have benefited from participating in AIR Austin, the teams that have built the sites and the sponsors that have made it happen.

http://knowbility.org/air-austin/

'SOA' Stirs a Computing Buzz

The Wall Street Journal

17 July 2007 - B4

'SOA' Stirs a Computing Buzz
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'Modular' Software Lets Services Be Used Across Business's Parts

By Christopher Lawton

Andres Carvallo, chief information officer of Austin Energy, was looking for a way to test the utility's new software system for handling customer-service calls. He got his wish when a storm hit the state's capital in May 2006.

The night of the storm, roughly 52,000 customers lost power, according to the company's records. Over the next three days, the Austin, Texas, utility -- whose software was upgraded to handle 50,000 calls an hour, up from 4,000 previously -- coped with heavy call volume.

"The phone system never went down, never had a hiccup. It was flawless," says Mr. Carvallo.

Chalk up a success for a software-development scheme called service oriented architecture, or SOA, that has become one of the most ballyhooed buzz phrases in corporate computing. It's a loosely defined concept, overlapping with other Web-based advancements and programming trends that have been discussed for more than a decade.

In essence, SOA allows business processes -- like verifying a customer's address or checking credit ratings -- to be built using modular chunks of software called "services" that can communicate with each other and be used across different parts of a business. The services are often centrally stored in a repository and can be called up by other programs as needed.

The approach can save companies time and money because the software modules can be reused and reconfigured in new ways. So companies can avoid starting from scratch when they want to build new software applications or add new capabilities to existing ones.

Vladimir Mitevski, vice president of product management, core services, for Thomson Financial, says it once took six weeks and roughly 20 people to build, deploy and maintain service offerings for Thomson One, a software platform for the financial industry. After adopting a service-oriented architecture, in part using software from Hewlett-Packard Co., Mr. Mitevski says a single programmer working with various businesses, quality testing and support groups within the company can deploy new and updated offerings in as little as 15 minutes. He cites "speed to market" as his No. 1 reason for adopting the methodology.

H-P isn't alone. Many big technology vendors -- including International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corp., SAP AG and others -- are offering software that can be used to create SOA-based business applications, as well as services to help companies analyze their operations to decide how to deploy SOA.

Austin Energy, for example, relied on IBM software to construct a system that helps with chores like verifying customer information or figuring out which specialized crew members to send to fix outages -- reducing the time it takes over the phone to dispatch a crew to fix outages to two minutes from seven, Mr. Carvallo says.

SOA has been around in its current form since the early 2000s, analysts say. But its momentum has been building. Forrester Research estimates that by the end of 2007, some 62% of North American and European companies expect to adopt a service-oriented architecture in some fashion.

"I don't believe we can ignore SOA," says Evelyn Hubbert, an analyst with the market-research firm. "It will be how we manage applications in the future."

One satisfied user is Ameriprise Financial Services Inc.'s Tracy LeGrand, its chief architect and vice president of technology, strategy and architecture, who says that the technology allowed the company to release Dream Plan Track, a financial-planning approach that the company launched last year, within a year after the company was spun off from American Express Co.
Ameriprise was able to tap into a repository of already-defined services such as address changes for customers. "Instead of having to buy or build something new, we can reuse it," says Mr. LeGrand.

Still, analysts and companies that sell SOA-related software and services warn that the leap to the new technology isn't easy. For one thing, companies need to set up a system to help keep track of the services they deploy, where they should be used and who is allowed to use them.

Rather than ripping and replacing major parts of a company's information-technology infrastructure -- a costly process that can cause business disruptions -- analysts advise a more incremental strategy. Randy Heffner, who is also with Forrester, suggests that users apply SOA to one business problem at a time that is guided by a higher-level overall business strategy.

Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District had a number of problems. They included heavy call volume, long lines of parents waiting for transportation services and limited ways to get information such as spelling lists or grade information to parents, says Patrick Plant, the district's director of technology and information services. The school district also used cards that needed to be filled out with emergency-notification information each year.

In 2004, with the help of Microsoft software and services from H-P, the district began developing an SOA-based system that links services that span curriculum, security, health and human resources. Now parents can do much of their business with the district online, including checking grades, attendance and student lunch-account balances.

The new system is a big time-saver, Mr. Plant says. "Until we could start linking those systems together with a service-oriented architecture, the best we could do was create paper-based proofing sheets."

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So the success of our SOA has landed me on the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Quite an honor. I surely hope that their readers and most enterprises realize what I did 5 years ago. SOA is the way of the future and it allows IT to move at the speed of the Business.

Fast Forward the Electric Business

In January of 2005, EnergyBiz Magazine published an article that I wrote titled "Fast Forward the Electric Business". Two and half years later my article was right on the money and the race is on.

http://energycentral.fileburst.com/EnergyBizOnline/2005-1-jan-feb/Fast%20Forward_janfeb05-16.pdf

Fast Forward the Electric Business
By Andres Carvallo

The electric utility industry, already an economic colossus, is poised to double in size in the next two decades. Technological change will get the credit.

There is an accelerated rush within electric utilities to get more sophisticated about managing innovation and opportunities enabled by new technologies. As such, electric utilities are moving rapidly to define new processes to better manage the four forces that drive innovation (critical price, critical mass, displacement, and near zero cost), which impact their generation, wholesale marketing, transmission, distribution, and retail marketing business.

Let me explain the four forces of innovation, since they play a significant role in the trends and selection of the technologies to go after for the new electric utilities being built.

“Critical Price” is often a psychological barrier threshold. A drop below a certain price triggers a larger adoption of the technology. Achieving this force establishes a real market for the technology.

“Critical Mass” is normally reached when you go from reading about a technology to knowing people that actually use it.

“Displacement,” which usually follows the first two innovation drivers, occurs when technology on the way up hits one on the way down doing significantly more for about the same price.

“Near Zero Cost” leads to ubiquity of the technology as it reaches all target markets; new products, services, and markets are built on top of its original ubiquity and dominance.

These innovation forces are morphing the vertically integrated electric utility model of the past into new models that leverage key core competencies. And it is the ability of the new electric utilities to understand and manage their core competencies along with the new business models enabled by technology advances that will double the size of this industry within the next 20 years and re-make many new electric utilities into end-to-end service providers of the future.

Some of the most significant technology advances already taking place or soon to be adopted in no particular order include: portals, web services, service oriented architectures, collaborative computing, grid computing, composite applications, 64-bit computing, broadband over power line, wireless broadband, sensors and smart tags, petabyte storage systems, energy storage, smart dust, advanced Photo Voltaic, nanotechnology, hydrogen fuel, and agent computing.

The new electric utilities of the future are already being built today at a very high pace in North America and Europe. Many of these utilities have realized that information technology innovation alone can drive their transformation towards new customer satisfaction, reliability, and financial stability levels never achieved before. Driven by this reality, the new electric utilities have empowered the CIO and team to play a central role in helping lead the execution of the new business models.

Some of the best examples of this change include utilities doing the following:

-Deploying service oriented architectures to connect seamlessly geographic information systems, work management systems, outage management systems, design tools, distribution & planning analysis systems, contract management systems, customer information systems, financial systems, payroll systems, asset management systems and inventory management systems to fully automate the delivery of energy to customers. Driving this effort is the need to eliminate the historical silos that built non-connected solutions with too many single points of failure and higher maintenance costs. This trend presents the utility with the opportunity to realize operational savings in the order of 20 percent. Managers will make decisions based on real-time information delivered via portals and monitor key performance indicators for the rest of the work force.

-Installing lower cost and improved sensors managed via wireless that make power plants and grids reach almost zero downtime. Imagine a fleet of monitoring and controlling sensors across the entire grid communicating real-time with SCADA, distribution automation tools, and materials management tools. The need to track the performance of every device that impacts the reliability of service together with predictive analytics software and data warehousing technology presents a unique opportunity to finally leverage telemetry in this industry. This effort can help reach up to 25 percent savings in maintenance costs while almost eliminating downtime.

-Moving to 64-bit computing that enables the horsepower needed to crunch real-time optimization models that drive distributed control systems to waste near zero fuel. This breakthrough is now reality. Lots of work has been going on here in the past by many key vendors, but the new computing capabilities of Intel 64-bit processors enable utility managers to more precisely develop predictive optimization models. The opportunities are many here, but saving fuel should be the primary target. This trend alone can save a typical utility 10 to 15 percent in annual fuel costs.

-New energy generation systems, some using renewable resources, and new energy storage technologies will open the door to new approaches to distributed generation. Through distributed generation, new renewable and energy storage solutions can help reduce transmission and distribution costs trying to balance the grid. The capital cost savings for a service area of 200,000 customers can be in the order of $10 million per year.

-Risk management trading systems powered by grid computing for market making opportunities needed to settle the buy and sell transactions of the new grids with distributed generation. More and more wholesale trading operations will need to offer sustainable prices to their retail energy partners by adopting risk-trading practices that help flatten fuel price spikes for longer periods of time. They will also need to offer a market making safe heaven to those new distributed generation entrants that want to sell their extra energy to the grid. Electric utilities leveraging this trend will see their margins climb 5 to 10 percent on an annual basis while eliminating any downside risk for themselves and ensuring greater customer satisfaction from the partners and end-customers.

-Wireless broadband service area solutions that enable a paperless utility to offer its customers new energy management services. Utilities will place AMR meters across the entire service area and capture sufficient data to offer new and revolutionary pricing programs and services. Some energy companies will rethink their demand-side management programs, leveraging the same wireless broadband infrastructure to control HVAC thermostats, pools, Jacuzzis, spas, refrigerators, water heaters, and other smart large appliances. New smart appliances will talk to an energy management gateway de