From the Editor
In his most recent book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman paints a detailed picture of daily life in what he calls the Energy-Climate Era. A key facet of this gadget-intensive, automated new utopia is what Friedman calls the Energy Internet. In Friedman’s future, the Energy Internet is essentially just another name for something you’ve probably heard quite a bit about lately: Smart Grid.

Friedman also offers a simple metaphor to explain why our current electricity grid system is “dumb.” Imagine, if on a road trip, every time you crossed a state border, you had to stop your car and change tires so that your car would be “compatible” with the different type of roads in the next state. While that’s not a precise metaphor, per se, it does explain the United States’ disparate and non-standardized grid system.

Smart Grid will standardize our country’s disparate energy system and provide enormous opportunities for automation and flexibility on both the energy supply and demand side. Smart Grid will allow for the two-way exchange of data between customer and utility, as opposed to the dumb grid that only allows the utility to send data but not receive it.

Many Smart Grid projects already are well underway, thanks in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allocated almost $4 billion to replace dumb grids with Smart Grids.

The implications of Smart Grid for facility executives are many, probably most notably the ability to more closely monitor energy use and cost and optimize when and how much energy a facility uses.

What’s your take on Smart Grid? Have you begun planning ways to capitalize on Smart Grid’s potential advantage? As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Green Strategies
Outsmarting the Grid
Graduating to “Smart Grid” can bring a bright energy future.

In the News
ASHRAE Launches Pilot Building Energy Labeling Program
The Building Energy Quotient Program will provide information on the energy use of buildings, similar to miles per gallon rating on cars. The Building EQ will include “As Designed” and “In Operation” ratings for all building types, except residential. It also will provide a detailed certificate with data on actual energy use, energy demand profiles, indoor air quality and other information that will enable building owners to evaluate and reduce their building’s energy use.

Green Toolkit
DOE’s Smart Grid Site
This site offers news, research, and articles, including a paper titled “Smart Grid: An Introduction,” on all things smart grid-related.

GreenTech Conference & Exposition

All Together Now: The Importance of Reliability

This presentation from GreenTech 2009 by Ralph Tileston of Life Cycle Engineering discusses key industry metrics, the Reliability Excellence Model, a hospital case studies, and strategies and sustainability.

Registration for NFMT 2010 is now open. Click here to register