Energy efficiency in the US is much light and little heat – literally. Government policy pays a great deal of attention to saving electricity, but focuses little on the thermal energy we waste.

“Policy is electricity-centric in the US. Unless you are making kilowatts, the most efficient investments are off the radar,” said Rob Thornton, president of the International District Energy Association (IDEA), who I recently interviewed while writing this year’s edition of Pennwell’s US Guide to Combined Heat and Power Companies.

We throw away a lot of the heat. Power plants, for example, create heat as a byproduct of generation. Rather than reusing this thermal energy, we often let it dissipate into the air. As a result, we waste more energy than Japan uses for everything, according to Amory Lovins, author of “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era.”

There is good news, however. Thornton and others I interviewed see a growing change in Washington’s attitude about combined heat and power (CHP), district energy, and other efficient methods of using thermal energy. Movers and shakers are becoming more aware of these energy alternatives. In addition, states are increasingly incorporating heat efficiency into clean energy portfolio standards.

“Finally, after all of these years, combined heat and power has become a hot topic in the political community,” said R. Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

In fact, Congress is looking to improve heat efficiency in its own backyard. The Capitol Building, which already has a district energy system, plans to incorporate an 18-MW CHP system (also called cogeneration). The system is part of long-term energy plan that attempts to reduce costs and improve the efficiency and the environmental footprint of the Capitol. The CHP system will provide 200,000 lb/hour of steam to heat Congressional buildings. The steam comes from heat produced while generating the electricity, so the plant gets a twofer from the fuel. The CHP system will reduce building energy use 7.1%, according to the first quarter 2012 issue of IDEA’s District Energy magazine.

Barry Sanders, president and chief operating officer of American DG Energy, says that the smart energy movement needs to embrace heat, not just electricity, if the US is to achieve its energy independence goals.

“A gaping hole exists in the nation’s discussion about smart energy. Most of the talk focuses on electric power, and neglects thermal applications. Yet, we use a great deal of energy to heat and cool buildings, heat and chill water, and undertake thermal-driven industrial processes,” he wrote in a recent white paper, “Smart Heat: The Next Step in Clean Energy.”

In some parts of the country, we still use a good deal of imported fuel to make heat, at a time when we are trying to shift to domestic supply, Sanders wrote. He points out that oil continues to be the primary residential heating fuel in some of our most highly populated regions, such as the Northeast, the biggest single heating oil market in the US, according to the US Department of energy. And in New York, 10,000 of the city’s largest buildings use residual oil, considered a dirty fuel – 86% of the city’s soot comes from the burning of residual oil, according to New York City’s office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

“By neglecting heat in our smart energy pursuit, we continue to forfeit domestic, efficient and inexpensive fuels in favor of polluting and pricey foreign imports,” Sanders wrote.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work appears in many of the industry’s top magazines and newsletters. She is publisher of the Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

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Who doesn’t pat themselves on the back when Google puts money into their industry? Ah, the giant likes this market. I must be on the right track!

So what does it mean now that Google has announced it will retire its Google PowerMeter because it didn’t catch on? Are all those companies who are investing in smart grid on the wrong track?

Clearly not. Google had star quality in the market. But other, more boring companies continue to pursue tremendous smart energy innovation, and they do so with strong government backing.

The energy entrepreneurs are out of the barn, as they’ve never been before. Here are just a few intriguing advancements that made the news around the time Google said that it was quitting the race.

* Echo is a solar energy system that its makers say is three times more efficient than a basic solar electric photovoltaic system. Echo does this by capturing and using the excess heat generated by solar panels, giving the panels a dual purpose – they generate electricity and provide thermal energy. And there is more, according to C.R. Herro, vice president of environmental affairs for Meritage Homes: “Echo not only sets the standard for energy generation, its advanced technology lets us communicate the benefits of solar to our homebuyers. When we show homebuyers that they can use their mobile phone to monitor their home – and act as a remote control for their thermostat – they don’t want to settle for anything else.”

* Intel is offering Tech Wonders, which features a free app that lets you donate to researchers your computer’s power when it’s idle. When you are away from your desk, your computer contributes its spare processing power to a massive environmental model intended to forecast climate conditions in the 21st century.

* The IBM Intelligent Operations Center for Smarter Cities helps cities anticipate problems, respond to crises, and better manage resources. The technology infuses digital intelligence into municipal operations through one central point of command. This can help cities make best use of various resources, including roads. Drivers get real-time traffic information across multiple areas so that they can choose the best route to travel and save gasoline. The IBM system also can help save energy in buildings. It integrates on a common network their heating, air conditioning, lighting, communications, security and maintenance systems. With the help of thousands of sensors, the system analyzes a building’s energy use and provides a real-time view of its performance, exposing its inefficiencies.

What’s the takeaway from Google’s departure from smart grid? Sure Google transformed the Internet with a phenomenal technology. But don’t expect dorm room kids to achieve the same with the very complicated North American electric grid. One killer app is unlikely. Instead it will probably be a myriad of technologies that upend the old way of using and generating power – created by a myriad of companies. And probably few, if any of them, will be flashy enough to have a company name that is also a verb. It will be the work of many that will get us all ‘smart gridding.’

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work appears in many of the industry’s top magazines and newsletters. She is publisher of the Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

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Ben Franklin’s saying, “Out of adversity comes opportunity” seems to characterize the energy sector in US Northeast. Electricity rates are among the nation’s highest. Population density leaves scant room for new power plants and transmission lines. And the region has little indigenous generation fuel.

So what’s the good news?

“This is why a very large and well spent push for energy efficiency and energy conservation has taken place in the Northeast,” says Ron Tabroff member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and former chairman of its Power & Energy Society, Boston Chapter.

In fact, the Northeastern states make up a large portion of a thriving East Coast energy efficiency market, spurred by about $8.6 billion in incentives being distributed by utilities and state and local governments, according to “Energy Efficiency Incentives for Businesses 2010: Eastern States” by RealEnergyWriters.

IEEE is an organization known for its love of technological advancement – it publishes nearly a third of the world’s technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics. So it is little surprise that IEEE has a keen eye on the emerging smart grid and the new openings it creates for energy efficiency.

Real-time meters, appliances that ‘talk’ to the grid, and other smart applications offer both macro and micro remedies to the kind of strain and high prices faced by the Northeast electric grid, Tabroff says.

On the macro level, if these devices curb peak usage of electricity, they should result in less need to build and operate expensive peaking generators. That means less pressure to raise electricity rates, now up to 19.4 cents/kWh for households in Connecticut, the Northeast state with the highest rates and second in the nation to only Hawaii.

On the micro level, the consumer will have the ability for the first time to purchase electricity on sale. Digital displays placed in the home will reveal the ups and downs in electricity pricing over the course of the day. You can choose to do your laundry when it’s cheap, or cut back on air conditioning when electricity prices are high.

Smart meters are now making their way into Northeast households through pilot programs. A big question to be answered is whether or not people will take the time in their busy lives to act as personal electricity managers. Tabroff is confident consumers will as they “make the link between these devices and their electricity bill.”

And if they do not, no worries. Down the road, technology geeks are figuring out how to solve that one too. The next wave of smart electrical devices will act as our personal electricity shoppers. These include refrigerators programmed to defrost when electricity prices are cheap and dishwashers instructed not to turn on until the electric grid offers up a good deal.

The opportunity is great for engineers and energy service companies in the Northeast, where support is strong for new smart energy programs. The large investment the region is making into these technologies make it a testing ground. It’s a region for the world to keep an eye on.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work appears in many of the industry’s top magazines and newsletters. She is publisher of the Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

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Though Smart Water offers equal or potentially greater benefits than Smart Energy, Smart Water isn’t getting equal coverage.

It’s been a great year for the Smart Grid. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, analysts, journalists, and regulators can’t stop talking about it. Experts are competing to project greater market potential. Zpryme puts the Smart Appliance market alone at $15.2 billion by 2015, Lux Research talks about $15.8 billion, Cisco estimates the overall opportunity at $100 billion and Pike research uses a whopping $200 billion figure.

Giants like Cisco and IBM have set aside billions to fund Smart Grid activities. The US government has kept up, allocating hefty tax credits and incentives for Smart Grid development, with $3.4 billion from the stimulus bill granted to 100 smart-grid initiatives last October. VCs are investing heavily, as these three lists show. But while we anticipate the first Smart Grid IPO (market-permitting) from Silver Spring Networks, we’ve got to wonder out loud: Why isn’t water being served at this party?

Urban water distribution systems are not exactly ‘grids’. A lot of energy (and money) is invested in water production, treatment, distribution and reuse, but current water systems don’t comprehensively measure usage in real-time. Without measurement, there is no data to base grid management upon. The electric Smart Grid leverages the proliferation of measurement points collecting large amounts of (largely untapped) data, but this is not the case in water networks.

Nevertheless, even sparse data can take a utility a long way, even without consumer-side measurement. Analysis is the real enabler of the Smart Grid, and if you are able to collect the data, clean it and then crunch it in a meaningful way, you can manage your network more effectively, the way it’s done in IT or Telecom networks. The result may be higher efficiency in water use, optimized energy expenditure and obviously consumer-side savings.

What exactly does a Smart Water Grid do? Take a look at the definition of the Smart Grid, and now consider the following moderate adaptation to the water space:

A Smart Water Grid delivers water from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital technology to control consumption at consumers’ homes to save water, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency. It overlays the water distribution system with an information and net metering system. A Smart Water Grid includes an intelligent monitoring system that keeps track of all water flowing in the system. It also incorporates the use of monitored water mains for less water loss, as well as the capability of integrating renewable water. When water is least expensive the user can allow to the Smart Water Grid to turn on selected water-consuming appliances such as sprinklers or water-boiler pumps that can run at arbitrary hours.

While parts of this vision are still a few good years away, the data revolution in the water space has already begun. In fact, analyzing available flow and pressure data to determine anomalies in real-time or scheduling pumps and valves according to energy consumption peaks and lows is already part of the Smart Water solution today. There’s no shortage of data in distribution networks, even if we’ve yet to see universal adoption of Automated Meter Reading and online transmitting meters. At TaKaDu, for example, we have been working with water utilities to introduce network intelligence into their distribution systems by applying advanced algorithms to pre-existing data — which is a huge leap en route to gaining full control over the system. Other companies, like i2o, AUG signals and more, are deploying smart sensors into the network. These are all building blocks of the Smart Water Grid.

Industry giants such as Siemens, IBM and Oracle have also been talking about a smarter way to manage water networks, and have even used the explicit ‘grid’ terminology in their recent announcements about plunging into Smart Water. But the billions being poured into the smart electrical grid market through government initiatives, venture capital investments and corporate allocations have missed, at least thus far, the Smart Water Grid. Yes, VCs are investing in water technologies, but the lion’s share is going into capital-intensive processes for desalination, treatment, reuse etc. To catalyze a new wave of investment, many VCs would like to find more “capital efficient” ventures (one of the buzzwords du jour in that community).

However, we’re seeing signs of a change. Experts and analysts are talking about the intersection of Water and IT. Some VCs, our own investors included, have singled out Smart Water as an area of focus. Innovative water utilities are also starting to talk about the Smart Water network, and water technology companies are developing solutions to meet their needs.

Sure, it will be a while before each tap and sprinkler is smart and connected. To make the water complex a true ‘grid’ would require massive deployment of remotely accessible and always-on consumer metering, which will take quite a few years. The Smart Water revolution is starting with smarter distribution, improved water infrastructure monitoring, and intelligent asset management. But just like water, innovation and capital are flowing along the distribution network, and will eventually make their way to a faucet near you.

Guy Horowitz is VP Marketing at TaKaDu; article originally published in BlueTech Blog

photo: Lucy_Hill

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The Monterey Bay International Trade Association, TradePort and California’s Global Trade Community invite you to the Global Smart Energy- Bilateral Trade and Investment Opportunities conference on November 13, 2009.

Featuring several clean tech experts hailing from Chevron Energy Service (CES), the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), NASA and other small business sectors, the conference will discuss the obstacles and business opportunities faced in the emerging “smart grid” industry.

Following President Obama’s announcement of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Smart Grid Investment Grant awards totaling $3.4 billion on October 27, 2009, which will drive the development and deployment of the “smart grid”, this conference will discuss the possible investment opportunities for the U.S. and VC companies, both in the domestic and international “smart grid” arena, focusing on the small-medium enterprises.

The Global Smart Energy — Bilateral Trade and Investment Opportunities conference will highlight the need for changes in the energy sector in order to keep up with the anticipated energy renovations. There are still plenty of technology research and development needed to meet the demands of the future electric power grid.

The conference will also discuss the latest news in renewable energy development in transportation, including using wind and solar energy in electric vehicles. The conference will further cover the emergence of “Micro Grids” and how they power their respective communities and save energy by selling back the excess to their energy utility, as well as discussing the efficiencies that will come from “Micro Grids” and how they promote cooperation to maintain a mutual and beneficial financial relationship.

Register here for this event. CleanTechies is proud to be official media partner for this event.

Be sure to check out other Clean Tech events & conferences in the CleanTechies Events Calendar!

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