A lot of venture activities are emerging in green and renewable energy fields, with the advent of solar, wind, ethanol and other sources of non-conventional energy sources. As IT entrepreneurs, it is often a challenge to figure out what are the possible areas to explore within this new wave of the future. Lot of venture capital money and corporate funding is chasing ideas within this emerging area of innovation. Many entrepreneurs and corporate executives are trying to figure out how to effectively play in this domain, by leveraging their own expertise within the world of IT, Internet and software. I wanted to share my own thoughts on this very important domain of next generation energy management. I envision a new class of business infrastructure in the future, which essentially builds an “energy-internet” within the enterprise, helping enterprises to build an IT infrastructure, helping them to drive a collaborative environment with utilities, grids, regulators and alternative energy sources, allowing them to reduce and regulate their overall carbon footprint, costs, and thereby creating more sustainable enterprises.

Enterprise Energy Management

Most energy management systems today are focused only on the operation of the building. This includes functions such as demand limiting, scheduling, and system optimization. I envision, that buildings of the future, will evolve into more “Intelligent” data sources, connecting themselves as data points on this energy-internet, allowing enterprises to take things one step further by incorporating real time utility rate information and making energy management decisions not just for a single building but for groups of buildings. Enterprise buildings and utilities are going to collaborate through an “energy-internet” architecture, with the goal of dynamically optimizing the energy usage in real-time. By managing energy in concert with the utility, there is the ability not to only reduce energy usage but more importantly, to dramatically decrease energy expenditure, and reduce overall green house gas and carbon emissions for enterprises.

Today, buildings are the largest single consumers of energy in North America accounting for almost 40% of the total energy usage and this is fairly evenly split between residential and commercial buildings. Many of these buildings are not designed to meet the latest standards in energy efficiency, and result in significant wastage of electricity. Some common examples of wastage are: lights are on when there are no occupants, heating is on when the temperature is high, or cooling is on when temperature is low. However, today, the technology exists to make these buildings “intelligent”. The buildings of the future will optimize for energy efficiency without impairing the building's functionality for its occupants.

Intelligent Demand Response

Demand response is the policy and business area whereby electricity customers reduce or shift their peak demand usage in response to price signals or other types of incentives. At present the vast majority of electricity customers are on flat, average rates that do not vary by time of day or season, no matter how much the cost to generate or deliver electricity fluctuates as demands on the system rise and fall. That, combined with the growth in the use of air conditioning – one of the highest demands during peak periods – has led to peak power demand growing faster than overall growth in electricity consumption. Rising peak demand is straining the electricity system and threatening the reliability of the power grid. It also is adding costs that all customers pay one way or the other, while leading to increased emissions. The Smart Grid is the concept of having all supply and demand resources dynamically managed via a combination of data, communications and controls, whereby the operation of the grid for reasons of economics, security, reliability, emissions, etc., can be optimized in real time. Key to making the grid “smarter” is to fully and dynamically integrate customers, their loads, and information about their usage into the operation of the grid. Thus, demand response is one of the primary components of the smart grid. As such, the technologies that enable demand response, such as smart meters, communication and control systems, storage systems and other demand control technologies, are foundational elements which allow a smart grid to take shape.

Evolution of Smart Grids

Intelligent buildings have the ability to anticipate electricity prices and adjust consumption accordingly. This, however, requires a smart grid that provides real-time information about electricity prices, based on live monitoring of demand. Smart meters are a key component in the smart grid system that can help utilities balance demand, reduce expensive peak power use and provide a better deal for consumers by allowing them to see and respond to real-time pricing information through in-home displays, smart thermostats and appliances. With today's grid with little or no intelligence to balance loads and monitor power flows, enough electricity is wasted each year to power India, Germany and Canada. Future smart grids will use sensors, meters, digital controls and analytic tools to automate, monitor and control the two-way flow of energy across operations-from power plant to plug. A power company can optimize grid performance, prevent outages, restore outages faster and allow consumers to manage energy usage right down to the individual networked appliance.

Energy Internet - Vision

Today the internet connects servers, desktops, mobile devices, through intelligent networking, connecting people with information, applications and each other. In the future, elements from the physical building infrastructure, like HVACs (air-conditioners), Power meters, sprinklers, building security systems, temperature sensors, utility grids, solar panels, local energy generators will also become data and application sources onto the internet. These devices that are the significant energy consumers, will transmit their energy usage, demands, status etc. on the Internet, creating a whole new vision of “energy-internet”. This platform will enable a new class of business and consumer application that will help dramatically optimize how we consume, regulate and control energy usage within enterprises and consumers. Concepts like Smart meters, smart grids, energy demand response systems, intelligent building designs will enable the proliferation of energy internet, which will put us all in control of how we globally optimize the energy usage. This presents a significant business opportunity for IT and software entrepreneur, as not much has been done in this arena thus far.

We are at the beginning stages of innovation and thought leadership here, in this new and important field of energy Internet. All we need is the imagination and dreams of entrepreneurs, corporate executives and VCs to realize the potential of how this new energy Internet gets wired up and how the range of applications that emerges over the next decade.

The possibilities are boundless, and so are the opportunities for global impact!