#GTM Smart Grid

[inerginc]

GTM Smart Grid http://ift.tt/2eJlQnQ

The numbers are in, and in the U.S. alone electric vehicle sales increased 21 percent last year -- from 158,614 vehicles sold in 2016 to 199,826 vehicles sold in 2017. December 2017 also marked the 26th consecutive month of year-over-year sales increases for EVs, led by the Chevy Bolt, followed by the Toyota Prius Prime and the Tesla Model X. 

Last year saw automakers make several major EV announcements. Toyota announced its plans to electrify its entire lineup by 2025, General Motors announced plans for 20 new EVs by 2023, and Volvo announced all models introduced after 2019 will be either hybrids or all-electric. Meanwhile, Ford said it is investing $4.5 billion into 13 new EVs. Even Jeep got into the mix announcing its plans to release a plug-in Wrangler in 2020. 

In terms of charging stations, 2017 brought us the opening of Tesla’s largest supercharger station in North America, located about halfway between Los Angeles and the San Francisco -- a mix between airline waiting lounge and coffee shop. Volkswagen announced its plans to install 2,800 charging stations in 17 of the largest U.S. cities by June 2019, mostly in workplaces and multifamily dwellings, such as apartment buildings and condos (a part of its Dieselgate reparations). In Europe, Shell released plans to charge EVs in just eight minutes with its 80 high-power charging stations throughout the continent.

On the acquisition front, the EV charging market saw several notable developments in 2017 by multinational energy companies. Engie started things off in March with the purchase of EV-Box, a Dutch electric-vehicle charging management startup. Then, the international power and clean energy company Enel bought smart-grid EV charging leader eMotorWerks. eMotorWerks’ nearly 30,000 charging stations deployed so far can aggregate vehicle charging load, allowing energy providers an easier method of balancing the grid, and drivers the chance to optimize their charging for renewables or the lowest electricity price.

Another notable acquisition in the charging space came from Shell, which bought the Dutch firm NewMotion. The company manages charging points for electric vehicles in Western Europe and will operate alongside Shell’s program of rolling out fast charging points at its stations.

In total, the automotive industry is expecting 127 battery-electric models to be introduced worldwide over the next five years. More options combined with greater familiarity is expected to accelerate EV demand. While it’s difficult to predict when the S-curve inflection point of demand will hit, as battery costs come down and economies of scale grow, Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects EVs to reach price parity with their gasoline counterparts by 2022 or sooner. At that point sales are expected to rise quickly.

That gives the industry less than five years to prepare and update electrical grid infrastructure, adjust business models, and rollout enough charging to meet demand. Wood Mackenzie projects 1 in 9 cars sold globally will be electrified by 2035, bringing the total EV fleet to 125 million. But it will take some effort to get there. 

Recent investments by major car OEMs and acquisitions by power companies indicate that more energy players are taking action on the necessity of establishing a foothold in EV charging infrastructure. Additionally, these acquisitions show these players are preparing for the load balancing challenges that can be expected when the inflection point hits without building new fossil fuel generation plants.

It isn’t only large players that are making preparations. In 2017, the community choice aggregation provider Sonoma Clean Power implemented a broadscale program to accelerate the adoption of smart-grid EV charging in their territory and has now distributed more than 1,500 free JuiceNet-enabled chargers (JuiceNet is the software platform provided by eMotorWerks) to their EV driving customers. In phase one of the program, 86 percent of program participants stated that they would not have purchased an EV without the program incentives. 

What to expect in 2018

1. More EV Models and Continued Sales Growth

The sheer number of automotive OEMs that announced new electric vehicle models or electric versions of their existing models indicates the industry is embracing the electrfication transformation. Expect to see more Tesla Model 3s, and new longer-range models from Nissan, Jaguar Honda, Audi, Kia, BYD, Hyundai and more.

2. More Utility Programs to Support EV Adoption

According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, 2.9 million EVs on the road by 2022 could add over 11,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity demand on the world’s grids. Utilities are under pressure to meet this demand without building new fossil fuel generation plants. As utilities often work on 25-year planning horizons, expect forward-thinking power suppliers to get into the deployment of charging infrastructure.

Look for deployments and customer rebates from energy providers in the U.S. and Europe for smart-grid charging systems, which allow them to remotely manage and aggregate the charging loads of EVs over time, limit the need of additional fossil fuel plants and optimize renewable energy when it is abundant on the grid. Additionally, expect energy providers to target expansion in DC fast-charging, as it requires extensive new electrical infrastructure to deliver, and utilities don’t have to grant interconnection agreements to themselves.

3. Utilities Leveraging EVs as Grid Assets

Thousands of EVs charging at the same time hold the potential to either cripple the reliability of local utility grids or prove to be a windfall in electricity sales. It all depends on the willingness of these organizations to embrace new technologies that allow them to aggregate charging load over the course of a day, while still making sure cars are charged up when their drivers need them. As noted above, these solutions can provide a variety of services beyond grid balancing, such as optimizing charging loads for times of the day when demand is low, renewables are abundant, or prices are at their lowest.

Additionally, some software can also allow drivers or charging equipment providers to be rewarded for allowing their systems to act as virtual power plants and bid into demand response programs. Expect forward-thinking utilities to rollout this smart-grid charging technology in 2018 and leverage it to avoid unnecessary grid infrastructure upgrades to meet EV charging demand, reduce their dependence on peaker plants, and enable vehicle-to-grid integration.

4. Shifting Service and Dealership Business Models

As most innovations go, the electrification of consumer cars is going to unsettle existing business models built around ICE vehicles. With their fewer parts and lower maintenance requirements, EVs are expected to reduce demand for part supplies and mechanics. We can even expect dealerships, which bank on service as a recurring revenue generator, to begin to make adjustments to their business models in the face of the pending EV boom.

5. More bans on ICE vehicles

Several countries have set targets to ban ICE vehicles in favor of electric ones -- including Norway by 2025, India and China by 2030, and the U.K and France by 2040. California is also contemplating something similar as a way to meet its greenhouse gas emissions goals. Democratic Assemblymember Phil Ting recently proposed a bill that would require all new passenger vehicles sold in the state to be battery-electric or hydrogen fuel cell cars. Considering nine other states have announced their intention to follow California's lead on vehicle emission regulations, such an announcement could have sweeping implications for the United States automobile industry. In 2018 and beyond, expect these bold goals to be backed up with implementation plans, and keep an eye on California.

5. The Volkswagen "Dieselgate" Windfall

As a part of its $14.7 billion settlement reached by Volkswagen and the United States government, Volkswagen plans to infuse $2 billion into the nation’s zero-emission vehicle infrastructure over the next ten years. In total, 44 states from Ohio to Texas and North Carolina to California are currently contemplating how to spend these funds to reduce emissions in their communities. Expect to see announcements in 2018 on their plans. Also, expect to see California firm up how it will spend its $800 million portion for the 2,000-3,000 non-proprietary chargers Volkswagen plans to install across over 400 individual stations in the state.

***

Preston Roper is the Chief Marketing and Operations Officer at eMotorWerks. He has more than two decades of experience leading innovative marketing and operations teams at companies including Honeywell, NetDynamics (acquired by Sun Microsystems/Oracle) and Synopsys (IPO), Stem, Cogenra (acquired by Sunpower) and Tioga Energy.

[deborahringgold]

This is your SolarWakeup for September 9th, 2020

‘Green’ Transport. Uber announced that it was following Lyft into 100% electric vehicles by 2030 and carbon goals a few years later. For drivers that have an electric vehicle, Uber will pay them an extra $1.50 per ride as an incentive as part of a $800million push to enable drivers to make the switch. I’m sure this will also include a riders option to request a ‘green’ ride maybe for an extra fee to urge the demand to come along. For new readers wondering why we cover electric vehicle adoption, especially at this scale, it’s because it changes the demand for solar. As grid demand increases due to oil to electric shift in transportation, solar will make up a significant portion of that gap. The Pipeline. In the next few years there will be a great understanding of the enormous pipeline that solar and storage has built in interconnection applications. Overnight, gigawatts of solar and storage could be built for less than 5 cents per kWh in almost every market across the Country. That optionality, when grid operators understand the magnitude, should be explained to lawmakers in greater detail especially as folks urge the risks of a new energy system by shouting ‘look at California’ every opportunity they can. How many GW of interconnection applications are viable across the Country? Deployment Not Tech. I’ve never heard the term technology gap before but the sentiment remains the same. By focusing the lawmakers and regulators on research and development as opposed to mass deployment, you delay the actual success of the plan to achieve certain goals. R&D is vital and needs to continue including at greater levels, but the way to get to cheaper solar plus storage and great innovation on efficiencies is through scale. That’s how we went from 200watt to 350watt solar modules from $4/watt to $0.40/watt in less than 15 years. Utilities saying that we can’t get to goals without a leap in tech are hoping for a few more quarters of rate base, just look at Dominion’s request to get an 80 year extension on a nuclear plant. Revisit Shareholder Pressure. GTM has a good story looking back on Blackrock’s climate push as shareholders. This includes the notice it put many corporations on that were falling behind on reaching climate goals or moving into a more sustainable direction. Join The Buyer’s Group. Residential installers should be taking advantage of the 20%+ savings in the buyer’s group with new products added last week and more coming. You can fill out the price discovery and get a 1-week trial if you do. 

Axios: Uber vows big expansion of electric rides

PV-Magazine: Interconnection queues across the US are loaded with gigawatts of solar, wind and storage

Reuters: U.S. utilities say Biden plan to cut C02 hinges on breakthroughs

Greentech Media: Early Winners and Losers From BlackRock’s Shift on Climate Change

Utility Dive: US energy storage posts second-largest quarter, with more growth expected as COVID-19 recedes

PV-Tech: China facing turbulent solar build-out season as module price hikes, supply issues loom

Solar Builder: NeoCharge debuts first-ever 220V Smart Splitter to simpligy Level 2 EV charger installs

Rocky Mountain Institute: Chicago Pursues Ambitious and Innovative Procurement to Meet Renewable Energy Goals

Opinion

Grist: Who’s advising Joe Biden on climate? His former rivals.

Best, Yann

The post This is your SolarWakeup for September 9th, 2020 appeared first on SolarWakeup.com.

from Solar Energy https://www.solarwakeup.com/2020/09/09/this-is-your-solarwakeup-for-october-18th-2019-2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2-82/

[caseinpoints]

GTM report finds community solar could grow up to 50-80 times by 2030

A new study from GTM Research found that the U.S. community solar market could grow up to 50-80 times its current size by 2030 to 57-84 GW. This equates to serving nearly nine million new solar customers, including four million low-to-moderate income households, and amounting to $120 billion in capital investments. The Vision for U.S. Community Solar: A Roadmap to 2030 , which was produced for the non-profit group Vote Solar in partnership with GRID Alternatives and the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA), also informs state policy recommendations for delivering on that enormous and largely untapped potential to serve American households and businesses with affordable and reliable solar power.

Full Report: The Vision for U.S. Community Solar: A Roadmap to 2030.

“Community solar is an important piece of a strong clean energy economy that benefits everyone, and the policy decisions taking place all across the country right now will determine how big it is and how fast we get there,” said Marta Tomic, Vote Solar’s community solar program director. “This research underscores the critical role that states have to play in unlocking the full potential of community solar by designing programs that translates low-cost solar power into tangible bill savings and other economic benefits for customers. We are ready to work with lawmakers and regulators across the country to design smart community solar programs that expand solar access to all customers, build a more resilient electric grid, and create more good local jobs in the nation’s new energy economy.”

Affordable solar energy is giving families, businesses, schools and many others a way to lower energy bills and invest in America’s new energy economy. However, physical and financial barriers prevent up to 75 percent of consumers from going solar on their own rooftops – families who rent, have shaded rooftops, or don’t qualify for standard financing solutions, for example. Well-designed community solar programs give customers like these a way to go solar and save by enabling them to participate in a shared solar installation located somewhere else in their community and receive a credit on their utility bill for their share of the power produced. Thanks to pent up customer demand, community solar has become the fastest growing segment of the U.S. solar market with over one gigawatt of installed capacity nationwide, a number that could grow to 57-84 gigawatts by 2030 according to the new report.

By leveraging strong policies, business model innovation and continued cost reduction, community solar could reach millions of consumers that currently lack access to customer-sited solar options. With the right environment, community solar could provide over 2.5% of the nation’s total electricity consumption by 2030.

“The community solar model has tremendous potential to reduce energy costs and create value for low-income customers,” said Tom Figel, Policy & Regulatory Manager at GRID Alternatives. “This study shows that with the appropriate policies and support, community solar can create solar access for 50 million low-income customers, while driving significant economic opportunity and job creation for communities most in need.”

“This report makes it clear that community solar is ready to scale and play a meaningful role in our country’s overall energy mix. Industry stands ready to fulfill pent up customer demand and unlock the robust potential of local, clean community solar this report demonstrates is possible at scale,” said Jeff Cramer, Executive Director of Coalition for Community Solar Access. “Now we need state policymakers to enable smart community solar programs that bring tangible economic benefits and expand solar access to all customer types, from low-income families to major businesses. If they do, it will create a win-win-win for customers, the grid, and the environment.”

The report finds that, despite clear market opportunity, the model hasn’t yet achieved scale because only 19 states and the District of Columbia have statewide community solar policies and even fewer have well-designed policies that adequately serve the diverse market segments, including low-income customers, that stand to benefit most from cost savings and stable electric bills and opportunity to drive clean energy access and economic impact in their communities. Well-designed state policies and market-enabling programs that deliver tangible economic benefits to customer participants are key to successfully scaling the community solar market, which is itself a critical piece of the U.S. transition to a clean, smart and resilient grid.

The Vision for U.S. Community Solar: A Roadmap to 2030, the report’s executive summary and more information about community solar nationwide is available here.

News item from GTM Research

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[cryptonewsupdates]

Battery Storage Comes to the Blockchain

An alliance announced in March could result in one of the most complete blockchain-based energy trading pilots to date — by adding batteries into the mix.  

Sonnen’s decision to join the NEMoGrid project in Europe is thought to be the first instance of a battery vendor taking part in a blockchain energy trading experiment.

The project will look at the economic and technical impact of electricity trading between households within a region, said Sonnen in a press release. 

According to the NEMoGrid website, the project will evaluate three business models: centralized utility management, decentralized voltage and power-based tariffs, and a peer-to-peer market using the Ethereum blockchain for transaction recording. 

One of NEMoGrid’s aims is to investigate the interaction between electricity tariffs and peer-to-peer trading, as well as the impact of trades on the stability of local distribution grids. 

“The goal of energy supply must be to generate as much clean energy as possible right where it is being consumed,” said Jean-Baptiste Cornefert, managing director of sonnen eServices, in press materials.

“If households can sell their own power to their neighbors, this influences local electricity prices and the power grid. Ideally, people would trade in energy and at the same time stabilize the local grids, thus avoiding expensive grid interventions whenever possible.”

Battery storage is seen as being a key ingredient in helping to maintain this grid stability and pricing flexibility, soaking up excesses during periods of high energy production and returning it to the grid when demand outstrips supply.

Blockchain technology, meanwhile, will give residential participants and distribution grid operators a single, distributed ledger of all energy transactions, while reducing the cost of trading.

NEMoGrid was set up a year ago with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, and support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and the Swedish Energy Agency. 

Besides sonnen, the project involves three European universities, a customer-owned rural distribution grid operator, a smart home platform developer, the blockchain company Slock.it and a nonprofit organization owned by the Swedish Association for Energy Efficiency, Effekt.

NEMoGrid is due to last until April 2020. It is unclear if other organizations will join the project.

As for sonnen getting involved, “I expect the rationale feeds into sonnen's commitment to offering a platform for electricity trading,” said Brett Simon, energy storage analyst at GTM Research.

Sonnen already has an electricity trading offering within its sonnenCommunity program, he noted. 

“The ability for residential customers to sell electricity to one another is something that's discussed a lot in the electricity market in general, and more storage players are discussing and planning for how they can get in on the action,” Simon said. 

Finding ways to improve the economic case for residential energy storage is a smart move for sonnen, as it could help the company unlock new battery sales opportunities, Simon argued. 

Another reason for the battery company to get involved in blockchain-based energy trading is that the market for residential storage is scaling up quickly.

Last December, for example, sonnen announced plans to equip around 2,900 households with batteries as part of a deal with property developer Mandalay Homes, in Prescott Valley, Arizona. 

“Long-term, these types of deployments create opportunities for provision of grid services and possibility electricity trading, which will provide factors to further improve the economic case and scale the market,” Simon observed. 

Although NEMoGrid leads the way in its use of battery storage, it is far from the only blockchain-based energy trading pilot currently in progress. 

In Brooklyn, New York, for example, blockchain startup LO3 Energy has been testing a local energy trading platform called the TransActive Grid for a couple of years. 

Siemens joined the project in November 2016, via its Digital Grid division and next47, a unit launched to foster disruptive ideas and accelerate the development of new technologies. 

In July last year, meanwhile, the Japanese utility Tokyo Electric Power Company took a major stake in energy trading system developer Conjoule, which is beta-testing its blockchain-based peer-to-peer platform with a restricted number of users.

Transactive energy is getting a lot of attention. In the most recent edition of The Interchange, we look at how blockchain-enabled peer-to-peer trading might work. Listen below:

[awesomeblockchain]

A startup called Green Power Exchange aims to muscle into the crowded blockchain-based peer-to-peer energy trading space with a 600-megawatt generation portfolio.

The company hopes the solar assets, spread over Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the U.S, will help it steal a lead on more established blockchain peer-to-peer energy trading players such as WePower, Power Ledger, Restart Energy and Grid+.

Green Power Exchange (GPX) wants to create a platform where consumers can buy electrons directly from solar projects using smart contracts. An investor presentation reviewed by GTM says GPX, which is scheduled to launch its platform in 2019 following an initial coin offering (ICO) in the third quarter of this year, will open for business with 62 active projects generating more than 3.3 terawatt-hours of energy a year.

None of GPX's rivals have yet to accumulate more than 10 active projects, according to the presentation.

GPX's launch-date portfolio will be supplied entirely through Solar Provider Group, a Toronto, Canada-based PV plant developer. Christian Wentzel, one of SPG's co-founders, is also co-founder of GPX.

Other members of the GPX management team, including North America and Europe Senior Managers Kit Harrison and Tom Helliwell, are also former SPG staffers.

The GPX team -has founded and built multimillion-dollar companies across multiple countries," states the presentation, and the founders are -ready to do it again, but for a bigger market and bigger venture."

Accordingly, GPX is looking to raise more ICO cash than most rivals. It put a hard cap of $112 million on fundraising, which will be split between a private presale already underway, a pre-ICO sale starting June 6, and an ICO to be conducted from Sept. 5 to Sept. 28.

That amount compares to $100 million raised by Envion, $30 million each by WePower and Restart Energy, $29 million by Grid+, and $26.6 million by Power Ledger, according to the GPX presentation.

The capital raise would allow GPX to launch simultaneously in all of its target territories, said Helliwell. However, GPX has also set a lower limit of $6 million that would allow it to fund a more modest launch.

Assuming the company's fundraising and development plans pan out, GPX expects to start trading on its Ethereum-based platform and grow generation capacity up to 900 megawatts, including some wind projects, next year.

This will be followed in 2020 with the addition of energy storage assets onto the portfolio, and expansion into Asia and other developing markets, the GPX investor presentation said. But Helliwell admitted GPX has no customers at present.

The energy blockchain sector is moving fast, and many of GPX's competitors are racing ahead after raising substantial amounts of ICO cash.

WePower, for example, has offices in Australia, Estonia, Lithuania and Spain, with plans to start trading in the latter market later this year, CEO and co-founder Nikolaj Martyniuk told GTM in January. The company is also pondering expansion into Portugal and Italy.

Power Ledger, meanwhile, is reported to be harboring U.S. market ambitions, with plans to finance microgrids on Puerto Rico. These are just two of the more advanced players in an increasingly crowded field.

Other companies developing blockchain-based energy trading platforms include Drift, Electrify Asia, Electron, EnLedger, Greeneum, Jouliette, KWHCoin, Platinum Energy, Prosume, Pylon Network, Solar Bankers, Sun Contract, Wattcoin and XiWatt to name a few.

It's not clear, however, if these blockchain startups can address the basic problems in deregulated energy markets, namely, that consumers are often preyed upon. "For those of us following blockchain in the energy market, this brings up a number of important questions: Is this an ideal market to disrupt? Or will it be susceptible to the bad business practices that the current retail choice landscape is experiencing?" wrote GTM Chairman Scott Clavenna in a recent column at GTM Squared.

Already there are signs that enthusiasm for further blockchain startups may have peaked. The cryptocurrency sector website CoinDesk shows that the number of ICOs worldwide rose slightly in March and April this year, to 69 last month, but was still down from an all-time high of 78 in December 2017.

Total ICO funding, meanwhile, has dropped sharply in recent months, from a record of almost $2.4 billion in February 2017 to less than $726 million in April.

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[technato]

How Blockchains Will Help Connect Billions to Electricity and Financial Services

The functional value of a cryptocurrency isn’t in the coins themselves—but as a platform for new types of transactions

Photo: Annie Bungeroth/CAFOD/Flickr

Photo: Annie Bungeroth/CAFOD/Flickr

This is a guest post. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the blogger and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.

People are buying and trading digital coins at a frenetic pace in developing countries. With cryptocurrencies, people can conduct business, send money across borders, avoid regulation and taxation, and legitimize their informal economic activity—all without going through failed central banking systems.

In these markets, cryptocurrencies are increasingly used for cheap, fast, and private transfers of value at the last mile. In recent months, their uptake has accelerated significantly in places with unstable currencies, such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. In fact, in Zimbabwe, a country notorious for hyperinflation, soaring demand for cash substitutes recently pushed the price of Bitcoin over US $10,000.

But cryptocurrencies are destined for far more than just currency hedging, with potential applications across the global economy. In last-mile settings, the primary value of digital coins appears not to be stored, but transactive.

Surveys recently conducted by the Asian Development Bank suggest that in remote communities, digital accounts are more often used for peer-to-peer payments than as a speculative investment or to stash savings. Their value as a secure, low-cost medium of exchange  has proven especially useful as a vehicle to provide access to clean energy to the 1.1 billion people who live beyond the grid.

This matters because nearly 2 billion adults worldwide do not have access to a basic digital transactive account through which they can participate in the formal economy, let alone affordable financial products and services like payments, savings, credit, or insurance. And 1.1 billion [pdf] do not have access to electricity in order to power digital financial tools (such as mobile payment accounts) in the first place.

Cryptocurrencies, along with blockchains—their enabling technology—could solve both problems. They can efficiently manage peer-to-peer energy trading on a mini-grid or network of solar home systems, or one day form the basis of a local energy cooperative financed through “crypto-securities” [pdf]. For mini-grids, smart contracts [pdf] can coordinate automatic payments when customers hit usage limits or the end of their billing cycle.

Together with cross-border payment processing services like Coinify or BitPesa, digital coins could let customers make low-cost verified payments for pay-as-you-go solar home systems, which are small lease-to-own solar kits that typically include phone chargers, lightbulbs, fans, or TVs. Customers could build a credit history by making timely payments. And the immutable standardized ledgers used for these services could let insurers bundle solar home system portfolios based on customers’ creditworthiness and risk profiles, making it easier for consumers to buy insurance.

To pay for such services, many customers would turn to their mobile phones. Mobile phone penetration is already staggeringly high in last-mile markets, and blockchain technology can take mobile payments a step further by applying them directly to real-time transactive energy trading. This has already been done by LO3 Energy’s Ethereum-based Brooklyn Microgrid project and could be easily applied to remote, smart-metered nano-grid networks, such as those that ME SolShare is installing in Bangladesh.

All of these advantages could provide new ways to finance off-grid energy. For example, the East African startup M-PAYG is already using cryptocurrencies for pay-as-you-go systems based on a business model that incorporates other value-added services like e-banking, insurance, and farming and weather data. The Sun Exchange is an online marketplace that solicits crowdfunding commitments for individual solar cells in PV projects in sub-Saharan Africa, which pays funders back using Bitcoin as the cells produce energy.

Besides serving customers, blockchain technology can help utilities set up dynamic pricing and secure electronic billing between a grid-tied mini-grid and the distribution company. In turn, that setup could lower transaction costs, put downward pressure on electricity rates during peak demand times, and reduce losses from theft.

In India, Power Ledger [pdf], an Australian startup seeking to create a blockchain-based renewable energy network, is partnering with Tech Mahindra, a division of the Indian conglomerate, to trial energy trading on “islandable” micro-grids. Power Ledger has issued ‘POWR’ tokens to create a platform that will let customers trade energy and encourages distributed ownership of its trading network. Energo Labs, a Shanghai-based startup, will also use blockchain technology to let consumers trade energy across remote micro-grids in the Philippines.

Many of these applications will be slow to catch on given the nascence of both rural mini-grid markets and blockchain technology, the cost of smart meters, the regulatory uncertainty, and social barriers to understanding blockchain technology and technical energy trading schemes. But for customers beyond the grid’s edge, the fundamental value of this disruptive technology is as a low-cost, secured medium of exchange that can empower access to energy at a dizzying pace.

About the Author

Benjamin Attia leads GTM Research’s new focus on the energy transformation occurring in off-grid energy access as well as coverage of grid-tied solar markets in Africa and developing Asia. Follow him on Twitter: @solarbenattia

How Blockchains Will Help Connect Billions to Electricity and Financial Services syndicated from http://ift.tt/2Bq2FuP

[adamgdooley]

EU Smart Meters Spur Growth in the Customer Analytics Market

Advanced metering infrastructure in Europe will catalyze $30 billion in utility spending on customer analytics through 2021, according to new findings from GTM Research.

Europe’s investment in smart meters has begun to open up the market for analytics that benefit both utilities and customers.

Two new reports from GTM Research demonstrate the substantial investment in both advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and specific customer analytics segments — the first report analyzes the progress of AMI deployment in Europe, while the second is a comprehensive assessment of analytics use cases enabled by or interacting with AMI.

The Third Energy Package mandated EU member states to perform a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the economic viability of deploying smart meters. Two-thirds of the member states found there was a net positive result, while seven members found negative or inconclusive results.

“The mandate spurred AMI deployment in the EU, but all member states are deploying some AMI. Even without an overall positive cost-benefit outcome, utilities found pockets of customers where there is a positive business case for AMI,” said Paulina Tarrant, research associate at GTM Research and lead author of “Racing to 2020: European Policy, Deployment and Market Share Primer.”

Annual AMI contracting peaked in 2013 — two years after the mandate — with 29 million contracted that year. Today, 100 million meters have been contracted overall. As member states reach their respective targets, the AMI market will cool in Europe and spending on analytics and applications will continue to ramp up, Tarrant noted.

Between 2017 and 2021, more than $30 billion will be spent on utility back-office and revenue-assurance analytics in the EU, according to GTM Research’s Grid Edge Customer Utility Analytics Ecosystems: Competitive Analysis, Forecasts and Case Studies.

FIGURE: Overall Customer Analytics (2017 Annual and 2017-2021 Cumulative Spend)

The report examines the broad landscape of customer analytics showing how AMI interacts with the larger IT/OT environment of a utility.

“The benefits of AMI expand beyond revenue assurance — in fact, AMI represents the backbone of many customer utility analytics and grid edge solutions,” said Timotej Gavrilovic, author of the Grid Edge Customer Utility Ecosystems report.

Integration is key, according to the report.

Read the full story here.

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[alphatech5]

An Update on REV in a New York Minute

An Update on REV in a New York Minute

By info@greentechmedia.com

In advance of our NY REV Future conference on September 26 and 27, the GTM Research team illustrates major themes from New York’s ongoing utility reform through four projects taking place across the state.

Smart-meter deployment is modernizing the grid

In 2016, Con Edison contracted for 3.6 million smart meters. These meters and the communications network serving…

[inerginc]

GTM Smart Grid http://ift.tt/2eJlQnQ

‘Demand flexibility' is Rocky Mountain Institute’s term for the capability of water heaters, air conditioners, plug-in electric vehicles, and other loads to provide a massive set of benefits to the grid, if they’re smart enough to handle it. 

On Wednesday, RMI released a new report on the demand flexibility equation, modeled on America's version of an islanded energy market -- Texas’s transmission power grid. The results, run over hourly forecasts through an entire year, indicate that the investment in demand flexibility would more than pay for itself in reduced curtailment, flattened peaks, and power plants never built.

The model forecasts high future solar and wind growth on the state’s existing market structures and resources, then adds in tens of millions of demand flexibility assets -- to be precise, 4.2 million residential and commercial water heaters, 3.9 million home and business ceramic brick heat storage systems, 3.7 million ice energy AC systems, 15 million household plug loads, and 11.5 million grid-responsive electric vehicles. 

Using this fleet of fast-responding yet reliable aggregate flexibility allowed RMI to increase renewables revenues by 36 percent compared to a system with inflexible demand. The model also reduced renewable curtailment by 40 percent, lowered peak demand net of renewables by 24 percent, and lessened the average magnitude of the multi-hour ramps that characterize the solar-rich, evening-peaking scenario known as the “duck curve” by 56 percent.

A flexible demand fleet of this scale could also avoid $1.5 billion per year in annualized generator and transmission and distribution capital costs, along with $400 million in avoided fuel costs and 6 million tons per year of carbon emissions -- roughly one-fifth of the state’s emissions over that time. 

“What we’ve shown in this paper is the potential for demand flexibility to act at the multi-gigawatt scale in the Texas power system to ease renewables integration,” Mark Dyson, RMI principal and co-author of the report, said in an interview this week. 

Of course, this fleet of fast-reacting, IP-addressable distributed loads isn’t available to meet Texas’s grid needs at present. “That level of command and control doesn't exist today at that scale," said Dyson. "It's important to be up front about that.”

Still, RMI’s report highlights the long string of utility and grid operator pilot projects indicating that distributed, aggregated demand-side resources are capable of serving these needs. “This starts to calculate confidence that you can push a button and have load response,” Dyson said. 

Once this confidence barrier is breached, we could soon see a mass roll-out. “There are already hundreds of thousands of interactive water heaters on the grid today -- we’re just adding a chip," he said. 

The benefits of smart technologies outweigh the costs

RMI’s incremental cost projections on a per-unit basis for its basket of technologies is culled from industry interviews. Costs range from $5 per water heater and $10 per household plug load -- presuming they’re modern enough to have the industry-standard digital interface being developed for plug-and-play applications such as these -- up to $100 per networked, responsive EV. 

As for the two energy storage technologies, RMI’s report priced them at $50 per kilowatt-hour for ceramic brick heating storage and $228 per kilowatt-hour for ice-making air conditioning system of the kind built by Ice Energy. Importantly, these costs include all the up-front capital of the systems themselves, unlike the per-unit costs for the other technologies modeled, Dyson noted. 

These costs shook themselves out in the analysis, with RMI choosing to front-load the cheapest technologies, some of which actually paid for themselves when compared to their share of avoided costs. “Water heaters, EVs, and plug loads require only a relatively small investment in communications technologies to enable flexibility,” all at costs that are more than outweighed by their commensurate share of per-unit benefits to the range of improvements laid out in the model. 

In fact, while commercial building space heating comes with extra costs for dedicated thermal storage capacity, it more than makes up for that cost in its assistance in reducing winter peaks. That gives it a massive per-unit benefit in terms of reducing renewable energy curtailment in RMI’s model, given that West Texas wind is most often curtailed in wintertime. 

Residential plug loads, EVs, and grid-responsive water heaters were also cost-effective in reducing curtailment, given their low per-unit costs. Residential thermal heat and ice storage, which cost thousands of dollars, weren’t as effective in reducing curtailment, but ice-cooled AC did help reduce summer peaks. 

Source: RMI

Capital-intensive technologies also suffered from the fact that, in RMI’s model, they were implemented after everything less expensive had already had a chance to reduce the highest marginal costs associated with avoided curtailments, demand peaks, and gas-fired power generation, noted Cara Goldenberg, an associate with RMI's electricity practice and report co-author. As the beneficial effects of flexible demand feed back into lower market clearing prices for peak hours and reduced curtailment, revenues for renewable energy in the state's market also increased, she noted. 

RMI didn’t model standard air conditioning and heating demand response systems, choosing instead those technologies that come with some form of storage, to provide more certainty that they’ll be available both at a moment’s notice and for potentially multi-hour blocks of time. That’s because demand flexibility is expected to be reliable and secure enough to avoid new power plants that will take at least five years to bring online, Dyson said. 

Proof that gas isn't the only answer

Utilities are still taking their first tentative steps into relying on distributed, demand-side energy resources like these to replace future power plants, led by California’s investor-owned utilities and extending to other solar-rich states such as Hawaii and Arizona. 

Dyson hopes that RMI’s analysis can help Texas state grid operator ERCOT, along with other states and grid operators facing decisions on how to integrate more and more wind and solar onto their grids, avoid assuming that more natural gas-fired power plants are the answer. 

“We have seen a lot of analysis come out that says, 'We can't make it to X percent renewables because there's this fundamental mismatch,'” he said. “What we've done in this paper is say exactly how much, with a representative sample of demand flexibility, we can solve that problem.” 

Source: RMI

[electric-car-parts-company]

California’s big utilities see enormous promise for smart inverters in managing the grid edge.

That value is only going to rise as California leads the country in requiring advanced inverter capabilities of all new solar installations, starting with simple autonomous functions, but eventually including real-time, two-way communications and control.

#Inverter #SmartInverter #PowerInverter #EnergyStorage

[strategictech]

Innovative Technologies Driving the Energy Revolution

See on Scoop.it - Technology Innovations

Two explosive growth markets are renewable energy (RE) and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and both play a crucial role in creating value. The emphasis on how software and analytics can drive energy savings along with renewable energy and energy conservation measures (ECM) will be examined.  Companies, like Arkados, exist that operate in the solar (through its recently announced acquisition of SolBright Renewable Energy), LED lighting, and IoT markets. Market The IoT market is demonstrating substantial growth.  According to McKinsey, the IoT market should grow from $900 million in 2015 to $3.7 billion by 2020.  One of the key drivers of the IoT market is smart building applications where energy savings provides the return on investment (ROI).  IoT applications play a leading role in renewable energies in including solar and wind. Global investment spending in the solar PV markets was $161 billion in 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.   GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) indicated that the US solar industry grew 95% to 42.4 gigawatts (GW) in 2016. According to the SEIA, the US solar market installed 14.6 GW of solar PV in 2016.  In the global market, approximately 73 GW of solar was added in 2016. However, when solar is measured against conventional energy sources such as natural gas and coal, solar represents approximately 1% of the energy generation in the US according to DOE.  Despite the successful growth of solar in the US market, there is substantial upside for further growth.  Fueling the solar market growth are falling PV panel costs and the extension of tax credits.  Solar PV panel costs are at grid parity in most states.  Solar power generation at a cost of approximately $0.13 per kWh is close to the US national average rate at $0.115 per kWh. Technology Positioning Solar costs at grid parity should be great news for commercial and residential applications as well as for the utility industry itself.  However, renewable energy has limitations, and therefore, new technologies employing IoT devices and analytics can further enhance the market for solar and drive higher energy efficiency.  These technologies apply to buildings and utility markets where tools and technology are required to better manage electric supply and demand. This image depicts how IoT can be employed in various objects to enhance energy data. One issue for renewable energies is that their ability to generate power is intermittent.  Because renewable energy is intermittent, energy storage is a crucial component to enable the distributed grid where electric supply has to match demand.  Energy storage is a critical component of the distributed grid architecture.  The ability to store energy is important to improve RE value and to provide power when RE sources are not available. The US grid was built to generate electricity from fuels such as natural gas, coal, hydro and nuclear and transmit electric to substation for distribution to customers.  Utilities globally are implementing micro and distributed generation grids meaning they are introducing electric generation at end points in the network.  Solar generates energy and without the ability to derive granular insight in energy supply and demand, energy can be wasted.  This is one area of focus for IoT connected devices and analytical software. In addition, Net Metering, a process that credits the owners of solar generation systems for power added to the grid, helps solar become more attractive for customers.  Several states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania have implemented net metering. Arkados, and other like companies, are employing IoT devices and software to enhance value of renewable energy and facility operations.  These technologies include energy and environmental sensors that enable diagnostic feedback loops to compare energy efficiency to facility conditions and set points. Part of the process is educational to demonstrate the feasibility and viability into an organization.  Some concepts are simple such as performance bench-marking to identify aberrant conditions or major areas of concern.  Key metrics include energy density in kW and kWh per square foot.  Facility load factors and equipment load signature are also helpful is comparing procedural operating hours to measured operating hours by equipment. Some of the approaches include fog analytics such as pushing intelligence to the edge of the network using IoT devices to capture granular detail and enable local processing and control.  The concept is to push context awareness to the sensors and collect data in the process.  This process includes remote control on lighting and equipment. The real benefits from IoT and analytics are huge including reducing costs, increasing energy efficiency, asset protection, and predictive maintenance. Value The value of energy savings must be within a two-year payback to gain acceptance by the market.  In other words, the RE and ECM investment ROI should be greater than 50%. To achieve energy savings insight, generate data from an array of sensors at a granular level.  Meaning continuous monitoring of sensor data that can be used to enhance energy performance.  Typical energy savings initiatives would include cutting back at peak kW demand and duration and can be used to substantially reduce energy costs. Conditioning less outside air is effective in reducing HVAC costs. Modulating outside air intake using demand control ventilation employing CO2 sensors is an effective energy savings method.  Demand Control Ventilation has been able to demonstrate HVAC efficiency gains of 24%. Automated measurement and verification (M&V) systems provide mechanism to deploy demand response.  Some studies suggest demand response has the potential to reduce energy costs by 40%.  Monitoring based commissioning (MBCx) can save money simply by measuring consumption to set point changes in and facility environmental conditions. The futuristic approach is to combine energy monitoring with sales and installation of LED lighting and solar PV systems. Conclusion Energy savings and efficiency gains measure the value created through IoT and analytics. With the rise of both of these initiatives, consumers should be more aware of their energy consumption in the near future as more of this technology is available to them. Software developed by companies provides a means of enhancing the benefits of solar and LED lighting by gaining insight into energy consumption in addition to enabling efficiency optimization using diagnostic feedback loops.  Today, consumers should focus on leveraging software and IoT capabilities to drive sustainability and improve energy efficiency for solar and LED lighting initiatives.  

[caseinpoints]

3 million in U.S. now work in clean energy sector

National business groups representing the range and breadth of clean energy companies in the United States cheered government statistics showing their industries support more than 3 million American jobs—equal to the employment of retail stores across the country, and twice as many jobs as involved in construction of buildings. This is based on 2016 data recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in its second annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report.

DOE does not offer a definition of “clean energy,” and the trade associations representing different portions of the industry have their own ways of defining what “clean energy” represents. But the groups all agree that, in the aggregate, these jobs add up to more than 3 million nationwide.

The groups made the announcement on the same day they organized a national social media campaign, encouraging companies and workers to share their employment stories. The purpose of the social media event was to draw attention to these growing industries, which offer good-paying jobs ranging from equipment installation and maintenance to sales and information technology — many of them jobs that cannot be automated or moved abroad.

Organizers of the #CleanEnergyJobs campaign include Advanced Energy Economy, American Council on Renewable Energy, AJW (representing Energy Service Companies), Alliance to Save Energy, American Wind Energy Association, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Energy Storage Association, and Solar Energy Industries Association.

“Today, our organizations, member companies, and their workers are celebrating all the people who make up the clean energy industries and the positive impact that we have on the U.S. economy,” said Graham Richard, CEO of Advanced Energy Economy. “We are excited to bring visibility to our share of the more than 3 million people that work today in advanced energy across our nation.”

“People often don’t realize that energy efficiency is such a huge jobs creator,” said Alliance to Save Energy president Kateri Callahan. “It supports about three times as many jobs as the mining industry and unlike that sector it is growing and creating good-paying jobs like weatherizing homes and manufacturing high-efficiency appliances or building materials. And the best news is there’s just enormous opportunity to expand this work and create more jobs with smart efficiency policies and incentives.”

“These impressive employment numbers highlight the tremendous importance of America’s renewable energy sector, which attracted nearly $100 billion in investment over the last two years, as a national economic driver,” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the American Council On Renewable Energy. “We look forward to working with our members, policymakers, and allies to ensure that the American people have increasing opportunities to work, save, and prosper through renewable power.”

“Wind energy has now created over 100,000 jobs that rural and Rust Belt America need, including more than 25,000 manufacturing jobs in 43 states,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association. “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wind turbine technician is now the fastest-growing job description in America.”

“The contributions of clean energy jobs to the country’s economy are significant and expanding,” said Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. “The trend lines are clear: energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy are creating well-paying jobs and benefitting American consumers, American businesses and American manufacturers. And that adds up to one conclusion: clean energy wins for America.”

“In setting a record for new electric generating capacity, the solar energy industry added one in every 50 new jobs in the economy last year and now employs 260,000 people in America,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “These jobs pay well, they support local economies and they fuel American innovation.”

According to the Department of Energy’s U.S. Energy and Employment Report, the “clean energy” sector supported more than 3 million U.S. jobs in 2016, including:

Nearly 2.2 million workers making buildings, appliances and other products more energy efficient, saving money for families and businesses.

More than 600,000 workers involved with clean power generation, including biomass, biogas, fuel cells, geothermal, hydropower, nuclear, natural gas, solar, waste-to-energy, and wind.

100,000 workers in advanced grid technologies, including energy storage, and another 100,000 workers in biofuels.

In addition, advanced transportation, including hybrid, electric, and fuel cell vehicles, support 200,000 more jobs.

These jobs are made possible by the growth of markets for clean energy products and services in this country. According to Advanced Energy Economy’s Advanced Energy Now 2016 Market Report, total U.S. revenue from the wide range of advanced energy goods and services was $200 billion in 2015, more than pharmaceutical manufacturing in this country. Investment over the past 10 years in zero-carbon electricity generation has totaled $507 billion, with $59 billion invested last year alone, according to the 2017 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, published by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

The wind industry gets American-made turbine parts from more than 500 factories in 43 states. AWEA recently highlighted the growing number of jobs throughout the economy that are wind-powered, releasing its latest quarterly results at a General Motors factory near Dallas that builds 1,200 SUVs a day and will soon buy all its electricity from wind farms.

GTM Research and SEIA published a preliminary report last week showing that the solar industry in 2016 nearly doubled its previous record by installing 14,626 megawatts of generating capacity. This flood of new business helps to explain why The Solar Foundation found that the industry added 51,000 American jobs last year alone.

News item from SEIA

Solar Power World

[inerginc]

GTM Smart Grid http://ift.tt/2eJlQnQ

In search of opportunity, blockchain entrepreneurs tend to hunt for one or more targets:

Traditional legacy institutions taking “tolls” on transactions

Costly inefficiencies arising out processes or markets that are complex and distributed

Atomizing ownership of assets, from the tangible (barrels of oil) to the intangible (carbon credits)

Pickings are easy in the energy industry, as this list could be applied to nearly every aspect of energy generation, transmission and consumption. Finding her quarry, the entrepreneur excitedly conceives of a solution, finds a few coders with sufficient familiarity with Ethereum, Solidity and ERC-20 tokens, and begins building her platform.

Blockchain is a solution in search of problems -- a magic hammer in which nearly every aspect of the modern economy looks like a nail.

In an country where everyone is encouraged to become an entrepreneur, what better time than now, when the path to raising capital for a new venture is not through Sand Hill Road, or the burdensome “diligence” of lenders or investors, but through the crowdfunding mechanism of an initial coin offering (ICO) or, more precisely, a ”token generation event.” And every ICO starts with a common document: a white paper.  

We read a lot of these. Not to invest, mind you, but to better understand how blockchain may or may not take part in the ongoing transformation of the electricity system.

It’s a valuable exercise. In other sectors, venture capitalists have the rare privilege of access to thousands of business plans, presented confidentially in conference rooms limited to partners and advisors. But the current world of blockchain startups explodes this paradigm and opens up the investment process to everyone. It differs from other crowdfunding platforms in that the blockchain offers a kind of standardization and transparency, along with a borderless digital means of transferring value (cryptocurrency), that is unrivaled in history. 

The entrepreneurs post their white paper on a website, start a countdown clock to their ICO, post video Q&A sessions with the founders on YouTube, and set out to raise millions of dollars for their enterprise. But with this great power comes great responsibility, and so far, most of the white papers out there are pitiably irresponsible.

If your goal is to offer fractional ownership of exotic cars (BitCar ICO), the bar for your white paper’s explanations may not be too high. But if you are setting out to transform one of the most critical infrastructures in human history, then we’d like to see you do your homework.

Below is our humble, subjective list of what to include in your energy blockchain whitepaper.

To start, some tips and questions that aren’t unique to energy-blockchain startups but remain worth noting, considering how many ICO white papers lack them. In quick order:

Is the ICO the sole source of funds for the company, or are you raising equity elsewhere?  

Are there any restrictions on how the proceeds can be used (or dumped by founders) in the near term?  

If you’re going to say something like the following in your white paper, ask an attorney what that means for token buyers in the U.S. “The token holders will be rewarded with dividends of profit sharing in the form of Ethereum every quarter. We hope that in this way, a long-term source of income will be available to our token holders, therefore also increasing the capital value of our tokens itself.”  The answer may surprise you.  

Enumerate your risks! We never see this, but there’s a reason it’s required in public company reporting. You have many risks, such as threat of regulation, insufficient number of participants in the marketplace, financing risk, cybersecurity risks, volatility of cryptocurrencies, technology development risks, commitment of key team members, etc. We could go on, but these white papers tend to act as though everything will flow like champagne in a Vegas fountain once the tokens are generated.  

Treat the white paper as a professional document. Hire a copy editor, include sufficient explanations of how your platform functions, source your market data, explain your assumptions on revenue growth. Investors (we hope) will get wiser and more demanding as ICO-funded companies fail or disappear. Expect them to be tougher on you as time goes on.  

Don’t compare yourself to Uber. It’s not realistic, and these days it’s also kind of gross. 

Now on to the energy-specific blockchain white paper suggestions.

Define your market in terms specific to the energy industry. Too many white papers just use generalizations about “unlocking value” in the energy industry, and “democratizing access” to markets and projects. That’s meaningless. Make it clear you understand the market you are operating in, and how it currently functions.

Be clear about how ownership of tokens may result in gains or losses. Many blockchain in energy startups must create a market in which their tokens are traded. Immature markets or exchanges come with significant risk, as there is no experience data to draw on. How are token values established? Under what conditions do token values increase or decrease? What is necessary for there to be real liquidity in these exchanges?

Make clear the critical points of “trust” outside the blockchain. Though the blockchain ledger may be theoretically secure and immutable, there are sources of data (digital meters, for example, or customer private wallets) that must be trusted and secure to ensure accurate data is recorded or value is transferred. A complete description of the platform cybersecurity should be considered essential.

Describe in sufficient detail the tokens in the platform. That seems simple enough, but there are many types of tokens, and how they are utilized can be quite different (application tokens, versus asset-backed tokens, for example). Am I buying access to a platform, a share of an energy asset, a reward for verified behavior, or am I buying actual units of energy?

Describe the lifecycle of a token in your ecosystem. If tokens are created as electricity is generated, how are they then traded and retired? What does settlement look like, and have all aspects of verification been made clear? Be clear about the regulatory paradigm in which you will be operating. If you plan to be a competitive electricity retailer, which markets are open to you? If you plan to offer peer-to-peer trading in microgrids, how will you avoid infringing on utility franchise rights?

Define the hardware requirements for your blockchain application. Does it require a specially designed meter? Will you use off-the-shelf monitoring equipment and software? How much diligence have you done to ensure the systems will perform as expected?

Focus on your initial application set. There are many potential blockchain applications in the energy sector, and too many white papers attempt to tackle them all. Instead, delve deep into the applications you intend to employ first, and simply define your later intentions.

Have a team with experience in your part of the energy market. This may seem obvious, but you might be surprised how many blockchain energy teams have great depth of expertise in blockchain and virtually none in energy. The energy market is challenging -- just ask the multitude of failed technology startups that have come before you. Build a team that can navigate energy’s unique barriers.

When in doubt, illustrate. Diagrams and illustrations of the flows of energy, value, data, settlements, etc., will go a long way in revealing how your platform works.

Inclusion of all the items on this list still does not make your ICO a good investment. But it may just allow your investors/token purchasers to take less of a shot in the dark when buying into your vision.

Scott Clavenna is the co-founder and chairman of GTM. Shayle Kann is a senior advisor to GTM. For more on blockchain concepts in energy, listen to our podcast explainer "Consensus."

Join GTM at the Blockchain in Energy Forum on March 8 in NY. Innovators from utilities, start-ups, investors and policymakers will come together for a full day of networking, dynamic conversations, and learning what the future may hold for this technology. From transactive energy, to supply chain management, to asset tokenization, this event will get everyone up to speed on the distributed ledger technology and its real-world use cases.

Below is a list of white papers the authors compiled as background:

PowerLedger

SunContract

Grid+

WePower 

Energi Mine  

Pylon 

BCDC

KWH Coin

Exergy

Restart Energy

Prosume  

NAD Grid

Assetron

Solar Bankers

[inerginc]

GTM Smart Grid http://ift.tt/2eJlQnQ

What can massive computing power and ubiquitous data do for the future power grid? 

The answers to this question were lurking around every corner at this year’s massive DistribuTech utility and energy trade show in San Antonio, Texas, where the phrases “machine learning,” “artificial intelligence” and “digital twin” were being tossed back and forth between vendors and customers with abandon. 

These big data buzzwords have been part of the DistribuTech lexicon for some time. And over the years, it’s been possible to trace the progress of some of these promised technology breakthroughs, both in real-world performance improvements and the new solutions being created for problems that used to take utilities months or years to tackle. 

For instance, let’s take the concept of a “digital twin." A digital twin is a simulation of a turbine, engine or some other highly complex device, rendered out of real data, and run through millions of different scenarios to try to gain insight into how its real-world equivalent will perform its best, or when it will fail.

Now expand that concept to encompass the power grid -- a massive machine in its own right, built from a combination of old and new technologies, with its own flows of data to gather, clean up, digest, analyze and model, admid an ever-changing resource mix. Even contemplating this computational task has until recently been beyond practical reach for most utilities. 

But according to Jim Walsh, CEO of GE Grid Software Solutions, the company’s investments into its industrial internet and Predix big data platform are yielding these kinds of applications today, at least for a select number of as-yet unnamed utilities, in the form of a “network digital twin.” 

“We’ve got a lot of those acronym-laden operational systems,” he said, referring to core platforms like geographic information system (GIS), distribution management system (DMS) and energy management systems (EMS). “What I’m hearing most often from customers is, we’ve cracked the code on generating data. We’ve got sensors galore, we’ve got data streams galore. Our problem is, we’re using three percent of it or something to execute our operational systems, and the rest of it has flown off.” 

The concept to capture more of this data is a grand one -- a model of a utility’s electric delivery system down to equipment and wiring, that can simulate events, network changes, electrical flows, and other phenomena in real time. That requires a lot of front-end work to collect and analyze data across multiple systems, to find the gaps and errors between grid data and grid realities,and otherwise clean up and standardize what’s going into the digital model.

“In order for any of this to be valid, you have to have clean, accurate data,” Walsh said. 

But when this work is complete, the network digital twin is meant to provide an accurate model for utilities to run massive simulations on to help solve all kinds of problems. And because the platform will be constantly updating itself with new data, both from outside and from the simulations it’s running over and over, it’s expected to yield insights that may quite difficult for humans to notice. 

“What you’re trying to do with machine learning is capture scenarios over and over and over again in real time, and ultimately that’s making the mode smarter than you could ever hope to be,” he said. 

GE's Predix, Siemens' MindSphere, ABB's Ability Ellipse

Applications can range from predicting and preventing equipment failures or informing split-second grid decisions, to planning out the optimal investments and policies to integrate the rising number of rooftop solar systems and plug-in electric vehicles being bought by utility customers, Walsh said. 

He wouldn’t provide any details on how GE was testing its network digital twin or with which utility customers. But it’s noteworthy that GE’s flagship utility customer for Predix, Exelon, extended that relationship in October to cover its regulated wires utilities as well as its generation assets. 

Walsh wouldn't discuss how the platform was being priced either. “The way we work with our utility customers today is, there’s got to be a relatively robust return on investment,” he said. “But to me, the utilities that can figure out how to use even 10 percent of the data they’re generating to create benefits for their customers are going to be those that succeed.” 

As for how GE’s data science approach can yield unexpected returns, Bryan Friedhan, a senior software engineer with Predix, described how GE is working with customer Exelon:

“A lot of the analytics we’re doing with Exelon are after five or six discrete use cases. But as we’ve gone into the details of how we’ll deliver those, we’re seeing different patterns of things we didn’t anticipate to see, which has helped us define the approach -- maybe there’s a derivative vein of value.” 

GE’s Predix was just one of the big data platforms being pitched by grid giants at DistribuTech. Siemens was busy promoting its own version, MindSphere, at this week’s conference. Meanwhile, grid rival ABB announced its own new platform, the Ability Ellipse, positioned as a unifying platform for its suite of workforce and asset management software platform. 

Matt Zafuto, global business development head for ABB Enterprise Software, noted that customers using the platform, such as AEP and FirstEnergy, have already credited it for helping them identify and prevent the failure of several high-voltage transformers, yielding millions of dollars in the first year of operation. 

The AIs growing along the grid edge 

It’s still not clear whether or not utilities beyond the largest and most advanced are ready to start investing in these kinds of capabilities. The Department of Energy’s Modern Distribution Grid Advanced Technology Maturity Assessment (PDF) finds that most of the more advanced analytics capabilities being promised by these types of platforms are still in the operational demonstration phases, with a relatively small number of early commercial-scale deployments.

Meanwhile, one doesn’t have to be a multinational corporation to talk about digital twins and artificial intelligence. The fundamental data science behind GE or Siemens’ new platform is also available to smaller companies and startups, as is the computing capacity to make use of it, through cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. 

Many of the companies working on aggregating distributed energy resources (DERs) are also investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Larsh Johnson, chief technology officer at behind-the-meter battery startup Stem, noted that the company’s recent $80 million investment was led by Activate Capital, a growth equity firm with an interest in companies applying artificial intelligence to new industries and uses. At Stem, 

“The early team was working down this path of machine learning and data science investments back in the company as early as 2009,” he said. That makes sense, given that Stem’s business model of tapping batteries to reduce building demand charges was predicated on using a very expensive tool to capture very time- and condition-sensitive revenues.

“If you go back to when batteries were $1,000 per kilowatt-hour, you had to be surgically precise about how you were going to deploy that if you were going to save the customer on that non-coincident peak,” said Johnson.

As batteries have come down in price, that razor-thin margin for error has expanded somewhat, “but you still don’t want to squander that battery. You’re looking for how do you dispatch that energy in a way that best utilizes the capacity you have for the best economic benefit. We have a strong data science team, that’s their focus.” 

For that reason, being able to forecast a building’s "characteristic behavior” is critical, Johnson said. That’s led to Stem developing building energy models that are in many respects similar to the digital twins that GE has designed for jet engines, locomotives and power grids.

“We like to think about how our artificial intelligence solution is enabling this kind of flexibility,” he said. Not just for energy storage, “but to change the way systems operate, reprioritize the value stack, figure out the market opportunities.” 

Enbala, another startup that’s balancing disparate distributed energy assets to benefit energy customers alongside utility and grid operators, had a chance to describe its own machine learning efforts at this week’s DistribuTech. The Vancouver, Canada-based startup, which last year became ABB’s preferred vendor of distributed energy resource management software (DERMS), updated its software with new bidding strategies built on more complete tariff structures, as well as energy storage cost and economic optimization algorithms. 

To manage the optimizations that are possible with these more advanced and complex data, Enbala has turned to its own version of a “digital twin,” said Michael Ratliff,  executive vice president of products for the company.

The primary goal of Enbala’s application of the concept is to maintain a tighter relationship between the models and the real-world performance of different assets in its portfolios, he said. Every load or device will start to “drift” from its expected performance over time, and while some will do so in predictable ways, others with more variables present a “leaky model” that’s harder to maintain. With machine learning, “the model can just get better on its own.” 

[inerginc]

GTM Smart Grid http://ift.tt/2eJlQnQ

Blockchain applications are creeping into energy trading.

WePower, one of a growing number of energy blockchain hopefuls, has found early success in the European market with an agreement to tokenize data from the Estonian independent electricity and gas system operator Elering.

“WePower will integrate its blockchain and smart contract powered green energy trading platform into Elering’s Estfeed data exchange platform,” said the blockchain firm in a press release. “This will form a proof-of-concept system for Estonia, demonstrating nation-state scale tokenization of energy consumption and production data on the blockchain.”

CEO and Co-Founder Nikolaj Martyniuk said the partnership could allow WePower to fine-tune the alpha version of its platform, which will be tested in February and March, and sell the concept in other European countries with similar energy markets.

The company is planning to run simulations on the technology platform between February and August, and start trading renewable power in Spain in the fourth quarter of this year.

While the Elering agreement will give WePower access to data for testing, the blockchain firm is also finalizing a separate deal with an unnamed European services provider, involving real users.

While the company’s initial focus is on Spain and Australia, WePower is eyeing expansion to markets such as Portugal and Italy.

“Energy trading is a great opportunity for blockchain for the same reason it's being explored by the financial communities," said blockchain expert and GTM chairman Scott Clavenna.

Blockchain, he said, “can simplify and therefore reduce the costs and credit risks of trades by supporting near-real-time settlements with complete transparency through the use of smart contracts.”

There are many intermediaries currently involved in energy trading, which means trades often take days or months to settle. That makes trading an ideal application for energy blockchain startups.

WePower was admitted to a program called Startupbootcamp Energy Australia in December. As part of the program, WePower will be working to scale up its Australian operations with support from the energy company Energy Australia, the facilities management services provider Spotless, and the technology firm DiUS Computing.

After gaining entry to Startupbootcamp, “WePower will scale in Spain and Australia simultaneously,” the company said.

If WePower gets traction, will it start bumping up against trading competitors like Power Ledger?

Martyniuk denied that the move would put his company in direct competition with Power Ledger, which last October raised $24 million in Australia’s first cryptocurrency initial coin offering.

“Today, we focus on large-scale energy production,” he said. “Their approach is working with microgrids in the very beginning, working most with smaller customers and expanding from there. There are a lot of microgrids in Australia and that’s very appealing for customers.”

On paper, though, the two blockchain concepts sound remarkably alike. WePower claims to be “a blockchain-based green energy trading platform.” Power Ledger similarly bills itself as a “blockchain-powered energy trading platform.”

Other companies using the blockchain for energy trading include Conjoule, Drift, Greeneum, Grid+, ImpactPPA and LO3 Energy.   

[inerginc]

GTM Smart Grid http://ift.tt/2eJlQnQ

Gridco Systems, one of a handful of startups building power electronics devices that can manage electricity fluctuations and disturbances at the distribution grid level, has ceased operations and is selling its assets to satisfy creditors. 

It’s not that its technology didn’t work -- it does, according to multiple pilot projects with utilities including Duke Energy, Hawaiian Electric, California’s Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Ontario, Canada’s Greater Sudbury Hydro. Gridco’s in-line power regulators (IPRs) have stabilized solar-driven voltage surges, hit their set points for voltage and reactive power, and otherwise demonstrated a previously unattained level of control over the distribution grid. 

But utilities have failed so far to expand their use of distribution grid-level power electronics much beyond the pilot phase, leaving Gridco with little opportunity to grow to the scale necessary to maintain its operations on the strength of its own revenues. 

“Though we were able to successfully prove Gridco’s technology as best-in-class for use in utility-scale volt/VAR optimization programs, the VVO market did not actualize quickly enough for us to achieve critical mass and financial self-sustainability,” said CEO Naimish Patel, in a recent interview. 

Gridco, which raised $54 million from investors including General Catalyst, Lux Capital and North Bridge Venture Partners, sought multiple fundraising and strategic options through the course of 2017, he said. But late in the year, as the remaining options failed to materialize, the company decided to close on Dec. 31. Gridco’s website now shows only this information, and the phone number of Verdolino & Lowey, the firm hired to liquidate Gridco’s assets “to the benefit of our creditors.”

GTM Research had predicted a $320 million U.S. market by 2017 for these kinds of devices. But as Ben Kellison, director of grid research at GTM Research, noted, "the utility-owned distribution power electronics market has been much slower to develop than GTM Research and much of the industry has expected.”  

Gridco has several competitors in this still-nascent field, including Varentec, GridBridge, Apparent Energy, Faraday Grid and others still in stealth mode. Power electronics serving the higher-voltage realms of the grid are already a significant business for ABB and other grid giants, and startup Smart Wires has devices to manage power flows on the transmission grid. 

But throughout 2017, GTM Research has tracked only one big deal involving distribution grid power electronics. Xcel Energy’s $612 million smart meter and smart grid rate case last year included plans to purchase 4,350 Varentec devices between 2017 and 2022 to reduce unnecessary over-voltages on distribution circuits. 

One key reason for the market’s slower-than-expected growth is that the key business case -- helping to integrate higher penetrations of distributed solar into distribution grids -- hasn’t become as big a problem for utilities as many had expected, Kellison noted. “As utilities gained more experience with distributed solar, distribution planners and operators have realized that distribution grids are more robust and tolerant of intermittent generation at the edge than most engineers would have thought five years ago,” he said. 

That’s left conservation voltage reduction (CVR) and VVO as the main business case for deploying these kinds of devices today. But here, Gridco and other distributed power electronics providers must contend with competition from companies like Utilidata and DVI, which use grid-tied sensors and smart meters, respectively, to better inform CVR and VVO schemes and devices in the field. 

The slow pace of adoption has put other contenders in the distribution grid power electronics field under financial pressure. Earlier this year, GridBridge was acquired by Ermco, a Tennessee-based distribution transformer manufacturer, for an undisclosed price. 

“Power electronics-based voltage and reactive power control devices will become important as renewable penetration increases,” Kellison said. Once deployed, they can also enhance control over voltage and power quality, as well as analyze and report on the actual waveform of the energy flowing through the lines they’re connected to.

“However, it remains to be seen if most of these devices will be smart inverters at the site of distributed generation or storage, utility-owned and connected to LV transformers, or pole- or pad-mounted devices supporting the medium-voltage grid,” he said. 

Patel noted that Gridco’s existing customers will continue to be able to use its deployed products in “set-and-forget mode,” automatically managing voltage fluctuations and tripping off-line when appropriate. But Gridco’s cloud-hosted management software service will no longer be available to monitor and manage them.

“Though we are disappointed with the outcome, we remain confident as to the value of Gridco’s technology and IP,” both of which are for sale, Patel added. While he wouldn’t comment on prospective buyers for either category of Gridco’s assets, he said he’s optimistic that it will be put to work in the future by “utilities endeavoring to deliver higher energy efficiency and power quality, particularly as consumer adoption of distributed generation and electric vehicles grows.”