Green Tech

Even as billions of dollars are being spent around the world to modernize the electricity grid, the systems to delivery fresh water are also in desperate need of a 21st century upgrade.

IBM is developing a portfolio of IT-related water management technologies, a business that it estimates can total $20 billion within five years. At a water conference next week, IBM and Intel will be forming a working group to study how information and technology can be used to improve water management, according to IBM.

The goal is to sketch out the technical architecture required to more efficiently use fresh water, only one percent of the available water on Earth.

Water systems even in developed countries like the U.S. are notoriously outdated, with faulty pipes--some of them still made of wood--result in 25 percent to 45 percent lost water. That means high-tech approaches, such as using sensors to gauge water quality, are a tough sell to cash-strapped municipalities, most of which are more concerned with maintaining the basic infrastructure.

IBM is betting, though, that fresh water will have more value attached to it from the public, governments, and corporations.

"The hard truth is that most of the countries in the developing world are outgrowing the amount of water that is available to them," said Peter Williams, the chief technology officer of IBM's Big Green Innovations program, who representing IBM at a conference organized by the Water Innovations Alliance industry association next week. "Certainly, it's the case that water is the great sleeping crisis and it is most definitely starting to wake up."

IBM launched Big Green Innovations two and a half years ago to capitalize on constraints in energy generation, carbon emissions, energy in the data center, and water. For the past 18 months, IBM has focused more of its attention on water, said Williams, who characterized the business as "incredibly nascent."

Reservoirs of data
Upgrading the water utility infrastructure is analogous to the many smart-grid technologies now being tested to make the grid run more efficiently and use more renewable energy.

Gathering and processing information on the status of delivery allows water agencies to better manage their operations. For example, if a water authority can use meters or sensors to locate problems, such as leaks or sewage overflows, they can cut their maintenance costs, Williams explained.

IBM has already had a number of water-related deals. In a partnership with the Nature Conservancy, it's gathering data on various environmental factors to measure the health of river ecosystems. In the Netherlands, IBM is involved in the design of levies to understand potential breaking points.

In these cases, IBM is building the software and networks to handle incoming data from sensors and to provide tools to let people analyze the information. It's also testing smart water meters that would provide more accurate consumption data and alert customer if there's a problem, such as a leak. It's also looking at new sensors being developed to track the level of pathogens or chemical contaminants that come from use of pharmaceuticals.

Big Blue's Maximo "asset management" software is used by many water utilities to keep track and maintain their equipment of pumps, plants, and filtration equipment.

Still, water utilities are a generally low-tech bunch when it comes to IT. Most water authority executives don't consider technology options beyond basic SCADA control systems, Williams said. "They are where (electricity) utilities were five or 10 years ago," he said.

Corporate risk
IBM is pushing into water because the trends on water point to the need for greater conservation for social and economic reasons.

In poor countries, billions of people don't have regular access to clean water. Meanwhile, high-profile droughts in Australia and the western U.S. served by the Colorado River are causing severe financial problems for different industries, notably agriculture.

The high energy cost of delivering water helps makes the economic case for better monitoring and data analysis. In the U.S., between 3 percent and 4 percent of the entire electricity output is used to pump water. In California, it's almost 20 percent. Meanwhile, low water levels in rivers and reservoirs forced the shut down of nuclear reactors in France a few years ago.

Industries that rely on water, such as semiconductors, agriculture, or beverages, are susceptible to disruptions of supply. There's also "reputational risk" when consumers perceive that businesses are profligate with water, Williams said.

"It's something like greenhouse gases. Ten years ago in this country, few people were talking about them but now they are," he said. "The same will happen with water."

IBM on Friday disclosed the elements of an initiative to sell technology and services to better manage fresh water, often referred to as the "oil of the 21st century."

The company said it has technology, now being tested at the SmartBay project in Galway, Ireland, to gather and analyze data to improve water conservation. It also announced a membrane for purifying saltwater that was developed by IBM in collaboration with other researchers.

The water strategy, part of IBM's Big Green Innovations project started two years ago, is set to be officially announced at the World Water Forum, which starts Monday in Istanbul, Turkey.

Managing fresh water is increasingly becoming a concern for governments and industries around the world, with the ongoing droughts in Australia and California being prominent examples.

IBM expects that water conservation can be improved by using sensors to gather data and analyzing the data on high-end computers. It has developed a suite of water-management offerings that combine consulting services and computing, including water metering for utilities.

The SmartBay research program around Galway Bay, for example, monitors wave conditions, marine life, and pollution levels and uses IBM's "cloud" computing services to predict water conditions.

"Regardless of industry or geography, smarter water management is an issue faced by every business and government on the planet," Sharon Nunes, vice president for Big Green Innovations at IBM, said in a statement. "Without sufficient insight into near- and long-term factors affecting your water supply and usage--complex issues such as access, quality, cost and re-use--you increasingly run the risk of failure."

To date, however, there hasn't been a great deal of investment in water-related technologies. Investors and entrepreneurs have been wary of trying to sell new technology, such as purification membranes, to the cash-strapped and conservative municipalities that manage fresh water.

There is also a close tie between energy and water as pumping fresh water or purifying seawater are very energy-intensive. Twenty percent of California's energy use is said to be tied to water.

The membrane filter that IBM and collaborators designed is relatively energy efficient and resistant to degradation by chlorine, a typical problem of membrane filtration.

Big Blue has devised a consulting service to profit from corporate initiatives to "go green."

IBM on Monday detailed its "Green Sigma" consulting practice for reducing energy and water usage at businesses by using networked sensors and data analysis software.

It's based on the Lean Six Sigma management strategy that was originally designed to focus on operational efficiency and customer requirements.

The idea with Green Sigma is to do an accounting of a company's water and energy usage, both at its own facilities and also its supply chain partners. IBM is piloting the method at two of its own facilities and at two of its customers'.

By tracking usage numbers and taking conservation measures, IBM was able to significantly reduce consumption, saving $310 million. A work-at-home program, for example, eliminated 8 million gallons of gasoline.

Helping make businesses green is big business to IBM.

High energy and water costs are pushing companies to be more efficient. But there are other reasons for companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or undertake corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, said Dave Lubowe, global leader of IBM's operation strategy practice.

Many heavy polluters, such as utilities, anticipate climate regulations in the next five years. Meanwhile, consumers are demanding more eco-savvy products, according to a recent survey of CEOs, despite complaints over "greenwashing."

"Consumers are increasingly active and activist about where they put their money," said Lubowe, "Just giving money to charities (through CSR) isn't enough anymore."

IBM's consulting group will survey a company's operations and try to isolate areas that have the best potential for saving energy or water usage. The idea is to selectively put sensors on water pumps or machinery to measure usage data, then collect that data and present it on a dashboard.

At its Dublin, Ireland, operation, IBM was able to improve its energy efficiency by 20 percent.

Even though large manufacturers have sought to lower their energy use for years, Lubowe said he expects other efficiency consulting services to emerge, if only because of rising fuel and water costs.

"That means that not only is it the right thing to do, but it also makes economic sense. I think that's a really important trend," he said.

Add IBM to the hordes of companies trying to build a better solar cell.

The computing giant on Monday is expected to announce a deal with a Japanese semiconductor equipment manufacturer to make thin-film solar cells from CIGS, a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide.

Neither IBM nor its partner, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK), plan to manufacture cells themselves. Rather, they will develop technology that can be licensed to solar companies in two or three years, said Supratik Guha, lead scientist for photovoltaics at IBM Research.

IBM has already built a prototype device. Once made at large volumes on a glass substrate, the cells are expected to deliver electricity at less than one dollar per watt at peak times--a long-held target of many solar outfits.

"We have the skills that we have developed in other areas--standard silicon semiconductors, materials chemistry--and we're looking to utilize those skills in the photovoltaic space and develop IP (intellectual property) and know-how that other people don't have," Guha said.

Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, but alternative thin-film materials are becoming a larger share of the market. Thin-film cells are less efficient at converting sunlight to electricity than silicon, but they require much less material to produce a cell, making them cost-competitive. Solar high-flier First Solar sells thin-film cells from cadmium telluride.

CIGS is a material that a number of companies are betting on, including Nanosolar, Global Solar Energy, Miasole, and Heliovolt.

These companies are not producing cells at large volumes yet, but use of CIGS is expected to catch on quickly next year as their factories come online.

"CIGS will be the big story of 2009 because we know how many companies are putting in multimegawatts of CIGS (production capacity) in 2009," predicted solar expert Travis Bradford, president of the Prometheus Institute, who spoke at a recent Greentech Media solar briefing.

15 percent efficiency goal
IBM's CIGS manufacturing technique came out of research IBM had done about 10 years ago in flexible electronics.

It's a break with the most common CIGS manufacturing process, called co-evaporation, in which active chemicals are immersed in a solution that gets removed in a vacuum.

IBM's "solution-based processing" calls for the chemicals to be dissolved in a liquid and then dried. It does not require a vacuum, doesn't require as much energy to run, and can be done faster than co-evaporation, Guha said.

IBM is also looking to leap-frog existing CIGS manufacturers on efficiency with a target of about 15 percent.

The efficiency of the CIGS cells on the market now is at about 9 percent or 10 percent. HelioVolt recently announced that it hit 12.2 percent efficiency with a process that is faster than co-evaporation. Global Solar said it expects to get to 14 percent, eventually.

The record for efficiency was done by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Research Laboratory (NREL) earlier this year, which reached 19.9 percent efficiency through a co-evaporation process.

In about a month, IBM intends to provide more technical detail of its solutions-based process in an advanced-material paper, Guha said.

CIGS is not the only area of the solar industry where IBM is investing.

Again by modifying chip-manufacturing technology, IBM created a cooling method for a solar concentrator that it hopes to license to others.

It is also doing work on techniques to manufacture silicon solar cells on glass using very little silicon, Guha said.

Rival Hewlett Packard, meanwhile, earlier this month licensed transparent electronics technology to Xtreme Energetics to make a solar concentrator.

To wring efficiencies out of data centers, IBM has gone back to a familiar playbook: standard-size building blocks.

The company on Wednesday will launch an expanded line of data centers that use a modular design to cut energy consumption in half, compared with existing data centers.

It's part of Project Big Green, an initiative launched last year to make back-end computing less energy intensive.

Data centers around the world account for about 2 percent of all energy consumption and there is ample room for improvement, according to experts.

For example, virtualization software can consolidate multiple computing jobs onto fewer computers to cut energy use significantly.

In the past year, IBM has been able to reduce energy consumption up to 50 percent as part of 2,000 consulting engagements, said Steve Sams, vice president of global site and facilities at IBM.

During those custom data center construction jobs, the company found that standardized designs brought even more efficiencies and benefits.

IBM last year had a modular data center for relatively small installations. On Wednesday, it launched its Enterprise Modular Data Center sized to be between 5,000 and 20,000 square feet.

Typically, the modular data centers will be for new construction. IBM now suggests that companies invest in a relatively large physical space up-front and install technology as needed, Sams said.

"When you put the base infrastructure for wiring and plumbing, you in essence can defer up to 40 percent of the capital costs," he said, because the physical infrastructure is just 10 percent of the capital costs.

To expand, IBM will sell technology infrastructure by a standard building block size of 5,000 square feet.

It also has a portable data center that is packaged inside a shipping container and a "high-density zone" offering for packing a stand-alone computing rack within an existing data center.

Sun Microsystems has also created a portable data center, originally called Project Blackbox, as part of its energy-efficiency efforts. To see previous coverage, click here.

Illuminata analyst and CNET Networks blogger Gordon Haff said some claims of efficiency gains need to be put in perspective: new servers deliver much better performance per watt so simply replacing old hardware can account for much of any improvement.

"I don't buy many of these 'X percent more efficient' claims. They're just 'X percent better performance' claims in new garb," Haff said.

"All that said," he added, "there's very rapid server growth in some places: high-performance computing, analytics, Web 2.0, and so forth. You need to pay attention to deployment at scale and you need to do what you can to minimize power and cooling needs."

IBM, which is a big proponent of industry standards, said the standardized data center approach allows it to keep its costs down as well.

"We found that basic data center design and construction over last 20 years hasn't changed," Sams said. "In essence, we're rewriting the book in how design and construct data centers around the world."

Update on June 11 at 7:15 am PT: a line added to link to Sun Microsystems' portable data center.

IBM has developed technology that will let solar cells withstand the heat of more than a 1,000 suns.

At a technical conference on Thursday, representatives from IBM Research's photovoltaics research will present a method for cooling concentrating photovoltaics, a solar design where light is magnified onto high-performance solar cells.

Heat is a serious issue when it comes to concentrating photovoltaics, or CPV. The efficiency of cells degrades at high heat and can damage, and conceivably destroy, equipment at extremely high temperatures.

IBM said that its liquid-metal cooling technique, adapted from high-powered computers' chips, can remove roughly three-quarters of the heat generated by a CPV system.

CPV arrays use lenses and mirrors to magnify light onto solar cells that convert light to electricity. By cramming more light onto cells, the panels can generate more electricity.

The technology, which has been around for decades, is being pursued once again by a number of companies, most of which are designing systems for solar power plants.

These plants have rows of CPV systems that track the sun during the day and magnify light hundreds of times.

As part of IBM's Big Green Innovations initiative, researchers looked into applying the company's chip design and manufacturing expertise in solar. It found that CPV companies had not paid enough attention to thermal problems, particularly as they move to higher light concentrations.

"It's clear that everybody wants to go to higher concentrations," said Supratik Guha, lead scientist for photovoltaics at IBM Research. "In the last few years, CPV has sort of been trying to make a comeback and if you look at the numbers, it does have the potential to be really cheap."

IBM looking at CIGS
Because heat dissipation is important for its high-end processors, IBM has developed a cooling system where a thin layer of liquid metals circulates behind a chip to transfer the heat from the chip to a "cooling block."

IBM has built a prototype of the thermal interface layer on a CPV system. In tests, it found that the technique can dramatically lower the heat of high-concentration devices.

The technique only makes sense for very high levels of concentration, which are used on expensive, high-efficiency triple-junction solar cells, said Guha.

IBM doesn't intend to manufacture CPV devices itself but it does hope to license its thermal interface layer to solar manufacturers, he said.

In addition to working on thermal issues, IBM Research is working on "solution process" techniques for manufacturing CIGS cells. The solution process would be an alternative to the slower evaporation process for making CIGS cells.

IBM is also working on manufacturing silicon solar cells on glass. More fundamental research focuses on improving solar cell efficiency through nanowires and nanoparticles, explained Guha.

In a sign of "green" going mainstream, an IBM survey of CEOs finds that socially oriented customers are wielding more power, aided by social networking on the Web.

The survey, published Tuesday, drew on face-to-face interviews with 1,130 CEOs around the world. It found that CEOs feel less prepared as they would like to deal with the pace of change.

CEOs identified two types of customers that are the primary sources of that change.

The first is the information omnivore, the type of consumer who is comfortable making his or her opinion known through Web-based tools like social networks.

CEOs said that these proactive consumers, or "prosumers," can be a positive influence if companies can design products based on consumers' expressed preferences.

In addition to being demanding about products, customers are carefully watching corporations' behavior, the study found.

Expectations for corporate social responsibility are rising. Concern over environmental issues has doubled over the past four years, with most of that reflected in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region.

CEOs said they will increase investments 25 percent over the next three years to better understand socially minded customers, which chief executives identified as the fastest-growing trend.

IBM itself primarily serves large enterprises, rather than selling directly to consumers. It does an annual survey of CEOs to find direction on their business directions and how they intend to sell to their customers.

In the area of clean tech, IBM has a number of initiatives including data center energy efficiency and reducing waste from silicon solar cells. IBM also has a decades-long corporate social responsibility practice.

IBM and Saudi Arabia's national research and development organization have created a joint nanotechnology lab to develop new technologies in solar power, seawater desalination, and recyclable materials.

An agreement to create the Nanotechnology Centre of Excellence, established by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology and IBM Research, was signed last week in a ceremony in Riyadh.

The lab is one of several indicators that oil-rich Middle East nations are moving rapidly into clean tech.

The oil minister of Saudi Arabia, Ali al-Nuaimi, told the French oil newsletter Petrostrategies that "one of the most important sources of energy to look at and to develop is solar energy," according to an AFP report.

Last November, OPEC members created a $750 million fund to do research on carbon capture and storage.

And the head of the Masdar Clean Tech Fund, based in Abu Dhabi, last month was named "Cleantech leader of the year," at last week's Cleantech Forum. The fund is behind Masdar City, which is being called the first sustainable city.

For IBM, the joint nanotechnology lab is part of the company's Big Green Innovations initiative to develop environmental technology.