Green Tech

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.

The National Renewable Energy Lab and U.S. Department of Energy have launched a mapping tool on alternative fuels and vehicles.

Employing Google Maps, TransAtlas plots geographical locations of things like specific types of fuel stations and concentrations where certain types of alternative fuel vehicles are owned in abundance.

It plots points where production facilities and other infrastructure for alternative fuel transportation exist, as well as separate icons identifying projects under development.

The comprehensive tool allows users to turn layers on and off by checking boxes in a legend. It includes alternative fuels like hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, propane, compressed natural gas, E85, biodiesel, and electric charging stations

Layers are also used to see vehicle density for flex fuel, diesel, and hybrid electric vehicles, as well as production facilities for hydrogen and ethanol.

The TransAtlas lets you ask a specific site for more detailed information by hitting the query button and then clicking on a point of interest. One click can tell you the town where an ethanol production facility is located, what capacity it's operating at, and what kind of biomass it uses.

The tool's development was sponsored by the DOE's Vehicle Technologies Program, which includes the Clean Cities initiative, a program to encourage alternative fuel development and public/private partnerships on alternative fuel projects.

National Renewable Energy Lab's map showing hydrogen production facilities in the U.S.

(Credit: Google Maps)

Updated at 9:25 a.m. PT with comments from San Diego Gas & Electric.

Google has signed on smart-meter manufacturer Itron and eight utilities to offer Google's PowerMeter Web service for monitoring home energy use.

PowerMeter reads a home's electricity meter and gives the consumer a detailed readout of usage. The idea is that a better understanding of electricity usage--presented via daily trends and data on individual appliances--will help people figure out how to cut consumption.

PowerMeter creates a readout of a home's electricity use over the course of a day.

(Credit: Google)

Google's home energy-monitoring software relies on meters, or add-on devices, that can communicate usage information back to utilties. In a blog post on Tuesday, Google engineer Ed Lu said that the company is seeking to find more smart-meter vendors and utilities to offer PowerMeter.

"For now, Google PowerMeter is only available to a limited group of customers, but we plan to expand our roll out later this year," Lu wrote.

In a document prepared for utilities, Google says that PowerMeter is a free, opt-in service.

Google's push into home energy monitoring is likely to be well received by consumers who want details on how they are consuming electricity. It is estimated that simply surfacing information on trends and individual appliances will allow the typical consumer to lower electricity use by 5 to 15 percent.

Within the smart-grid industry, Google is poised to make an impact as well. A number of start-ups offer home energy monitoring, through Web sites or a small device in the home.

Large IT and telecommunications providers are developing smart-grid technology as well. Cisco Systems said Monday that it intends to offer home energy monitoring, potentially as an add-on to its home network hardware. Telecommunications companies including Verizon Communicationsare exploring adding energy monitoring to their broadband services.

San Diego Gas & Electric, which has been working with Google for a year on PowerMeter, plans to have over 200,000 Itron smart meters installed this year and have its entire territory of 1.4 million customers covered by the end of 2011.

The utility will offer the same information on usage, in addition to billing records, to its customers through its own Web site. It decided to go with PowerMeter because it ties into Google's popular Web services, which allows SDG&E to provide links to its rebate and energy-efficiency programs, said Hal Snynder, the vice president of customer solutions.

"It's about getting products and programs in customers' hands in the most efficient way we possibly can. Right now, it's a challenge to get that information to them. That's where Google can be a great conduit," he said.

Snyder said that tracking energy usage is the first step in a longer smart-grid plan the utility is pursuing. Automation tools will let consumers program home appliances to take advantage of the lowest electricity rates, he said.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Dan Reicher, the director of climate and energy initiatives at Google.org, says we're standing on a great untapped source of renewable energy: enhanced geothermal.

Reicher spoke on Tuesday to university students at the announcement of the winners of the Clean Energy Prize organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and sponsored in part by utility NStar.

Dan Reicher, Google's director of energy and climate initiatives.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

In addition to talking up clean energy, Reicher said Google will "very soon" launch PowerMeter, its Web-based home energy-monitoring software that is now in private beta. The software can now monitor homes' appliance energy consumption, but over time Google will add features to let consumers take advantage of cheaper, off-peak electricity rates and demand-response programs.

Although it's core business is search, Google actively promotes renewable energy and efficiency. It has a fleet of plug-in vehicles powered by a very large solar array and is trying to influence policy makers to encourage a more high-tech approach to energy.

Google has also invested in a handful of energy companies, including an enhanced geothermal systems outfit AltaRock Energy, solar thermal provider BrightSource Energy, and wind company Makani Power.

During his talk, Reicher singled out enhanced geothermal as the most underserved area with great potential: "We have three times the potential of wind...and now we've got the oil and gas companies interested."

There are already many geothermal power plants operating in areas where there is underground heat that can be converted into steam to make electricity.

Enhanced geothermal technology calls for pumping water deep underground, making cracks in the rock to create a reservoir of water that is heated by the earth.

Reicher said the big advantage of enhanced geothermal is that it can be done nearly everywhere in the U.S. He said even places like Maine have sufficient underground heat, although drilling must be done three to ten kilometers down. Oil and gas companies are well suited for this business since they know about drilling and geology.

A diagram of enhanced geothermal system where water is pumped underground at high pressure to crack rock and then the heated water is recuperated to make steam.

(Credit: Department of Energy)

Although the potential is great, Reicher said the commercialization risk is high as well. "I don't want to oversell this. We have a long way to go," he said. The recovery act passed earlier this year puts aside $400 million for research in geothermal.

Computing can play a significant role in enhanced geothermal system by providing geological models and simulations. In general, Google expects to see a growing role for IT in energy technology, Reicher said.

"We believe that fundamentally there's an intersection between information technology and energy technology. IT and ET--that's where we are heading in part at Google," he said.