HorizonWatching

IDC Energy Insights Predictions for 2012 Utilities Industry

I recently attended IDC Energy Insights Predictions 2012:  Utilities conference call today.  I look forward to the IDC Insights series of conference calls every year as it helps me understand the critical issues and trends that impact Information Technology decisions within a particular industry. 

In this case, the predictions were focused on the Utilities industry with an emphasis on North American issues.  There are other calls coming up that focus on Europe and Asia.   

Leading the conference call was the IDC Energy Insights team of Jill Feblowitz, Jay Holman, Sam Jaffe, Usman Sindhu, Casey Talon and Marcus Torchia

Summary and Key Themes

IDC Energy Insights says in 2012, the industry is entering a ‘post stimulus’ period.  While funding has dried up, there are areas where investment spending is growing, such as Solar PV installations.   Other investment areas include Smart Grid, Smart Buildings, Electric Vehicles, and Energy Storage.

The 2012 predictions list below was sourced from the conference call slides.

1. Smart Meters. “Smart meters will peak in 2012, propelling demand response, but spending tempered for now”.
2. Smart Grids. “Distribution automation will lead smart grid control investments with 13% CAGR”
3. Smart Buildings. “Smart building technology investments will gain more traction with utilities”
4. Electric Vehicles. “120,000 plug-in electric vehicles will be sold in North America in 2012”
5. Lithium Batteries. “Lithium-Ion large format batteries will reach $600 per kWh by the end of the year”
6. Solar PV Installations. “Despite the 1603 Treasury Grant expiring in 2011, PV installations will grow by >25% in 2012”
7. Commercial PV. “>60 MW of commercial PV installations will incorporate micro-inverters or DC optimizers in 2012”
8. Security & Risk. “Security and risk will continue to grab decision maker’s attention, leading to increased budgets”
9. Big Data Analytics. “Utilities will invest in analytics in anticipation of big data”
10. IT Spending. “IT spending by North American utilities will increase by 4.5% % over the next four years”

For More Information

• The IDC 2012 Predictions portal is at http://www.idc.com/research/Predictions12/Main/index.jsp.  This page is being updated daily as new reports come out, webinars announced, etc.
• Conference Call Replay (registration required): IDC Energy Insights Predictions 2012: Utilities and IDC Energy Insights Predictions 2012: EMEA Utilities
• Reports:    IDC Energy Insights Top 10 Predictions for Utilities Industry
• Press Release:  IDC Energy Insights Top 10 Predictions for Utilities Industry
• Community:  The IDC Energy Insights Community has blogs, videos, forums, resource library, events etc. all designed for those interested in the Energy IT industry

IDC Government Insights: 2012 Technology Predictions and Trends

I attended IDC Government Insights Predictions 2012:  Government conference call today.  I look forward to the IDC series of conference calls every year as it helps me understand the critical issues and trends that impact Information Technology decisions.  

The conference call was led by IDC Vice President Thom Rubel, and IDC Research Directors Ruthbea Clarke, Shawn McCarthy, and Adelaide O'Brien 

Summary and Key Themes

IDC says that the Government spending on IT in the U.S. will reach $82B.  The majority of that is Federal, with spending at the Federal level split about evenly between DoD and Civilian initiatives.  IDC expects the majority of this spending will be allocated to improve decision-making, operational efficiency, and citizen services for 2012

Overall, IDC believes there are four overall themes to watch in Government spending for 2012:

1. Operational Efficiency:  Broader strategies are need to reduce operational costs
2. Mobility:  Better management and provision of services are required
3. Smart Government:  Improve the value of information and broaden service channels
4. Economic Sustainability:  Investing to improve quality of life and promote economic growth/competitiveness

Top Ten Predictions for 2012

The 2012 predictions lists are developed from IDC analysts, who draw upon their ongoing discussions with industry clients, vendors, and years of experience.  The list below was sourced from the conference call slides.

1. Cloud Computing.  “Up to 10% of States will have shared cloud hubs by the end of 2012, rapidly growing to 65% of the States by 2015”.
2. Social Media.  “The use of social media for U.S. Local, State, and Federal organizations will begin the move from experimental to systematic information dissemination and collection.”
3. Mobility.  “Mobility will become the number 1 IT governance issue and moves beyond device management to encompass broader business issues.”
4. DataCenters.  “Small datacenters in the U.S. Federal government will hit the endangered species list in 2012 and be reduced by 70% with State and Local governments following suit.”
5. Business Process Outsourcing.  “Over 20% of government IT and business process outsourcing requests for proposals will include service-level agreements tied to internal business and/or program outcomes.”
6. Smart Cities.  “The growing availability of intelligent technology solutions will accelerate global investment in smart city technologies to $40.9 billion in 2012.”
7. Service Level Agreements.   “Due to increased use of cloud computing, CIOs will spend up to 20% of their time in 2012 reviewing the terms and conditions of service-level agreements and mover toward standardization.”
8. Big Data.  “Governments will take small steps to satiate their big appetite for Big Data.”
9. Communication Networks.  “Foundational high-speed communications networks will finally hit critical mass.”
10. Smarter Government.  “Governments will start updating legacy systems and engage in cross-agency collaboration that will move them to a higher stage in smart government maturity.”

The last few minutes of the conference call was spent going over recommendations and guidance to those in governments and those at vendors who serve governments.

For More Information

• Conference Call Replay (registration required): IDC Government Insights Predictions 2012:  Government and  IDC Government Insights Predictions 2012:  EMEA Government 
• Reports:    Asia/Pacific Government Insights 2012 Top 10 Predictions and U.S. Government 2012 Top 10 Predictions, Document # GI231773
• Community:  The IDC Government Insights Community has blogs, videos, forums, resource library, events etc. all designed for those interested in the Government IT industry
• Newsletter:  You can sign up for the IDC Government Insights newsletter
• The IDC 2012 Predictions portal is at: http://www.idc.com/research/Predictions12/Main/index.jsp

IBM Relaunches Smarter City Initiative With An Innovative Portal

IBM has relaunched it's Smarter City initiative and the website portal is something you should visit to experience.  It is truly an immersive, interactive experience designed to show how cities all over the world are using advanced technology to help address some of the biggest problems facing our planet.  

 
It is a fact...our cities are getting larger and larger.  With that growth comes significant challenges for city leaders.  Increasingly, city operations are being digitized, creating brand new data points.  With the greater digitization of its core systems and the use of advanced analytic capabilities, cities can enhance decision-making and improve urban planning.

The Smarter City portal allows you to explore and experience how Smarter Technology can have an impact on making a city more sustainable, more intelligent, and simply better places to live and work.  At the portal, you have options to learn more about how technology can impact all areas of a Smarter City, including Transportation (all forms of transportation), Public Safety, Communications, Energy & Utilities, Healthcare, Social Services, Education,  Retail, Economic Development and other critical operations that make up a large urban city today. 

I suggest you give it a visit and explore this innovative portal at www.thesmartercity.com

Frost & Sullivan: Global Megatrends Shaping Our Future

Today I attended a webinar offered by research firm Frost & Sullivan that was titled “Mega Trends that will Shape the Future of the World”.  The stated purpose of the webinar was to discuss the most important global mega trends, potential scenarios of specific trends in 2020, and the implications of these mega trends in transforming society, markets and cultures. 

The webinar was jointly led by Frost & Sullivan Partner Sarwant Singh and Frost & Sullivan Team Leader Archana Amarnath. For those of you who want to view the webinar, at the end of this post I have the embedded the webinar, courtesy of Frost & Sullivan and Bright Talk.

I really enjoyed the webinar.  Here is my review of the megatrends covered during the webinar.

1)  Urbanization.   Frost confirms a trend that we’ve seen mentioned by others.  That is that the world’s population is increasingly shifting towards an urban environment.  Frost says that this trend will result in mega cities, mega regions, and mega transportation/business corridors.   Technology will be applied to enhance living and business activities within these mega-environments.

As a result of the urbanization trend, technology companies will try to address issues that impact consumer and business activities.  Frost predicts there will be an increased focus on making cities ‘Smarter’.  There will be over 40 global cities to achieve a designation of being “SMART” by 2020.  Frost says that more than 50% of the smart cities of 2025 will be from Europe and North America.   As the worlds businesses competes to realize the smart city opportunity, Frost expects there to be a convergence of smart city technology that will ultimately lead to convergence of competition in three different industries 1) Energy Infrastructure Players, 2) IT Players, and 2) Automation/Building Control Players.

2) Social Trends.  Frost mentioned three sub-trends here 1) Geo Socialization, 2) Generation Y and 3) Reverse Brain Drain.   

Geo Socialization.  Frost says Geo Socialization services will become an important part of the landscape in 2020 as we’ll see all sorts of location based services being pushed to mobile consumers and mobile business workers.

Gen Y.  There will be an increased focus placed on new and innovative products and services that cater to the values, beliefs, interests, and lifestyles of the younger generation.  A prime market will be the younger generation in India and China, who are increasingly displaying four key characteristics as consumers

• Personalization and Individualization
• Techno Savvy and Connected 24x7
• Civic and Environmentally Friendly
• Demanding and Impatient - “Fast and the Furious

Reverse Brain Drain.  Frost expects there to be a migration of skilled and educated workers from developed companies back to their homelands to fill a shortage of CXO Positions In BRIC countries.  Frost also says that many Europeans and Americans will seek jobs in these developing countries in the future in order to participate in the huge growth economies that are materializing.

3) Increased Satellites In Orbit.   Frost expects that by 2020 there will over 900 satellites will be launched annually around the globe. While this will cause a traffic jam in space, all those satellites will enable a whole set of new and innovative applications and services.

4) Cyber Warfare.  Frost is concerned that by 2020 cyber warfare will become an everyday occurrence.  In fact, Frost says that if there is a World War 3 in our future, cyber warfare will play an important part. 

5) Robot Technology.   Frost paints a strong future for robots across all sectors of the economy.  Future robots will utilize artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to be able to help us with everyday decision making.  The top applications for industrial robots will be in Robots in Space, Military, Healthcare

6) Virtual Worlds.  Frost says that by 2020, 3D simulated environments will be used to significantly enhance consumer and business activities.   Simulation and virtual world technology will change the way we interact with users and data.  For example, virtual shopping will allow customers to try products without leaving their homes.   Virtual surgeries will allow doctors to train for new types of procedures just like airplane pilots train in flight simulators today.  Frost explained that haptic technology is an an enabling technology for these immersive virtual and simulation environments in the future.

7) Cloud Computing.   Frost says we will have smart clouds by 2020.  These will be flexible and customized clouds created by consolidation of different off premise hybrid cloud services.  Cloud computing will allow future information technology infrastructures to  be scaled up or down as the workload demands.  Key enabling technologies will be  API standards and cloud security standards.

8) Innovating to Zero.   As we move towards 2020, there will be a focus on using emerging technologies to minimize failures.  Governments and businesses alike will strive to reach a level of zero security accidents, zero facility failures, zero emissions, zero accidents.   Frost mentioned initiatives in Norway as well as initiatives in the power generation generation industry to enable innovative zero emission technologies including Wind energy, Solar PV Cells, Ocean energy, Geothermal Energy, Bio Fuels, and Travelling Wave Reactors.

9) Infrastructure Development and New Transportation Corridors.  Frost expects higher spending on travel, transportation, and utilities infrastructures.  Frost mentioned the highest spending may be in water management systems, but also mentioned power generation/distribution, Road & Rail, and Air/Seaports.    Frost provided the example of the Trans-Siberian railroad.   This new transportation corridor will result in industrial and business hubs along the railroad, much like “Route 66” did to the American landscape.  Development of Trans-Siberian railroad will have significant socio economic and business impact to Russia. 

10) E-Mobility.  Frost expects that over the next decade all sorts of new forms of personal transportation vehicles will make its way to the economy.  Many of these will target urban commuters who just need to get to work and back.  Frost says that 40 million electric 2 and 4 wheeled vehicles will be sold annually around the globe by 20120.   

11) Healthcare:  Spending will rise globally.  Frost says that if the current spending trend continues, Healthcare spending will almost double by 2050.  Some countries will end up spending 20-30% of their GDP on Healthcare.   Spending will transition away from treating and more for predictive analytics that will be used to help diagnose and monitor conditions before they become serious.

A BrightTALK Channel

For more information.

• Frost & Sullivan: Main Website
• Webinar link:  “Mega Trends that will Shape the Future of the World”. 
• Frost & Sullivan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FrostandSullivan
• Frost & Sullivan on Twitter:   http://twitter.com/frost_sullivan
• Frost & Sullivan on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/FrostandSullivan

A Primer On Water Management Issues

Today is Blog Action day at water.org.  It's a good time to get the word out to everyone on water management issues. Read more about water.org's blog action day at Blog Action Day - Working Together To Solve The Water Crisis.  This post is my contribution to the Blog Action Day.

Most of us reading this post take our access to water for granted.  However, I would imagine that we all realize that water is critical to sustaining life on our planet.  Water makes up 60 to 70% by weight of all living organisms and is essential for photosynthesis.  If the Earth’s water supply vanished, there would be no plants, no animals, and no people. 

While the Earth’s water is not vanishing, many scientists believe that our global water supply is in crisis.  We may or may not be at the crisis stage, but we definitely need to take action to solve our water management issues.

Some Quick Facts About Water

• Water covers 75% of the earth's surface.  Nearly 98% of the earth's water is in the oceans.  Fresh water makes up less than 3% of water on earth, over two thirds of this is tied up in polar ice caps and glaciers.  Fresh water lakes and rivers make up only 0.009% of water on Earth and ground water makes up 0.28%.
• It takes 700 gallons of water to make a cotton T-shirt, 2,000 gallons to make one gallon of milk, and 39,000 gallons to make a car.
• Global agriculture wastes an estimated 60% of the 2,500 trillion liters it uses each year. 
• Municipalities lose as much as 50% of their water supply through leaky infrastructure.  
• More than one trillion gallons of water are wasted in U.S. homes each year from easy-to-fix leaks.
• 1 in 5 of the word’s population still lacks access to clean, safe drinking water. 
• The United Nations predicts that nearly half the world’s population will experience critical water shortages by the year 2080.
• There are nearly 53,000 different water agencies in the United States alone, each managing a short stretch of river or a handful of reservoirs. 
• In the last 100 years global water usage has increased at twice the rate of population growth.

For those of us living in developed nations, our water infrastructure is many decades old.  In fact, in some places it is centuries old.  As our demand for water is increasing, we need to modernize the existing infrastructure.  One way to do that is to apply information technology.

Today’s water management systems are operating without enough data and insights.   The planet needs new water management systems, based on smart technology that can collect and analyze real-time data.  These new systems will provide water authorities with the insights they need to supply more water to more people with lower energy-use and cost. 

How Can Technology Help?

What is needed are water management systems that can provide real time collection and analysis of all sources of data.  This includes integrating disparate sensor technologies that produce disparate data formats along with other data from an array of partners.  Information technology solutions are needed that can take data that’s coming in fast and turn it into intelligence that augments the ability to improve decision making about water distribution.  These solutions need to connect the folks in the central control room with those working in the field building bridges, dams, dykes to the sensor experts and sophisticated modelers.

• Technology can monitor, measure and analyze entire water ecosystems, from rivers and reservoirs to the pumps and pipes in our homes.
• The latest water meters, combined with appropriate Water Management solutions can provide a single, reliable, up-to-the minute and actionable view of water use for a government, a business, or a home.   These ‘smart’ water meters can provide real-time insight into water use, raising awareness, locating inefficiencies and decreasing demand.
• Advanced sensors can help us collect all sorts of new data on water usage.  For example, sensors on levees can monitor changing flood conditions and respond accordingly.  Sensor based systems can provide the agriculture industry with detailed information on air quality, soil moisture content and temperature to calculate optimal irrigation schedules.
• Advanced computing, analytics, and simulations can help us all move beyond “real time” to prediction, supporting better-informed policy and management decisions.
• Technology can also be applied to our oceans to gather data on water temperature, currents, wave strength, salinity and marine life, and applying algorithms that can forecast everything from wave patterns over 24 hours to the right time to harvest mussels.

IBM Water Management Solution Areas

IBM is taking a leadership role among technology vendors in researching, piloting and developing a whole suite of water management solutions.  Taking a look at what IBM is doing can help us see the areas where technology can be applied to solve water management issues

• Natural Water Resources – Provides sensor data integration, analysis and visualization to enable the measurement, modeling and management of water levels, usage and quality in natural water resources.
• Water Utilities – Enables water providers to make rapid decisions regarding business processes and operational efficiency to maximize their return on investments as well as foresee and quickly respond to contamination issues and emergencies.
• Water Infrastructure – Provides sensing systems for managing water infrastructure, such as levee oversight management and flood control.
• Water Metering – Improves management of water supply and demand by integrating data between the dozens of stakeholders involved. Provides all stakeholders with consistent, real-time information to help them work together to make critical decisions about water supply in a geographic region.
• Green Sigma for Water™ – is a business consulting service that identifies where water is being used, measures and monitors usage, and creates process improvements to reduce water use. IBM pilots have achieved reductions in water usage of 30%.
• SmartBay Sensor System - Monitors wave conditions, marine life and pollution levels.  Provide real-time information to stakeholders in the Irish maritime economy, runs on a cloud computing platform, and is able to predict water conditions critical to those stakeholders.

Innovative Water Management Vendors

The Artemis Project held its second annual Artemis Project Top 50 Water Companies Competition during the spring of 2010.   These vendors are all coming up with some very innovative and creative solutions to Water Management issues.  Check out the winners:  A list of the 50 is here.   View a poster show of this year’s winners here.

What Is Needed

More work is needed as we transform the water infrastructure to digital technology:

• Continue to Build Awareness for Water Issues.  Many in leadership positions are not aware of the critical need for water management information technology solutions.
• Continue Market Testing & Solutions Platform Development.  Technology vendors need to continue to build assets and test solution platforms.  Stronger linkages are needed across the growing ecosystem.
• Continue to Build Thought Leadership Deliverables.  Tech vendors need to develop content highlighting case studies, references, demonstrations, and white papers.

For More Information

There is a bunch of more reading material available.  Here some links…

• IBM Links
  • One page brief “Smarter Water for a Smarter Planet”
  • Podcast:  IBM and the Future of Water Management
  • Smarter Water Management Thought Leadership and  Solutions Website  and Water Management Pains Summary Report
  • Global Innovation Outlook Links:  GIO Water website, watch the GIO water videos, or read the GIO Report on Oceans and Water.  For more discussion, check out the GIO Blog.
• Other Resources
  • Water.org is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries.  
  • Sustainable Asset Management Report - “Water: a market of the future”
  • United Nations:  “Water:  A Shared Responsibility” 
  • World Water Forum “Bridging Divides For Water”
  • Twitter search on water management  http://search.twitter.com/search?q=water+management

New Transportation Study Says Urban Sprawl Causes Congestion

For years now, The Urban Mobility Report, issued every two years by the Texas Transportation Institute, has been regarded by many transportation and urban planning experts as the ‘bible’ on traffic congestion issues.   The report has been used to justify large road improvement projects throughout the country in an attempt to solve major metropolitan traffic congestion problems.

However, a new report from CEOs for Cities offers a dramatic critique of the 25 year old industry standard created by the Texas Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility Report (UMR).  The report provides a new look at traffic congestion and suggests there are additional reasons why  Americans spend so much time in traffic.  The report

The new report titled Driven Apart: How sprawl is lengthening our commutes and why misleading mobility measures are making things worse says the solution to the congestion problem has much more to do with how we build our cities than how we build our roads.  The report says that we need new metrics like 'total trip distance’ and ‘total travel time’, metrics that are not currently in the The Urban Mobility Report.

The report ranks how long residents in the nation’s largest 51 metropolitan areas spend in peak hour traffic, and in some cases the rankings are almost the opposite of those listed in the 2009
Urban Mobility Report.  Here’s a list from the report of the 10 cities (out of the 51 studied) where commuters spend the most time getting to work every day. 

Cities	Avg. hours per year in traffic
Detroit – Warren - Livonia	179
Indianapolis - Carmel	166
Louisville / Jefferson County	165
Raleigh - Cary	161
Birmingham – Hoover	159
Oklahoma City	154
St. Louis	153
Memphis	152
Richmond	147
Kansas City	142

The report says that compact cities are the real answer to reducing traffic delays.  The key is to have land use patterns and transportation systems that enable their residents to take
shorter trips and minimize the burden of peak hour travel.   These conclusions are very different than those of the UMR, which has long been used to measure traffic congestion and has been used to justify road improvement projects costing millions of dollars.

It’s nice to have a fresh look at the traffic congestion issue.  Thanks CEO for Cities!

For more information, you can access the report (exec summary AND the detailed report) and supporting press release, graphics, etc. by heading over to http://www.ceosforcities.org/work/driven-apart

Intelligent Transportation Scenario: Advanced Traveler Information Systems

I’m wondering when in the future will we arrive at a place where there will be open standards for traffic information that will allow us to have Advanced Traveler Information Systems.  

Traffic information is certainly needed by everyone.  That means we need to have it available on all sorts of devices using all sorts of applications.   So why not open standards so the information can be available and used to help us all get from point A to point B in less time and with less frustration/hassle?

I see a future where Advanced Traveler Information Systems are capable of advising travelers of suggested travel route changes due to traffic congestion changes...all in real time.  An integrated system would need to be able to draw real-time information from any type of transportation in the region, then process that information against the traveler’s requests/needs,  then provide that information back to the traveler in the format needed for the traveler’s device and application.

Here is a scenario….

Monday evening

1. Jack receives an email from his global head of marketing that an important client will be visiting London to discuss a new deal. Jack is to host dinner for the global client on Friday evening at Nobu in London.

2. Jack books a table over the Internet for 1900 on Friday and puts the details into his Lotus Calendar.

Friday

10:00 - The day has not started well: Jack is in back-to-back meetings the entire day with some client issues.

17:30 - Jack’s online calendar reminds him of the dinner and alerts him of his travel options based on reaching the restaurant by 1900:

1. Taxi: due to ongoing road works on the route, there is a bad traffic jam along the route - he would need to leave the office by 1800. The estimated cost was £25.
2. Bus: as there were bus lanes throughout the route, the road works would not impact the journey too significantly - he would need to leave the office by 1810. The cost would be £2.
3. Tube & walking: the Piccadilly line was currently on schedule; he would need to start walking to the Tube by 1815. The cost would be £3.

The application on Jack’s smartphone recommends that Jack go with option 4:  Tube and walking.

18:20  -  On Jack’s walk to the Tube, his smartphone alerts him of a security incident on the Bakerloo Tube line. If he were to continue with the planned route, he would arrive at the restaurant only at 1945. It advises him to change his route by walking to the nearest bus stop. The bus route would get him to the restaurant at 1910.

19:10 - Jack arrives at the restaurant slightly late but thankfully his guest has not yet arrived – the guest took a taxi and was caught in a traffic jam!

The successful outcome in the scenario above is dependent on open transportation information standards and Advanced Traveler Information Systems, including

• An extensive sensor-based transportation system operating in the region where real-time information is collected on every type of transportation available to the traveler
• An back office analytics-rich system capable of analyzing the millions of transactions coming into the system for each mode of transportation
• Applications available on personal mobile handheld devices capable of interacting with the regional Advanced Traveler Information System.  The mobile application needs to be able to become an agent for the person, acting on stored personal preferences, the calendar for the day, and the real-time information available from the regional system.

A Primer on the Smart Grid and Intelligent Utility Network Trend

In a world where increased focus is on reducing CO2 emissions, governments and energy & utility companies are looking for ways to modernize and transform their utility infrastructure in order to improve energy efficiency and reliability. 

For developed economies, the traditional way power has been generated is based on a central generation model with one-way power and information flow from large, often distant generating stations, via transmission and distribution lines to end consumers.   Most of these generation systems contain an aging infrastructure with some equipment dating back 60 years.  This traditional infrastructure lacks sufficient technology and communications at the distribution and end-use level that would enable grid automation & monitoring capabilities.   The model has been a push model, meaning that there is little to no automated information coming back to the central sites from those that use the power.  So if the user suddenly has no power, the only way the utility company knows about it is if they get a call from the users.  Furthermore, the user has very little information available to help them understand how much power they are using, when they are using it, and what they are using it for.

The Smart Grid (also called Intelligent Utility Network) technology is an important emerging trend within the Energy and Utility Industry.  As consumers, we are increasingly aware that the way we consume and save energy can be improved.  Within the energy and utility industry, energy efficiency is also on the minds of the industry leaders.  And our governments are all interested in finding new sources of energy.   By embedding technology into the electrical distribution network, a Smart Grid can transform the way power is distributed and used.  Intelligence throughout the grid can dramatically reduce outages and faults, improve responsiveness, handle current and future demand, increase efficiency and manage costs.

The following video from IEEE will provide some additional introduction into the concept of the Smart Grid.

Produced by IEEE and ScienCentral, Inc.

A Smart Grid can present many opportunities for consumers, businesses, and utilities to benefit from the efficient distribution of energy and availability of intelligent equipment and devices.  For governments, it offers significant opportunities to wisely manage a country’s fuel resources by potentially reducing the need for additional generation sources, better integrating renewable energy sources into the grid’s operations, reducing outages and cascading problems, and enabling users of power to better manage their energy consumption.

The Smart Grid technology will enable energy customers to

• manage electricity consumption to meet specific household/business goals such as cost, availability, and environmental impact
• seek energy providers, information, and technologies that help them meet their goals
• do business with utility companies who communicate a set of energy-related values consistent with their own
• seek convenient and more personalized ways to interact with their utility to negotiate customized solutions to allow them to meet their needs
• act on their own wants and needs where regulatory representation does not provide results satisfying these specific needs, primarily through execution of alternative solutions (e.g., self-generation)

So what exactly are the characteristics of a Smart Grid?  The US Department of Energy has characterized a smart grid as having the following attributes:

• Self-healing from power disturbance events
• Enabling active participation by consumers in demand response
• Operating resiliently against physical and cyber attack
• Providing power quality for 21st century needs
• Accommodating all generation and storage options
• Enabling new products, services, and markets
• Optimizing assets and operating efficiently

The consumer of power from a future Smart Grid will see many differences as a result of adding intelligence into the network.   Some examples are:

• Smart electricity meters, water meters, and gas meters that collect real-time data on utility usage.
• Distributed generation, such as solar panels and other micro generation.  These new generators could be located at the home, in the neighborhood, or in the local community.
• Dedicated energy display units and smart thermostats that provide the user with feedback on energy usage in real-time.
• Smart appliances with connectivity to the intelligent utility network via the in home meters and display units.
• Plug-in vehicles as a both source and consumer of energy.  The vehicles, when plugged in would provide information on energy usage.
• Linked connection to the in-home network and home PCs for further analysis of all the information collected.

The Smart Grid transformation is much more than installation of new technology in a piece-part fashion.  The call for the transformation to a Smart Grid impacts every part of the utility infrastructure including generation, distribution, and usage.  It will be a disruptive change, but a change that will provide huge rewards for the future.  For the utility industry itself, changes needs to happen in four key areas:

1. Strategy.  We need a  fundamental rethink of business strategy and industry business models across the board.
2. Collaboration.  Utility providers will need to develop a much closer collaboration with customers, regulators, financers, researchers, technology and service vendors, and other stakeholders than ever before.
3. People.  The change will be very disruptive to utility companies.  They will need a renewed focus on staff, their roles, competencies, compensation, performance and structure.
4. Process.  Utility providers will need to re-architect business processes and applications.

There is much work to be done to transform old utility infrastructures to a Smart Grid system.  The transformation will not happen overnight, but could happen over a series of decades.  When complete, countries that transform their utilities infrastructure to an Intelligent Utility Network will have a modern network of sensor-based interactive technologies that will give utilities and consumers unprecedented control over managing energy use, improving energy grid operations, and significantly reducing energy costs. 

There is a ton of information available on Smart Grids.  Here are a few example resources for you to explore….

• Wikipedia Smart Grid page  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid
• US Department of Energy Smart Grid page  http://www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm
• IBM Smart Grid page  http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smart_grid/ideas/index.html
  • Podcast:  http://www.ibm.com/podcasts/howitworks/
• SmartGrids - European Technology Platform  http://www.smartgrids.eu/
• BusinessWeek:  Smart Grids: China’s Edge over India
• Smart Grid News.com  http://www.smartgridnews.com/index.html

For other “Primers” here on HorizonWatching, check out http://horizonwatching.typepad.com/horizonwatching/primer/

IBM and SeeClickFix: A Social Collaboration Challenge on the Smarter Cities Scan

Are you aware of some non-emergency issues going on in your community that if fixed that could help improve the quality of life in your town?  Some examples might be:

• A dangerous intersection for pedestrians
• A bike lane that is always blocked
• An area that always floods whenever it rains
• A building with broken windows
• A vacant lot that needs to be cleaned up
• Potholes on a certain street that never get fixed
• Cracked sidewalks that need to be fixed
• Unsafe activity going on in your neighborhood

The SeeClickFix Challenge:

There’s a very interesting crowdsourcing effort going on I thought you might be interested in checking out.  The folks at SeeClickFix have partnered up with IBM’s Smarter Cities Scan in an effort called the “SeeClickFix Challenge on the Smarter Cities Scan”

SeeClickFix empowers residents to actively care for and improve their neighborhoods by engaging them to report on things they think needs to be ‘fixed’ by posting information of those things on the web.  Residents pinpoint the exact location on a map and can upload pictures of the problem.  The IBM Smarter Cities Scan team recognized this service as a novel approach to help us all improve the cities we live in.  So the two teams are now partnering in this unique social collaboration challenge.  The crowdsourcing effort will run from February 8-21 on the Smarter Cities Scan.   And you can participate!

How You Can Participate:

1. See - spot a non-emergency issue in your neighborhood, go to http://seeclickfix.com/citizens and enter your city name to begin the process
2. Click - “Report an Issue” to open a ticket describing the issue and what can be done to resolve it
3. Fix  - Monitor your ticket and the issue you reported to see how your city responded.
4. Share – Go back to the Smarter Cities Scan site and report on your SeeClickFix experience by sharing your SeeClickFix story.   We want to understand how citizens and  communities put SeeClickFix to new uses in all urban environments.  In the process perhaps we can generate some new ideas on how to make our cities better places to live in.  So please share your story!!

I just entered my first ‘problem’ into the SeeClickFix database for my community and found the process easy.  There’s a walking/bike path in my community that needs repairing in a certain spot.  It is not paved and doesn’t drain well…so it gets all muddy.  The path is just a few feet from a 50mph road and I am worried some runner or biker will slip and fall into traffic. 

Want More Information?

• To learn more about how SeeClickFix works, see “How It Works” 
• For more about this challenge, see this Smarter Cities post on Tumblr
• Got a question? Use the Ask feature and you shall be answered.
• Got something fixed via SeeClickFix? Post a story

Spread The News!

The more people we have contributing stories, the more we all learn in the process.  Help publicize this collaboration challenge to your social networks via email, Facebook, and Twitter (use tag #seeclickfix).  And If you blog, consider authoring a post about this challenge as I have done here.

Dr. James Canton: Top 20 Trends That Will Shape the World in the Next Year

Since 1990, Dr. James Canton, a futurist and founder of the Institute for Global Futures, has released an annual Global Futures Forecast 2010.  These annual forecasts from Canton are always a little too sensational and dramatic in how the trends are worded.  I know he does this just to ‘sell’ the trends list and pull people into his marketing engine.  But if you ignore all that drama and read between the lines for the message of the key trend, the lists can be useful. 

In this years report, Dr. Canton lists 20 trends that he says we need to watch in 2010 as these trends are transforming our lives today and will continue to do so for many years into the future.  Here is my summary of the 20 trends. See below for a link to a 13 page pdf file wiht more detail.

1. Future Positive.  We’ll once again look at the future in a positive way.
2. The Existential Consumer.  Relationships have been strained between governments, business and individuals.
3. Business as Unusual.  Expect some bold moves by businesses in 2010.
4. Design for a Better World.  Canton says that giving back to others, social responsibility will emerge as a key trend this year.  Perhaps the Haiti earthquake is the spark we needed.
5. Energy X.  Canton says our future is tied to finding new sources of plentiful and cheap energy.
6. Asia Self-Reliance.  Asian economies will increasingly rely on internal sources of growth and prosperity.
7. Personalized Medicine.  Technology will start to deliver on the promise of personalized medicine.
8. The Neuro-Society.  Canton expects 2010 to be a breakout year for neuroscience and that there will be broad-based impact.
9. Hungry Planet.  Canton says there will be progress made towards a cooperative approach to solving food shortages, food security, and improving quality of life.
10. Products That Think.  Canton says we’ll have more smart products as manufacturers embed chips into everything.
11. Social Capitalism Emerges.  Canton says that efforts to remake capitalism into a populist or social welfare tool will fail. 
12. Workforce Talent War.  Canton expects that companies will have a talent shortage as increased complexity, competition and demands for performance drive the talent search…and talent wars.
13. Jobs and the Innovation Economy.  Real job creation will not come from government but the private sector stepping up the innovation game.
14. Rogues Among Us.   Canton says to watch out for rogue organizations that seek to destabilize the world’s security order.
15. Green Tech.  Canton says there will be increased focus on helping nature help itself by geo-engineering the planet using science to protect the planet. 
16. Internet Everywhere.  Canton safely predicts that the Internet will be everywhere this year.
17. Tomorrow’s Markets.  Canton points out that the emerging middle class in the developing world is a huge opportunity for all businesses.
18. Robots R Us.  Canton says “The robots are coming!”.
19. Singularity Watch.  Canton believes that Singularity discipline (the use of advanced science and technology to cope with planetary social challenges) will get increased attention in 2010
20. Reinventing Education.  Canton says we need to reinvent Education to make it more relevant, modern and future-ready.

For a 13 page pdf file that covers the 20 trends, check out Global Futures Forecast 2010