Keywords: OSIsoft, Executive Summit, Crowdsourcing, Market-based Innovation, Smart Grid, Microgrids.
Summary
OSIsoft and Microsoft held this year's Executive Summit last week in Washington DC. The title of the event was "Industrial Strategies for a Data-Driven World," but, in ARC Advisory Group's opinion, the actual content clearly went far beyond this. As Dave Roberts, VP Business Development at OSIsoft indicated, creating a view across the energy chain is important, as the nation deals with energy and all the related issues that go along with it. Dr. Pat Kennedy, CEO and founder of OSIsoft, indicated that the meeting was all about the challenge of being ready for the future. Building a software system that can stand up to a future that will have yet-unknown components (mobility, the cloud, and who know what else) presents a challenge. To set the theme, he asked, "What is [the future] going to look like?" With that, the meeting went on to explore what is happening now and how we can prepare for future challenges.
From Energy to National Security
The leap from energy to national security has never been smaller than it is today. Dr. Rachel Kleinfield, CEO of Truman National Security Project and Truman Education Institute, described how important it is to bring sensors and infrastructure into the solution set when it comes to security. To provide an example, she pointed out how vulnerable the fuel supply chain is to events ranging from natural disasters to acts of terrorism.
While most politicians appear to be focused on jobs for the moment, other policy makers are looking at a variety of energy-related issues ranging from the military to cyber security. Dr. Kleinfield made the link between the energy supply chain and the military. The vulnerabilities make it important for us to explore alternative energy sources and delivery systems.
"Crowd Sourcing" Innovation
Aneesh Chopra, CTO for the United States, added a discussion about where new technology is going to come from. Reporting directly to President Obama, he has been tasked to help develop the strategies for American innovation. As he sees it, there are three roles; the investor, market-based innovation, and finding every talent that America has.
To illustrate the last point, he talked about a DARPA Grand Challenge to design a combat vehicle that would dramatically improve the efficiency of combat vehicles. This challenge was "crowd sourced" – that is, the challenge was posted on the web with a 30-day response requirement. The point of the story was that the person that won the challenge was not someone on the DARPA staff, or even a well-known automotive designer. The point was that through methods like crowdsourcing, the innovation talent pool of America can be found and used.
Microgrids, Fabs, and Data Centers Need Information
According to Byron Washom, Director of Strategic Energy Initiatives at the University of California San Diego, the goal should not just be to create the smart grid, but to create the "Mensa" Grid. At least this is the goal he has set for his campus. With 45,000 people, 13 million square feet of buildings, an average of $1 billion in research, and the authority to self-regulate, UCSD is a near ideal situation to be a laboratory for smart grid activities. He emphasized that data and information are essential ingredients to learning how to make the smart grid smarter.
Jeff Chapman, Senior Engineer at IBM, is responsible for water and energy management at the company's semiconductor fab in Burlington, Vermont. The fab has been able to reduce water usage from 4.5 million gallons per day to 2.9 million gallons per day, while time increasing the production of the facility by 30 percent. At the Burlington facility, the success comes from a combination of continuous improvements and culture. Data and information about energy and water is important. However, efforts to instill into the culture the importance of continuously improving the conservation of energy and water into the culture have proven to be another critical factor.
Skanska is a company that has been in the construction business since 1887. John Coster, of the company's Advanced Critical Facilities division that delivers data centers to its customers, described the remarkable change that has occurred over the last 15 years or so in data centers. Data centers began as huge rooms in which to house the computers of corporations. During the dot-com boom, when use of data centers spread so rapidly, they were huge power consumers. According to an EPA report, in 2006, electricity consumed by servers in US data centers (including cooling and auxiliary infrastructure) represented about 1.5 percent of national electricity use. Modern data centers must be designed to minimize energy consumption, while at the same time, deliver high reliability. To be able to respond quickly to keep the facility running while minimizing energy consumption, personnel need appropriate and timely information about the data center's vital infrastructure.
Gas Distribution and Power Management
NiSource Gas Transmission and Storage sits on top of the Marcellus Shale formation, one of the largest natural gas sources in the US. John Shelton, Director of Storage for NiSource, acknowledged that shale gas recovery through the process of "fracking" has literally changed the natural gas distribution markets. While the Northeast once relied on gas from the Gulf of Mexico, it now sees the future of becoming a net gas exporter to other parts of the country. Unlike other energy sources such as electric power, storing gas in anticipation of demand is not a problem. However, an effective transmission and storage enterprise needs to be able to anticipate demand. This requires a lot of data and information across the network of pipelines and gas storage facilities.
With the advent of the smart grid, most consumers will be asked to do what industry is already doing; monitor usage and manage their costs of electric. As Dan Maheu, COO of Smart Paper Holdings put it, from a utility operator's point of view the electric grid it is all about buying low and selling high. Power generation needs "feedforward" information to know when demand will increase. This provides the incentive to produce more power when there is demand.
Knowing what the weather will be in the future is not only great for people planning their outdoor activities, it is also crucial for many energy-related activities. Alan Dulgeroff, Director of Information Technology for Enterprise and Corporate Systems at Sempra Energy Utilities, used OSIsoft's PI System to connect 128 weather stations into a MesoNet to be able to monitor and observe weather across a dispersed region.
How Much Water Does It Take to Make Leather Seats?
Dr. Inez Hua of Purdue University described in detail how water is consumed. Her analysis goes far beyond the obvious on-the-premises consumption, and considers the water required to make the ingredients or parts that go into a company's final product. She provided some examples of how to apply this analysis. For example, since producing leather seats for an automobile consumes a tremendous amount of water across the supply chain (growing feed for the cow, transportation, tanning, etc.), an automobile manufacturer might change its overall impact on water resources simply by varying the amount of leather used in manufacturing by choosing another available material. A cement manufacturer could improve its corporate water consumption based on where the cement is made and lessen the overall environmental impact.
Green Buildings
Beth Heider of Skanska is also chairman of USGBC (US Green Building Council). Beth said that buildings are responsible for a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. They are also responsible for 71 percent of all electricity and 12 percent of all water consumed in the US. Over the next 20 years, however, we have an opportunity (if not an obligation) to improve this situation since about 80 percent of currently existing buildings will either be retrofitted or replaced with newer, smarter buildings. These new buildings will be smarter because they will have systems that measure, monitor, and control the building heating, cooling, lighting, and just about everything that uses energy or water.
Conclusion
The OSIsoft Executive Summit, as Dr. Pat Kennedy said, provided an opportunity to look ahead and imagine what new things will be needed to address the challenges brought on by the world's need for energy. One consistent discussion thread was the need for information. And the information of the not too distant future needs to be presented in "smart" ways.
Many of the new forms of energy will challenge the information infrastructure to not only have the right information at the right time, but to predict when and where the information will be most needed. Consider a transformer or a section of the grid that is about to fail. Advanced warning about an impending failure is not only nice to have, but is becoming a requirement.
Events like this that bring together technology knowhow, and water and energy infrastructure trends can help bridge the understanding between government policy makers, industry, and consumer needs.
All signed-in ARC Advisory Group clients can view the complete report in pdf format at this Link
If you would like to buy this report or obtain information about how to become a client, please Request ARC Info
