Green Tech

Google Earth and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that Google is developing a tool to map out disturbing scenarios of how California can be affected by climate change.

The project comes out of a collaboration with the California Natural Resources Agency, Schwarzenegger, and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), an organization funded by the California Energy Commission and Google.org.

"There is a serious bottleneck in delivering relevant information, much of which is map-based, to decisionmakers in a manner that allows them to turn climate change research results into effective climate change adaptation decisions and policies," according to a statement from SEI.

The CalAdapt Google Earth tool, which will allow individuals to view how their specific community would be changed, will not be ready for public use until September 2010. But on Wednesday, Google.org released two related videos narrated by Schwarzenegger. Both the three-minute video (see below) and seven-minute video demonstrate the kind of data the Google Earth CalAdapt tool will make more palatable. The extended version additionally highlights Schwarzenegger's concerns and political initiatives.

CalAdapt visually demonstrates the effects of climate change as determined by the current scientific data available to the state of California. It includes past data regarding temperature change and water shortages. It includes data modeling what will happen if, for example, the Sierra snow pack disappears at the various rates predicted. It also includes data on which parts of the state's shoreline would be most effected due to storms and rising sea levels.

Certainly, it's a teaching tool to show average folks what scientists believe will happen to the California climate in the coming years. But it also happens to dovetail into Schwarzenegger's executive order that the state develop a "Climate Adaptation Strategy" on everything from agriculture to commercial land development.

It's not the first time, organizations have turned to the Google Earth platform to give the public a tool for avoiding land misuse or harrowing legal battles.

In April Google Earth released the Path to Green Energy tool. Those layers, developed in conjunction with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Audubon Society, show which lands in the greater western U.S. are prohibited from commercial development, awaiting approval for inclusion into the federal wilderness system, or considered natural habitats for endangered species among other categories.

It's intended to be a preemptive offering to commercial developers who may rather shy away from the hassle of an environmental fight if there are adequate lands available for their needs elsewhere.

Google's Dan Reicher (at podium) was joined by Stanford's Lynn Orr (left), Nth Power's Tim Woodward, and Under Secretary of Energy Kristina Johnson (onscreen) at an event Monday on innovation in green energy.

(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--Ahead of a key international summit on climate change, Google hosted a panel discussion at its offices here Monday on the need for the U.S. to play a key role in the development of the next generation of energy.

Energy experts from Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and MIT joined Google's Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives and energy venture capitalist Tim Woodward of Nth Power in a wide-ranging discussion on a very timely topic: how to transition the world toward a more sustainable form of energy consumption and production. They were later joined via video conference by Kristina Johnson, undersecretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The panelists sought not only to emphasize that such a move is essential, but one that presents enormous economic opportunity for countries that get ahead of the technology and innovation curve. "If we really do pull off changing the world's energy system, then a whole lot of money is going to be spent on putting the equipment in place to do that," said Lynn Orr, director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University.

The discussion was held a week before the beginning of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Copenhagen with representatives from 192 countries. The conference is expected to produce some sort of global agreement on reducing carbon emissions and embracing alternative forms of energy, although the scope of any such agreement is very much up in the air.

Several panelists agreed with the assertion of Dan Kammen, director of the Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, that no matter what happens in Copenhagen, substantial progress has already been made this year with climate-change talks between the U.S. and China.

"China wants to be seen as a modern country," said Ernie Moniz, director of MIT's Energy Initiative. That means that not only do they want in on the gold rush toward green energy, they recognize that their citizens could be greatly affected by climate change.

Copenhagen aside, much of Google's interest in fostering debate in this area is designed around getting the federal government to play a larger role in helping technology research make it out of the labs and into the market, Reicher said. "We don't do a very good job in this country of moving technologies through this pipeline," he said.

Google is throwing its considerable resources behind green technologies such as wind, solar thermal, and advanced geothermal, Reicher said. In 2007, Google announced plans to generate 1 gigawatt of clean electricity through investments in companies that are researching and developing clean-energy technology.

Google PowerMeter software monitors home energy usage in real time and can be accessed from a person's iGoogle home page.

(Credit: Google)

U.K. residents will now be able to monitor and regulate their home energy usage from any Web-enabled phone or computer regardless of whether their energy provider uses smart meters.

Google announced two U.K. partnerships this week concerning its PowerMeter software, one of which completely bypasses the need for cooperation from an energy provider.

Since the U.K. electricity and gas supplier First Utility began offering customers free smart meters in September 2008, it has had 30,000 customers take them up on the offer. Now, as a result of a Google partnership announced Tuesday, First Utility smart meter customers will have the option of allowing their info to be relayed to Google's PowerMeter so their smart meter data and control can be Web-accessible. The service will become available to Midlands customers in early November 2009, and eventually extend it to the entire U.K.

Google also announced Wednesday that its PowerMeter software will be compatible with AlertMe, a U.K. self-install energy monitoring system that works regardless of a resident's energy provider or the type of meter installed in the home.

Unlike smart meters, the AlertMe system does not communicate with an electricity utility's smart grid to advise on low-peak usage hours. It consists of a meter reader that clips on to a home's existing electric meter, smart plug adapters for appliances, and a wireless hub that plugs into a home's broadband connection. The hub wirelessly communicates between the meter reader, smart plugs, and AlertMe service.

AlertMe's smart plug, meter reader, and wireless hub.

(Credit: AlertMe)

The device's non-evasive nature makes it an option for renters as well as homeowners. And AlertMe is clearly attempting to target that renter market by pointing out in its quirky infomercials (see video below) that its device is unobtrusive. Unlike smart meters, it does require the usual landlord permission to be installed.

The kits costs 69 British pounds ($113) plus a required 12-month contract for its 2.99 pounds-per-month ($4.90) communication service, which requires that the home have broadband access. The total cost, including one free month of service, comes to 101.89 pounds ($167.55).

On Wednesday, the company also announced the start of its trial with British Gas on an AlertMe kit for monitoring and controlling heating from gas that will tie into the gas utility's smart meters. Since AlertMe monitors are now compatible with Google's PowerMeter, the software will be available to British Gas customers who join that smart meter program.

The Google PowerMeter software that ties in to First Utility, AlertMe, and (by default) the British Gas trial program, is currently free. It makes real-time usage data collected from the companies available by cell phone or computer. The data can then be charted in hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly segments for analysis, allowing users to basically conduct their own personal green-living and energy-usage experiments.

A person could test if shutting off their TV and its electronic accouterments for one week, as opposed to leaving them in standby mode, really makes a dent in their home's overall energy consumption. AlertMe subscribers could also use the PowerMeter software to remotely turn specific appliances on or off.

Both AlertMe and First Utility have said they've found their consumers really do tend to adjust their usage habits to save energy and money, once they come face to face with their own usage data.

"At the end of the day, if you can't measure and view your energy use, it's very difficult to make savings," First Utility's CEO Mark Daeche said in a statement.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt (left) and U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at Google headquarters Monday.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For a bunch of search engineers, Google employees care an awful lot about energy and the environment.

Google hosted an event for employees Monday featuring Steven Chu, the U.S. secretary of energy under President Obama and a man Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said "may become one of the most influential scientists of our generation, if he isn't already." Chu took about an hour to speak to a packed room of Google employees following his announcement of $151 million in funding for new energy-related projects as part of the ARPA-E program.

Chu found a friendly audience of some of the most science-and-technology-obsessed individuals in a region known for science and technology obsession. He called the need to invest in alternative fuels and energy systems "the engineering and science challenge of our time" that will demand contributions from young scientists and technologists like the ones in Mountain View.

Several employees asked Chu to opine on the viability of various alternatives to fossil fuels, such as nuclear and geothermal, and the need to reduce carbon through a cap-and-trade system and carbon sequestration. Here Chu jostled a bit with Schmidt, who said he is skeptical about cap-and-trade systems and the ability of the nuclear industry to solve thorny problems like waste disposal and safety.

Congress is considering cap-and-trade legislation at the moment, and Chu is scheduled to testify before Congress on Tuesday about the need for such legislation. Schmidt isn't sure a global system can work because of the tendency for "rogue nations" to do as they please, but Chu thinks if carbon measurement systems are improved, hard data will make it easier to encourage those who are overproducing carbon to get their act together.

And on nuclear, Schmidt bemoaned the lack of standards in nuclear plant construction, saying "the human factors are a disaster" with every plant a little different than its counterparts and the waste issue still unsolved. Chu didn't debate the point, but said the nuclear industry is moving more toward solving those problems and improving safety.

Those were minor policy disagreements, however: Google and the current Department of Energy are definitely friends. Schmidt called Chu one of his heroes, and Chu praised Google's work on reducing the energy consumption of its servers and assuming a "leadership position" in reducing the carbon footprint of its operation.

Schmidt, who serves as an adviser to the administration on President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, asked Chu what it's like being the senior scientist in the government. He's actually the first scientist to hold the secretary of energy position, and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.

"It's funny in a macabre sort of way. I don't think Congress treats me like your average cabinet member," Chu said with a wry chuckle. He said he's spent much of his first year on the job talking to Congress about the problems with energy use and the environment, and that legislators are receptive, for the most part.

"I think the president has made it very clear that science plays such an integral role in the decisions we have to make," Chu said. He was preaching to the choir at the Googleplex.

An updated software tool combines energy-use evaluation with Google's 3D-modeling program to help improve building design in its early stages.

OpenStudio, a free, open-source tool introduced last year, now integrates EnergyPlus building analysis with Google SketchUp, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory announced this week.

"OpenStudio is lauded around our office as one of the most complicated plug-ins ever written for SketchUp," Christopher Cronin, Google's strategist for SketchUp, said in a statement.

While Google may see OpenStudio as a plug-in for SketchUp, OpenStudio's creators may instead see SketchUp as an add-on to its simulation program.

The NREL, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, launched the original version of OpenStudio in April 2008. NREL reports an average of 700 OpenStudio downloads per month.

OpenStudio's first version combined a graphical tool with EnergyPlus, a software program for analyzing building energy-use that the DOE began offering in 2001. "EnergyPlus is a standalone simulation program that models whole-building energy consumption from heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, water systems and other energy flows," according to NREL.

For example, the program can simulate the sun's movement around a building at various times of day for an entire year to determine if windows have been effectively shaded.

"Our hope is that by using OpenStudio in design charrettes, users can start throwing away designs at the very beginning of a project, saying: 'This is not a good design because we're going to use too much energy," Nick Long, an NREL engineer who helped develop OpenStudio, said in a statement.

Google has connected a home electricity-monitoring device to its Web-based PowerMeter application, part of Google's strategy to seed the market for home energy tools.

Google on Monday said that PowerMeter works with TED 5000, a small-screen monitor that provides a real-time read-out of home electricity use. TED, which stands for The Energy Detective, is one of many monitors aimed at giving consumers more detailed information so they can find ways to reduce energy use.

Google's PowerMeter energy monitor working on a smart phone.

(Credit: Google)

In combination with PowerMeter, a person can view details, such as real-time electricity use and weekly trends from a Web browser or using a smart phone running iGoogle.

Until now, Google has been working with utilities that are installing smart meters that communicate usage information in regular intervals rather than just once a month. Now, a person can use PowerMeter without having to have a smart meter installed.

Although it's straight forward, installation of the TED 5000 is not for everybody. It requires a technically savvy or an electrician to remove the cover of a home's electrical panel.

Google is looking to expand the number of devices that work with PowerMeter. It also intends to expand beyond simple energy monitoring. Planned features include ways to control home appliances to take advantage of off-peak electricity rates and demand-response programs, Dan Reicher, the director of climate and energy initiatives at Google.org, said in May.

Bill Weihl, Google's green-energy czar.

(Credit: Google)

Failing to find many investment opportunities, Internet search giant Google has begun developing its own green technology and may soon have some breakthroughs.

That's according to Bill Weihl, Google's green-energy czar, who spoke at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit that began on Tuesday.

In November 2007, Google announced a plan to invest hundreds of millions in technology to find a renewable-energy source for electricity cheaper than coal. Since then, the company has admittedly invested "less than $50 million."

Google had intended to invest much more, but it has not been able to find many qualifying companies or projects, Weihl told Reuters.

Rather than wait for better ideas to come along, the company has been developing its own technology, including better mirrors for solar-thermal plants and solar-powered turbines for generating electricity.

Google engineers believe that they've found a way to cut the manufacturing costs of heliostats, the mirrors used in solar-thermal farms, by making the mirrors and the mounts from "unusual materials," Weihl told Reuters.

"Typically, what we're seeing is $2.50 to $4 a watt (for) capital cost. So a 250-megawatt installation would be $600 million to a $1 billion," he said. "It's a lot of money."

The solar turbines Google is developing are actually gas turbines that, instead of running on natural gas, are being modified to be powered with solar energy, Weihl told Reuters.

The projects have been conducted independently of eSolar and BrightSource, two of the green-tech companies Google has invested in since the November 2007 announcement.

Microsoft's move into the energy monitoring business may sound like a stretch, but to Craig Mundie, it's one of several natural new businesses for the software maker.

Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, said the company has its eye on any area that can be helped by technology and in which society is spending a lot of money and not seeing the return it would like.

Microsoft's Hohm service lets users enter information about their home and energy use to get tips on cutting their gas and electric bills.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Energy consumption specifically, and environmental issues more broadly, were natural areas for the company to delve into, he said, and follow Microsoft's moves into other thorny challenges such as education and health care. On Wednesday, Microsoft is officially announcing Hohm, a free service that households can use to monitor their household energy use and get tips on how they can cut their gas and electric bills.

Mundie said Microsoft started with the residential market because it accounts for $160 billion of the $365 billion that the U.S. spends on electricity use.

"The big industrial guys have already entered into special contracts," Mundie said, noting that businesses often have done energy audits and agreed to cut their use in exchange for lower rates. "To some extent, they don't need it so much."

Hohm, which was code-named Niagara, is the culmination of about two years of work in the area, Mundie said. It's also one of the first commercial services to launch running on Windows Azure, the cloud-based operating system that Microsoft introduced last year.

One of the big questions though, is whether the issue is that people don't know what is using energy in their home, or if they just don't care.

"I don't think anybody can tell," Mundie said. "So you give it a try."

But Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds notes that we have seen signs that apathy rather than ignorance may be the biggest hurdle when it comes to cutting energy consumption. Reynolds noted that even when gas prices tripled, most Americans opted to pay more rather than to dramatically change their energy use.

That same attitude will be a challenge in the home, Reynolds said, noting that he gets a chilly reception when he suggests a family member put on a sweater rather than turn on the heat.

For its part, Microsoft is betting there are enough people who are focused either on their energy consumption or their bills to make the investment pay off.

While the business model isn't totally clear, Mundie said there is potentially money to be made both from advertising as well as from connecting consumers to products and services that might cut their energy use.

There are other reasons Microsoft may be interested in energy, including the fact that its chief nemesis, Google, has also made a move in the arena.

The big difference in approach, Microsoft said, is that unlike services from other big companies and start-ups, Hohm works without needing any sort of special smart plugs or other gear, though it can work with such products as well.

"We didn't want to start with something predicated on some major infrastructural change," Mundie said. Microsoft is partnering with utilities so that consumers can get their energy use data directly imported into Hohm, but for those whose provider isn't one of the early partners, Mundie said consumers can enter information from their bill.

Hohm works by asking people a series of questions about their home and energy use. Consumers can enter as little as their zip code. But the more information a consumer gives, the more detailed the recommendations.

"You can answer one question or a hundred questions," Mundie said.

To hear more from Mundie, check out our video interview above.

WASHINGTON D.C.--Google is developing "smart charging" software to ensure that plug-in electric vehicles don't cause traffic jams on the power grid.

The search giant is researching a number of energy-related technologies, including car charging software, where IT and "ET," or energy technology, meet, said Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org.

One of its projects, still in the experimental phase, is writing software to better manage when plug-in electric cars are charged, Reicher said at the Kema Utility of the Future conference here Thursday.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page plug in a RechargeIT car in 2007.

(Credit: Google)

There is some concern that millions of plug-in electric vehicles charging at the peak times, such as around 5:30 p.m. when people return from work, could cause power disruptions or require construction of new power plants.

To address this, Google has written software with "vehicle dispatch algorithms" that can decide how to best charge cars, Reicher said. In addition to smoothing out the load on the grid, smart charging makes it easier to take advantage of solar and wind power, which are variable sources of electricity.

The software is also designed to simplify matters for grid operators. To maintain a steady frequency on transmission wires, utilities typically call on power generators to increase or decrease the flow of electricity to match the demand, Reicher explained after his talk.

With Google's smart-charging software, the plug-in electric vehicles could effectively fill that "grid regulation" role, Reicher said.

"You can tell the power generators to power up or you can tell 250 cars to stop charging. It's exactly the same difference," he said. "It could be that the car charges for two minutes and then goes off--whatever is most effective."

Google now operates a fleet of plug-in hybrid cars--converted Toyota Priuses and Ford Escapes--at its corporate headquarters, where it gathers data on their mileage performance.

Like other companies, it has looked into vehicle-to-grid technology through which electric vehicles' batteries would feed stored electricity to utilities during peak times. That technology remains experimental.

By contrast, Reicher said, smart charging is a simple, one-way grid-to-car connection, rather than a two-way communication link between the car and grid. And smart-charging software can be implemented in the near and medium term, he said.

"This is just good software meets good hardware. This doesn't have to be rocket science, and we can do it without having to put the grid at risk or change a lot of things," he said.

One of the people taking part in the project is renewable-energy engineer Alec Brooks, who worked on Tesla Motors' grid-to-vehicle strategy before joining Google about a year ago.

Energy R&D at Google
Smart charging is seen as an important conduit to widespread use of plug-in electric vehicles. Although there aren't yet large numbers of mass-produced plug-in electric cars, the auto industry is expecting to start releasing mainstream electric vehicles in the next year.

Other companies are already working on smart-charging tools. Smart-grid company GridPoint last year acquired V2Green and tested its grid-to-vehicle software with General Motors' Chevy Volt. The software can speed up or slow down car battery charge times and provide information to utilities to help manage fluctuations in load.

Solar panels on carport roofs at Google's headquarters.

(Credit: Google)

For its part, GM said it expects to have smart charging available with the Chevy Volt when that car is released in late 2010. In conjunction with GM's online OnStar service, the smart charging is designed to allow consumers to take advantage of the best electricity rates, executives said.

In his talk, Reicher said that Google engineers are working on a number of other energy-related research and development projects in an effort to make renewable energy less expensive.

One project involves working on heliostats, the mirrors used to concentrate light on solar thermal systems. Google engineers are working on control systems--heliostats need to follow the light during the course of the day--and on making heliostats less expensive to manufacture.

Google has invested $45 million in outside companies, including start-ups in concentrating solar power, capturing energy from high-altitude wind, and enhanced geothermal systems.

Reicher added that Google is planning to announce deals with European utilities around its PowerMeter home energy-monitoring software.

By getting information from a smart meter or another device, PowerMeter can display a home's energy usage in real time and provide details on how much big appliances consume, which should allow people to find ways to reduce electricity usage.

Last month, Google said that eight utilities in the U.S. and Canada are using PowerMeter with their smart-grid trials. PowerMeter is a Google gadget that can be embedded into a Web page.