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Facebook unveiled its green data center and energy efficient servers in Oregon this Spring, but now the social network giant has achieved another milestone: it’s been granted a LEED gold certification for the Oregon data center, which uses 52 percent less energy to operate than a standard data center (hat tip Green Data Center Blog). LEED is a green design and building certification managed by the U.S. Green Building Council. Most data center operators don’t bother to apply for it, and many data centers aren’t able to meet the rigorous standards of LEED. Buildings commonly need to be designed from the ground up as efficiently as possible to achieve the LEED status, and Facebook says it “redesigned our entire physical infrastructure, from grid to gates.” The metric PUE is more often used for energy and data centers. Click headline to read more--
If we adopt solar and wind as major components of our energy infrastructure as we are weaned from fossil fuels, we have to solve the energy storage problem in a big way. An earlier post demonstrated that we do not likely possess enough materials in the world to simply build giant lead-acid (or nickel-based or lithium-based) batteries to do the job. Comments frequently pointed to pumped hydro storage as a far more sensible answer. Indeed, pumped storage is currently the dominant—and nearly only—grid-scale storage solution out there. Here, we will take a peek at pumped hydro and evaluate what it can do for us. Click headline to read more--
Telx announced yesterday that it plans to build a new 215,000 square foot data center in Clifton, N.J., from the ground up—a move that will enable the company to offer a high level of customization for its clients, said Telx CEO Eric Shepcaro in an interview with Connected Planet. “It will be the most interconnected data center in the New York/ New Jersey area,” said Shepcaro, who noted that the new facility will be connected not only to an existing Telx data center in Clifton but also to the popular 60 Hudson St. location in New York City. The connection to 50 Hudson St. will be via a private fiber ring, which will minimize latency, he said. The new data center is targeted to open by the end of 2012. Click headline to read more--
A reporter recently asked me if I thought the U.S. would be able to reach President Obama’s goal of putting 1 million electric cars on the road in the U.S. by 2015. I’m not sure, I said, but I think that we could potentially come close. But that got me thinking, given some of the struggles of companies like Think and the delays from Fisker, will we be able to reach the 1 million EV goal by 2015? Here’s what the Department of Energy said back in February about which cars would deliver what part of the goal. It should be noted that the DOE didn’t include estimates from Coda Automotive, Honda, and Mitsubishi which will likely deliver some volumes of cars between now and 2015. But let’s look at the numbers below and see what is still there. A couple months ago Pike Research said that it thinks that we might end up seeing about 667,000 plug-in electric cars sold by 2015 instead of the 1 million. Click headline to read more--
AT&T is launching a new business division in Atlanta called Digital Life Services, focusing on new opportunities like remote health care, energy management and home security, according to a report from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The details on what the unit will do are still vague and AT&T isn’t saying anything about it yet, but AJC reported that it would reside in the wireless side of the business, squarely under the Emerging Devices divisionresponsible for the tablets, e-book readers and other non-phone devices accruing to AT&T’s network. AT&T isn’t a newcomer to the energy smart grid or telemedicine, by any means. But what’s new here may be the way AT&T is approaching these vertical markets. Digital Life Services could be the vehicle AT&T will use to become a retailer of applications that it currently addresses through the wholesale market. Click headline to read more--
The Smart Grid is meant to help consumers regulate their personal power consumption and to help utilities meet the projected power demands that will come with the growth in use of electrically-powered vehicles. Countries across the globe are investing in the technology necessary to implement the Smart Grid, including New Zealand, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France. Japan and South Korea are adopting the Smart Grid, and China will soon come onboard as well. Smart Meter programs also are rolling out in India and Brazil. The United States, however, is spending the most money on the innovation and deployment of Smart Grid technology. The Department of Energy allocated $4.5 billion in funds from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 for general research and deployment of Smart Grid sensors, monitors, and other equipment, including millions of Smart Meters. An international economic consulting firm’s study estimates that grid and generation infrastructure improvements could cost more than $1.5 trillion by 2030. However, the report also notes that generation costs could be cut by improvements in energy efficiency and the use of advanced demand-response communications systems between the customer and generator (utility companies). This would include new Smart Meters for consumers. Click headline to read more--
Updated: Beacon Power, the flywheel maker that filed for bankruptcy last month after winning a $43 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, announced on Saturday that it plans to sell its 20 MW flywheel plant in Stephentown, New York, to pay back the DOE loan. Beacon Power has been in negotiations with the DOE about how to pay back the loan and also continue operations, and Beacon says the DOE loan office’s “highest priority was to recover as much of the $39.1 million loan balance as soon as possible,” which led to the decision to sell the plant by January 30, 2012. Click headline to read more--
Conference co-hosts Connect Minnesota presented their online tools and recently refurbished web site to the crowd at the 2011 Border to Border Broadband Conference. Connect Minnesota has a collection of the mapping and tools available. Last summer they did a phone-based survey with residents focusing on broadband use; they also have an ongoing project mapping broadband access in the state. Here’s more info on bother from their website: --Consumer Broadband Adoption Trends --Broadband Landscape Click headline to access these two reports--
Why are we asking this now? The current electrical grid is the system that brings the power generated in a power station to our homes through transformers, switches, transmission lines and cables. This one-way distribution network is now becoming a two way distribution and generation network or smart grid. Click headline to read more--
WirelessMapping.com announce a suite of demographic mapping and coverage services specifically designed for Internet providers, state and local governments, non-profit foundations, businesses and others who are preparing NTIA BTOP and BIP applications. Click headline to read more--
Yesterday, Puerto Rico Chief Information Officer Juan Eugenio Rodriguez de Hostos in a joint presentation with Sandra Torres, President of the Puerto Rico Telecommunications Board, released the latest Connect Puerto Rico broadband availability maps and data at the Puerto Rico Telecom Conference 2011. Both also offered insights into the right kind of legislative environment for promoting the type of technology modernization necessary for Puerto Rico to realize a vibrant and robust digital future. New data estimates indicate that 86% of households have broadband available at basic connection speeds (768 kbps download/200 kbps upload speeds). The estimate drops significantly when looking at higher connection speeds necessary to support Internet applications that consumers are increasingly demanding, such as video streaming. An estimated 41% of households across the island have broadband available at speeds of 6 Mbps/768 kbps or higher. Click headline to read more--
Through a five-year strategic plan released Monday by the Capital Region Economic Development Council, area leaders in public and private sectors plan to collaborate to make the Capital District a leading destination in the state while also creating tens of thousands of jobs. The plan, which focuses on 21st-century infrastructure, nanotechnology and the area’s historical significance and natural beauty, was approved by the council and submitted to the state Monday. Projects concentrating on these and other topics are expected to leverage $11 in private investment for every $1 invested by the state. Several strategies were identified as accelerating economic development in the region. By establishing a biotechnology and nano-biomedical research consortium to collaborate on joint research grants, the five-year goal expects a 40 percent increase in funding from various sources, such as government entities and privately funded research and development. This would also attract about 20 scientists, or four per year. Another strategy is to fund start-up and early stage companies through incubators, chambers of commerce and other growth organizations. This will create a $100 million revolving-loan fund and help 1,000 businesses and entrepreneurs by 2016. Click headline to read more--
Despite recent advances in smart grid developments, much of the heavy lifting still lies ahead as the traditional energy sector, in partnership with new technology providers, must innovate and overhaul outdated business models to deliver true value to consumers and society. Currently, utility companies around the world are embarking upon projects that will see hundreds of millions of smart meters and other smart grid devices installed in the next decade. However, in a scenario where few new entrants or new products and services emerge to take advantage of smart network investments, benefits to the consumer could be relatively limited, the analyst predicts. Albert Cheung, Head of Energy Smart Technologies at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, says: “Removing regulatory barriers to innovation and allowing new entrants into the market will help to realise the benefits of smart energy. Even in deregulated markets such as in Europe, innovation can be stifled by outdated regulations and legacy market rules. We believe that smart energy will not only herald a technology update for the power industry; it will also usher in a period of significant business innovation, leading to a very different energy sector than the one that exists today.” Click headline to read more--
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So maybe you’ve been kicking around the idea of putting a solar panel or small wind turbine on your property for a while, but you’re not sure if you need all the electricity it will generate. Or maybe you’ve decided to go ahead with a project, but crunching the numbers showed it would be much more cost effective to build a larger system. Problem is, a larger system would provide way more energy than your family needs. Is there a way to harvest renewable energy and sell the electricity you don’t use? In many states, the answer is yes. As long as the system you install uses a renewable energy source like wind or solar and has a capacity (the overall amount of electricity that can be generated) of less than a specific amount, you can sell the extra electricity produced to your local utility. The policy that sets the rules for selling electricity to the utility is called net metering. Using special and widely-available meters makes it fairly simple to determine the amount of power you use or could sell. The price the utility pays for your extra energy is the same as the retail price customers pay. Depending on how much energy you produce and use, you may owe the utility or the utility may owe you. Click headline to read more--
In a world of unlimited bandwidth, which would we actually choose? An easy answer to this question would be that customers would like unlimited bandwidth. This would be a win-win. Telcos and customers alike would benefit from a world of unlimited bandwidth, where customers could do what they want, when they want it, and where they want. Telcos would see enormous cost savings in customer care and support and customers would see freedom. This unstructured and massive choice was offered in the television world. From one or two channels customers quickly became used to three, four, tens, and hundreds. The result? A million adverts, most unwanted, personalization attempts thwarted, and a lackluster, disliked environment, which is fast being redesigned. Television is being transformed by TV Everywhere initiatives. The rise of new devices means that content is no longer 'TV' or 'games' or the 'Internet'—it is a true multimedia experience. The trend toward personalization will mean that all content can be delivered to the customers in the ways that they wish, with just the right number of relevant, entertaining adverts for their taste. Delivering that without a sophisticated, real time BSS environment is impossible, because there are simply too many processes involved. Click headline to read more--
With the nation’s 1,600 broadband providers investing $66 billion in Internet infrastructure last year alone, and $1 trillion since 1996, it is no wonder American broadband adoption has occurred at astonishing speeds. This month’s vidcast showcases key statistics related to the rise of broadband, and shares data on today’s high-speed Internet holdouts. Here are a few highlights on this topic: Access & Adoption Today. Today, 95% of American homes have broadband access from at least one provider, and over 80% have a choice between multiple broadband providers. How many actually subscribe to broadband? 70% of Americans. Who Is Holding Out and Why? Of course, not everyone is connecting to the high-speed Internet. Among those who don’t use broadband, nearly half say it is not relevant to their lives. Six in ten are uncomfortable with the technology. The Benefits of Broadband. The high-speed Internet offers many benefits for connected Americans. Currently, 80% of Americans seek health information online. 40% use the Internet for assistance finding a job. And online education benefits more than one million students. Click on the headline to watch the video to hear USTelecom’s overview of the topic.
Verizon Wireless and AT&T blazed ahead with their LTE rollouts this week. Following behind, T-Mobile today announced that in 11 additional markets it has doubled the speed of its HSPA+ based 4G network to HSPA+ 42 technology, as well as rolled out HSPA+ 21 to 9 new markets, bringing its grand total to 208 markets and more than 200 million people. The tally allows the carrier to stand behind its "America's Largest 4G Network" slogan. Though with Verizon already at 179 markets, well exceeding its goal for the year (CP: AT&T, Verizon meet 2011 LTE goals), and AT&T, with its six new markets this week, reaching now 15 markets and 70 million users, T-Mobile will have to keep hustling to retain the title. The carrier recently released the Samsung Galaxy S II and the HTC Amaze 4G — its first two smartphones able to take advantage of the HSPA+ 42 technology, which is said to offer speeds average download speeds of 8 Mbps and peak speeds of 20 Mbps. Driving more than half of the network's 4G traffic, CTO Neville Ray said in a statement, are "streaming video and audio." Click headline to read more--
A new €5 million, three-year smart grid project has been unveiled in Austria. Designed to prepare for the expected "onslaught" of new solar capacity in the country, the pilot project will see 120 photovoltaic systems installed. It is believed that by the end of 2015, 6,000 new solar power systems will be connected to Austria’s grid each year. To deal with this, a pilot project is underway in Eberstalzell - where Austria’s largest photovoltaic research power station is also based. The idea is to create a control concept for an active, low-voltage grid. AIT told pv magazine that the DG DemoNet Smart LV Grid project’s objective is to "enable an efficient and cost effective use of existing grid infrastructures for DER integration based on a three-step concept." This concept will encompass intelligent planning, on-line monitoring and active LV grid management. Click headline to read more--
As my town of Boulder embarks upon an effort of municipalization of our electricity, which will involve many legal dollars in "negotiations" with Excel, I struggle with the concept because the nearby Wyoming coal which we want to stop using will go to Asia instead, as it is already doing, and burn in dirtier facilities than the ones we have. The goal, of course, of municipalization is to be energy stewards and use clean, renewable energy rather than burning coal to reduce greenhouse emissions. Whenever I run into activists for municipalization, I ask them how they answer the question about the coal going to Asia if we don't use it, resulting in an even larger carbon footprint. One-hundred percent of the ones I've asked have been unaware of the issue, including an NCAR climate scientist friend. No issues are simple when one considers all aspects. Here in this case, as usual, the only answer seems to be that we become smaller users or consumers of electricity while increasing energy efficiency if we want to make any real progress. So far here in the U.S., our electrical consumption continues upwards. Click headline to read more--
Folks who have attended a Minnesota Rural Summit will be familiar with the concept of the Learning Stations. The idea is to have several mini-sessions available and have folks attend sessions together in a sub-group. It’s a fun way to learn about a few projects. It might whet your appetite for a new interest or might confirm something you already know. I know in my group I learned at least as much from the questions from my group buddies as the session themselves, which is a comment on the good questions. Also in the sessions I really saw the diversity of attendees. I was with a couple of librarians, a research policy person and a super techie. Yet the sessions offered something for everyone. It demonstrated to me that we’re at a place in Minnesota where deployment and adoption are part of the equation for moving forward. Here are the topics of the Learning Stations. Click headling to read all about the Learing Stations--
The second day of the 2011 Minnesota Broadband Conference started with a glimpse of the future from students from St Scholastica. They had worked with their teacher (Tom Gibbons) to come up with – A Vision of the Future: 36 Ways to use 100 Mbps. It was fun to hear their examples of how students are using technology now. Click headline to watch the video of their students presentation--
The Greek Energy Ministry’s new plan to tap into Turkish grids to meet Greek islands’ electricity needs could boost flagging Ankara-Athens relations that have been strained by offshore Greek Cypriot gas exploration, Greece’s energy minister has said. “We have talked with Turkish officials previously on connecting Greek Islands to Turkey [for electricity] and we are still considering this,” Giorgos Papaconstantinou, Greece’s energy and environment minister, said Nov. 17 on the sidelines of the Atlantic Council Black Sea Energy and Economic Forum in Istanbul. “We have always wanted to connect the island to mainland Greece, but there is a possibility that we might connect islands to Turkish grids.” The minister said the move may be more affordable and efficient for Greece. Click headline to read more--
BroadbandBreakfast.com’s October meeting featured USDA Undersecretary Dallas Tonsager and a diverse panel representing rural stakeholders. Jerry Hagstrom, a noted agriculture journalist, introduced Tonsager and the panel with opening remarks that quoted Robert Caro’s book on the early years of Lyndon Johnson, and how rural Texans remember him: “He brought the lights to us.” Hagstrom noted that today rural America faces the same challenges with telecommunications services and especially broadband deployment, and while many in rural America hunger for true broadband, the same reluctance exists with some rural Americans today as it did 50 years ago: fear of being stuck with a huge monthly bill for new services they’ve lived without. Dallas Tonsager, Undersecretary for Rural Development at USDA spoke about the role of USDA in bringing infrastructure to rural America, citing that same rural electrification model. He noted that USDA has a $42 billion portfolio of grants and loans and at the moment, has a total of 1.8 million in delinquency (less than 0.005%). USDA’s five major programs in rural development are non-budgeted, in that they are self-sustaining loan programs. He then talked of the success of the ARRA BTOP/BIP programs and the 3.5 billion RUS is administering through that program. Mr. Tonsager said that the ultimate goal of his office is not just the buildout of telecommunications infrastructure, but the “build on” of businesses that can advance economic development of the rural areas. He specifically pointed to the nine tribes in his home state of South Dakota and their desperate need for broadband infrastructure as a vehicle for economic development. Click headline to read more--
Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) has won yet another Universal Service Fund (USF) project for installation and provision of broadband services in the whole of Sukkh\ur region in Sindh Province. PTCL is committed to the Government of Pakistan s vision for bridging the digital divide and creating an expansive growth of broadband in Pakistan, said PTCL Senior Executive Vice President Corporate Development, Sikandar Naqi. We are at the forefront of bringing modern Information & Communications Technology services to the people of un-served and under-served areas of our country. Through an open bidding process, PTCL has won the rights to provide broadband services in 10 districts covering the entire Sukkur region. These include Ghotki, Jacobabad, Kambar-Shahdadkot, Kashmore, Khairpur, Larkana, Naushero Freroz, Shaheed Benazirabad (Nawabshah), Shikarpur, and Sukkur. For this purpose, we will deploy 39,000 broadband ports through both wireless and wire-line media, informed PTCL General Manager Regulatory Affairs, Muhammad Amer Shafique. In addition, PTCL will establish 104 Educational Broadband Centers and 51 Community Broadband Centers in target districts in Sukkur.
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., says Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has done a "decent" job, but some of the most significant actions by the agency seem to be driven by a partisan agenda. Speaking at a National Journal Live eventon Wednesday, Terry said FCC actions on net neutrality Internet competition rules as well as efforts to reform a fund to promote broadband development have suffered from preconceived opinions and a lack of transparency. "The critique would have to center around... net neutrality that looked like an agenda was driven rather than good policy," said Terry, vice chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Efforts to reform the Universal Service Fund to pay for new broadband services, meanwhile, are opaque, Terry said. "There's an order out there and I have no Idea what it says." Terry said unpublicized agency orders and "document dumps" can make it appear that FCC leaders are "abusing the process." House Republicans are leading a push to reform the FCC, with a markup on reform legislation scheduled for Wednesday morning. Chairmen of the FCC need to work to cultivate a good relationship with Congress, former Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said /at Wednesday's event. "The chair needs to understand that his entire role in life is to carry out Congress's will," he said.
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