CIO & Smart Grid Master

The Inevitable Emergence of The Smart Grid

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 19:03:00 +0000

On March 5, 2004, Andres Carvallo defined the smart grid as follows. “The smart grid is the integration of an electric grid, a communications network, software, and hardware to monitor, control, and manage the creation, distribution, storage and consumption of energy. The smart grid of the future will be distributed, it will be interactive, it will be self-healing, and it will communicate with every device.”

And he also defined an advanced smart grid as follows. “An advanced smart grid enables the seamless integration of utility infrastructure, with buildings, homes, electric vehicles, distributed generation, energy storage, and smart devices to increase grid reliability, energy efficiency, renewable energy use, and customer satisfaction, while reducing capital and operating costs.”

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a handbook on the smart grid in 2009, and in the first few pages, made a distinction between a “smarter grid” and a “smart grid.” By this reasoning, the former is achievable with today’s technologies, while the latter is more of a vision of what will be achievable as a myriad of technologies come on line and as multiple transformations reengineer the current grid. The DOE vision for a smart grid uses these adjectives: intelligent, efficient, accommodating, motivating, opportunistic, quality-focused, resilient, and green.

In effect, all definitions of the smart grid, envision some future state with certain defined qualities. So for purposes of discussion and clarity, we have adopted a convention for this book in which we refer to smart grids today as first generation smart grids, or Smart Grid 1.0, if you will. Our vision for the future we define as second generation smart grids, or Smart Grid 2.0, or as in the title of this book, we simply refer to the advanced smart grid. And at the end of this book, we envision a future where the smart grid has evolved to an even more advanced state, which we call Smart Grid 3.0.

We use a key distinguishing feature to mark the difference between smart grids as they’re envisioned today and how they will evolve as experience is gained and a more expansive vision—our more expansive vision, we hope—is adopted. The difference, while it may seem trivial at first, is fundamental, and that has to do with the starting point for the smart grid project. If the project starts off with an application then that smart grid by our definition must be a Smart Grid 1.0 project. If on the other hand, the starting point is a deliberate architecture, design and integrated IP network(s) that supports any application choice, then it is a Smart Grid 2.0, or an advanced smart grid project.

Nearly all smart grid projects today start with a compelling application, whether generation automation (e.g., distributed control systems), substation automation (e.g., SCADA/EMS), distribution automation (e.g., distribution management system, outage management system, or geospatial information system), demand response, or meter automation, and then design a dedicated communication network that is capable of supporting the functionality of each stand-alone application. Evolved from the silos of the current utility ecosystem (i.e., generation, transmission, distribution, metering, and retail services), the first generation smart grid carries with it a significant level of complexity, often perceived as a natural aspect of a smart grid project.

In fact, a considerable amount of the complexity and cost of a first generation smart grid project derives from its application-layer orientation. Starting at Layer 7 of the OSI Stack, the application layer—regardless of the application—requires complex integration projects to enable grid interoperability, from the start of the smart grid project onward into the future. As additional applications and devices are added to the smart grid, whether as part of the original deployment or subsequently and over time, the evolving smart grid must be integrated to ensure system interoperability and sustained grid operations. In short, starting with the application brings greater complexity, which comes at the expense of long-term grid optimization.

The advanced smart grid perspective begins with a basic tenet. At its core, a smart grid transition is about managing and monitoring applications and devices by leveraging information to gain efficiency for short-term and long-term financial, environmental, and societal benefits. For a system architecture whose principal goal is to leverage information on behalf of customer outcomes, it makes better sense to start with use cases, define necessary processes, choose application requirements, optimize data management and communication designs, and then make infrastructure decisions. A primary focus on the appropriate design process ensures that the system will do what it is meant to do. This key insight—starting at the network layers rather than the application layer—produces the appropriate architecture and design, and drives incredible benefits measured not only in hard cost benefits, but also in soft strategic and operational benefits.

Network-layer change stresses investment in a future-proof architecture and network that will be able to accomplish not only the defined goals of the present and near-term future, but also the undefined but likely expansive needs of a dynamic digital future, replete with emerging innovative applications and equipment. A well-informed design and resilient integrated IP network foundation puts the utility in a position of strength, able to choose from best-of-breed solutions as they emerge, adapting the network to new purposes and functionality, consistently driving costs out by leveraging information in new ways. The advanced smart grid is foundational; we go so far as to say that its emergence is inevitable.

The advanced smart grid is bound to emerge for two principal reasons. First, electricity is an essential component of modern life, without which we revert to life as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. The loss of electrical power, even for just a few hours, is the ultimate disruption to the way we live. We simply cannot live as a modern society without electricity. And second, at its core, technological progress is all about individual empowerment. But only recently have advances in component miniaturization, computers, software, networking, and device power management technology and the standards that drive their pace of innovation combined to enable individual empowerment in the electric utility industry. A new distributed grid architecture is beginning to emerge that will not only ensure future reliability, but also empower individuals in new ways.

Networks and individual empowerment define twenty-first century technology. It is inevitable that the design of advanced smart grids will begin with a network orientation that is able to accommodate any and all network devices and applications that will emerge in the future. It is also inevitable that advanced smart grids will evolve to ensure an abundant and sustainable supply of electricity and to empower individuals to manage their own production, distribution, and consumption of this essential commodity. The advanced smart grid must be robust, flexible, and adaptable, so it will be; as projects move along the learning curve, society who will insist on an advanced smart grid.

An excerpt from The Advanced Smart Grid: Edge Power Driving Sustainability by Andres Carvallo and John Cooper © 2011 Artech House, Inc. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. The book is available at www.ArtechHouse.com and www.Amazon.com.

Customer targeting and segmentation analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 23:58:00 +0000

This article excerpt from IntelligentUtility written by my Jayhawk friend Christine Richards has some good points and some not so good points. I hope that the full report gets into the details that I am suggesting below. Let me elaborate on the conversation and help educate the masses.

This is nothing new. Utilities have been doing this for a long time. That is how their pricing rates are created. Utilities are pricing experts by demographic data (low income, churches, schools, elderly, etc).

Most generalizations about the Electric Utility industry are useless. Especially, customer marketing and customer segmentation generalizations. Why? Because there is no one single US Electric Utility Market. The market is segmented into 50 states in the continental US. And within each of those 50 markets, there are IOUs (Investor Owned Utilities), MOUs (Municipality Owned Utilities), and COOPs (Cooperative Owned Utilities).

Those utilities behave differently due to their ownership and they have different market operating rules by law. Furthermore, some markets have energy retail competition and some don't. So for example, the customer segmentation and customer marketing sophistication that one can witness in the energy retail competitive electrics markets (Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas) would be totally different than the one exercised in non-competitive markets.

So, it would be much better to have a real analysis done within the different markets that can be compared and contrasted to learn from. Do a price study in the Texas competitive market and publish the results. I guarantee that everyone will be amazed with your findings, as the Texas competitive market has been doing phenomenal things since it launched in 2002.

Location, Competition and Innovation are the only three driving forces for better customer segmentation and customer marketing within Electric Utilities. Without focusing on them, the analysis is truly meaningless to the practitioner.

Andres

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Customer targeting and segmentation analytics

Excerpts from our just-released publication

Today, I wanted to share some snippets from our hot-off-the-virtual-presses Customer targeting and segmentation analytics industry briefing. In this report, we discuss how it isn't about just satisfying utility customers as a group, but satisfying customers as individuals. That's a big change for many utilities, but fortunately customer targeting and segmentation analytics can help with that transformation. This report provides a snapshot of where utilities are at today with their customer targeting and segmentation analytics, as well as what's ahead. In this article, we pull out just a few highlights, like defining customer marketing, targeting and segmentation, and discussing the state of customer marketing and segmentation efforts.

Defining marketing, targeting, segmentation

In our Institute discussions, as well as one of our working group titles, we use the description of "customer marketing and segmentation." In the report we get a little bit more specific and talk about "customer targeting and segmentation." With this change, we thought it would be helpful to quickly review the differences between marketing, targeting and segmentation. Our analyst, Kim Gaddy, developed these base definitions.

Customer segmentation

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing the customer base into groups based on common characteristics. These characteristics include:

Age
Gender
Income level
Location
Interests
Participation in specific rate plans or programs
Level of engagement
Payment behaviors
Preferred communications channels

Segmentation efforts range from those that are focused on managing the overall utility-customer relationship to very specific segmentation efforts designed to support the marketing of a particular product or program or the prioritization of credit and collections efforts. The benefits of segmentation also extend beyond customers. For example, segmentation of buildings can be a valuable input for a utility's energy efficiency strategy.

Customer targeting

Customer targeting is the process of applying customer segmentation to specific marketing initiatives or campaigns. Some campaigns may target more than one customer segment. The idea is to improve marketing efficiency by focusing marketing efforts and resources on those customers most likely to, for example, benefit from a particular product, enroll in a particular program, or pay an outstanding balance.

Customer marketing

Customer marketing involves a number of components and encompasses both customer segmentation and customer targeting. In general, customer marketing includes four elements, the 4 P's of marketing:

Product | This includes product concept, selection, defining the value proposition and product development
Price | Determination of a product's price
Place | Selection of the distribution channels that will be used to reach customers
Promotion | The design and execution of a promotional strategy

How utilities are using targeting and segmentation analytics

Now let's see what utilities are actually doing with targeting and segmentation. In this article, we'll share just a smidge of the results from our customer marketing and segmentation working group survey, including targeting and segmentation status and resources, customer criteria usage and segmentation usage.

According to utility survey respondents, most utilities have some segmentation/targeting framework in place. And this is all happening in spite of the fact that 93% of our respondents haven't developed a business case surrounding segmentation and targeting.

As far as where these frameworks are developed and managed, many different groups are involved in the effort. Of the most frequently mentioned responses, about 67% of respondents said their market research departments are involved and another 50% said their customer marketing departments participate in the effort.

So we know about a few of the groups involved, but what about the people involved? How much time are they spending on customer targeting and segmentation efforts? We found that most utilities have more than a couple of folks working of these efforts. About 31% of utilities have two to five FTEs, and 31% have five to nine FTEs devoted to this work. Utilities are definitely dedicating resources to developing and maintaining customer targeting and segmentation.

Alright, so we've covered some basics with customer targeting and segmentation efforts. Now let's look at how utilities are applying some of that targeting and segmentation work. The first area we'll explore is what are the most-often used criteria by utility companies. When looking at all customers, key criteria used by utilities include past participation in utility programs, customer location, consumption patterns and demographics. If we dig into different customer types, the criteria can vary. For example, we found that criteria for residential customers focus more on rate class, geography and program participation, whereas the top commercial customer criteria include consumption, firmographics and rate class.

Now let's see how this segmentation and targeting information is being used by utilities. In terms of departments using segmentation and targeting information, we found that there are a ton of groups leveraging this information-from engineering to finance. The top departments, however, include marketing/market research, public affairs, product/program management and customer service. The top ways in which these departments are using this information include conservation/usage awareness, customer satisfaction research, message development and customer use patterns.

Another way to look at usage is to look at how segmentation and targeting information can help utility companies shape and deliver their programs and educational materials. Top programs and materials that benefit from this information include special billing, energy efficiency/water conservation, self-service, and different payment options.

And that's just a smidge of what we covered in the report. If you'd like to learn more details about our Customer targeting and segmentation analytics publication, please contact me and I'll be happy to provide you with more details, or you can go directly to our research report page.

Thanks for reading!

H. Christine Richards is a research director with the Utility Analytics Institute. You may reach her at crichards@utilityanalytics.com.

State of Arizona Wants Retail Energy Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 19:49:00 +0000

I agree with Barbara. It seems that deregulation is back. Maybe it is here to stay finally. Clearly competition works for many industries. Competition delivers consistent innovation of products, services, and customer experiences. The Texas Retail Energy market is fully competitive and working well. Retail Energy competition should be the right path for delivering consistent innovation of retail energy products, services, and customer experiences.

Andres

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Arizona clamoring for competition

August 22, 2013 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Arizonans for Electric Choice & Competition (AECC) members and retail competition advocates Direct Energy, Noble Americas Energy Solutions and Constellation NewEnergy have filed comments with the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) urging the commission to move forward with opening Arizona's electricity markets to competitive suppliers.

Currently, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) continues to deliberate the re-opening of competitive electricity markets in the state.

"As the discussion around opening Arizona's electricity market intensifies, many are busy crying wolf over how competition will impact the state, primarily the incumbent utilities," said Greg Bass, Director of Western Regulatory Affairs, Noble Solutions. "The comments we filed with the ACC last week clearly articulate competition's value based on the facts and the experience of over a decade of retail choice in other states. We look forward to participating in a regulatory process that separates truth from fiction, one which we are confident will lead to the opening of the state's electricity market to retail competition."

Seventeen states including Texas are open to retail electric competition. In fact, a recent J.D. Power survey revealed that customer satisfaction in the competitive Texas electricity market is at an all-time high and customers who participate in the competitive Texas market are more satisfied with their electricity prices than customers served by regulated utilities.

Low prices may be good news to customers, but deregulation can be bad news for utilities. The low rates in Texas have brought about a dearth of private investment in the Texas electricity power grid, creating new capacity concerns. In response, the wholesale electricity rate cap was raised with the goal of stimulating investment in new power plants.

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/arizona-clamoring-competition/2013-08-22?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Dissecting the utility CIO

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 19:38:00 +0000

This article has some great points and some not so great ones. Let me enhance the conversation.

Electric utilities manage three types of data everyday (Operational, Transactional, Reporting):

Operational Data (OD) to manage their assets: Real-time Assets: power plants, transmission lines, and substations with distributed control systems (DCS), generation management systems (GMS), automated generation controls (AGC), supervisor control and data acquisition (SCADA) and energy management systems (EMS). Right-time Assets: distribution lines and devices, meters, and distributed energy resources (DER) with distribution management systems (DMS), outage management systems (OMS), geospatial information systems (GIS), asset management systems (AMS), workforce management systems (WMS), mobile workforce management systems (MWMS), demand response management systems (DRMS), electric vehicle management systems (EVMS), energy storage management systems (ESMS).

Transactional Data (TD) to manage their wholesale energy markets (WEM) and their retail energy markets (REM): The WEM challenges require the use of energy market scheduling systems, energy settlement systems, load forecasting systems, and external energy trading system for commodities exchange trading. The REM challenges require the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer information systems (CIS), billing systems, meter data management systems (MDMS), call-center systems, integrated voice recognition (IVR), websites, customer portals, and customer mobile applications.

Reporting Data (RD): Most utilities prepare some 100 plus reports per month to be shipped to the many regulatory bodies and agencies that require transparency for their respective programs and or purview. So utilities use relational database management systems (RDBMS), business intelligence (BI) tools, reporting tools, data warehouse (DW) tools, enterprise content management systems (ECMS), Microsoft Office, etc.

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BigData is the latest marketing buzz to sell more database technology and data storage hardware and systems to utilities and the world at large.

When I left Austin Energy, we had gone from managing 20 terabytes (2003) of annual data to 400 terabytes (2010) of annual data. I suspect that they are now over 1 petabyte of annual data (if you include the Pecan Street data).

So collecting and managing data is nothing new to utilities. What is new is two things: First, utilities are collecting more and more demand size data (Pecan Street was created in 2008 at Austin Energy for that purpose) and need to turn that information into new products and services over time. Second, it is finally affordable for utilities to go 100% predictive (due to the decrease in prices of data storage hardware systems) with all operational data per asset type.

Both challenges are huge and will take a journey of innovation. However, I doubt that any value can be unleashed out of Operational Data unless there is large domain knowledge to direct the mining.

So I am NOT on board with the assertion that retail, financial and telecom CIOs can really do much about the Operational Data of the electric utility. On the contrary, I do agree that retail, financial, and telecom CIOs can help lots in unleashing value with Transactional Data and Reporting Data.

I hope this helps.

Andres

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IntelligentUtility MagazineKathleen Wolf Davis | Aug 20, 2013

Utilities know power. They know it intimately, from the inside out. They've been working with it for years; they've been working with it for generations. But, today, we're in the digital age, and, along with knowing that power, utilities also have to know data—about their systems, about their customers, about the weather, about load, about end-use. That's new, and that's a little scary.

To get to know their own data as intimately as they know their own power, utilities have turned to a new type of executive to help them weather this change: the chief information officer (CIO). CIOs have been commonplace in other industries for years, but they're a rather new field (relatively) to the utility arena. Tom Turco, Deloitte Consulting's power and utilities practice leader, noted that while the gig is indeed fairly new, it's already evolving.

A few years ago, the typical utility CIO was promoted from within, coming up through IT or even operations to take over the job. These days, however, it's not uncommon for utility CIOs to be pulled from outside of the industry: from retail, from banking, from telecommunications.
Turco sees this trend as, perhaps, reflective of a change in need and philosophy from a CIO who had to understand the technology of what was going on right now to someone who has a plan for the future."Newer CIOs are looking to define an IT strategy and investment road map to meet the business strategic priorities and required business capabilities to be enabled by technology," Turco said. "Candidates from outside the utility industry can bring in new ideas and thinking into the role.

"Still, just because you bring in the strategy capability from outside doesn't mean your team will fully support it. You can call in Warren Buffett to do your financial planning, but if you're not willing to put your money behind his plan, what good has that done you?

Here's a CIO take on that analogy: In a survey of 300 across-the-board CIOs (including utilities) titled "The DNA of the CIO" by Ernst & Young last year, the third-highest barrier cited by CIOs was a lack of a clear corporate strategy. Number one was a real big-boy seat at the executive table. (The report noted that many CIOs feel like executives in title only and, well, like they were seen as support people in bigger britches, to return to that note.) Those two items together can certainly be a barrier to strategic thinking.

But, whether intentions or mere perceptions, if that thinking needs to be more rah-rah and strategy-oriented, do you replace the tech-head with an MBA graduate to compensate?Both Turco and the report added that there's been a real shift recently to a business-driven position with the CIO from five years ago.

If that's true, it's entirely possible that the hurdles of support and overall company strategy noted by Ernst & Young may simply be lagging behind obvious growing pains for the position—a ripple effect that hasn't yet rippled all the way.

And, while understanding how the technology works was definitely the place to start (that translates as hiring the tech guy for CIO), transitioning to a plan for future technology investment takes a different, more ROI-oriented bit of thinking (that's the new strategy guy). All positions, from peon to president, get more complicated and more layered as time goes on. (Perhaps utilities now need an engineer with an MBA for CIO.)

In fact, this CIO evolution is mirrored in the current tech transition from the smart grid that we've been talking about for years to a convergence of operations and the digital side of utilities commonly called IT/OT integration. We started with smart meters, but now there are layers of sensors and SCADA and back-office and customer data—a similar change in thinking to the CIO tech-to-strategy flip.

Turco noted that this change in CIO thinking isn't right for all utilities and certainly isn't going to be right for every utility, but it is a growing trend in the utilities industry, with pros and cons on each side of the arena.

An inside guy knows your business. He knows your equipment, your people and your processes. He doesn't have to learn those things and can hit the ground running with a wealth of knowledge on how technology and trends may work (or not work) for your specific company. An outside fellow, on the other hand, brings a more objective view, can pipe in new techniques and strategies and doesn't have blinders on when it comes to corporate policy.

Whether your CIO is a tech-head or planning ahead (or, delightfully, has the skills of both), Turco has some advice on areas of focus (beyond the bottom line) for the utility CIO over the next five years or so. First and foremost is cybersecurity, which is now a priority requirement across all industries. Turco also suggests a focus on the value of investments and a tighter partnership with business leaders, along with an eye on the customer, business efficiency and cost management (right back to Ernst & Young's second hurdle there), with analytics, mobility and other technology investments to enhance the experience and results for both customers and workers.

And, more than anything, Turco says a utility CIO needs to be all about value—for the shareholder and for the consumer. And that sounds very strategic indeed.

Thunderbolt drive shipments surge, but USB still reigns

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:48:00 +0000

Can you imagine a day where terabytes of storage go for pennies with data transfer speeds of 100Gbps and devices that could power other devices around them with 1,000 Watts of power via normal ethernet cables? We are surely moving faster and faster towards those numbers. Amazing future ahead of us.

Andres

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Thunderbolt drive shipments surge, but USB still reigns

Hard drive sales are back to normal two years after Thailand floodsLucas Mearian

August 19, 2013 (Computerworld)

Though still a small part of the overall interconnect market, Thunderbolt-equipped hardware shipments surged 300% over the past year, according to IDC.

There were roughly 20,600 Thunderbolt units shipped in the second quarter of 2012, representing a little over 0.1% of all personal and entry-level storage (PELS) devices shipped. In the second quarter of 2013, Thunderbolt-enabled storage device shipments grew to about 0.6% of the market, according to IDC analyst Liz Conner, a 411% increase.IDC predicted in its first quarter report that Thunderbolt, which offers 10Gbps interface speeds, could skyrocket to 5.7% of the PELS market by 2017. But the dominant interface will remain USB.

USB in the PELS market grew by 11.5% year over year in Q2. Ethernet also saw strong shipment growth, posting a 10.2% growth rate in the same time frame.

The SuperSpeed USB 3.1 specification was recently published and jumps I/O throughput (on paper) from 4.8Gbps (in USB 3.0) to 10Gbps, bringing it on par with today's Thunderbolt specification. The next USB spec will also eliminate the need for power cords as the first USB Power Delivery specification is expected to boost from 10 watts to 100 watts the power across Power Delivery-certified USB cables. That spec is currently being tested by equipment developers.

The new SuperSpeed specification will increase power to 100 watts and offer bidirectional data and audio/visual transfer, meaning a laptop or monitor with a USB hub could power many other devices, including an HDTV.

Earlier this year, however, Intel also announced that its Thunderbolt specification would double data transfer speeds, opening up peripheral pipes to greater throughput.

"Thunderbolt is definitely growing, but it's hit a few speed bumps along the way," Conner wrote in an email to Computerworld.

Thunderbolt sales have suffered in part because of higher prices compared to USB devices, and "people initially assumed it was an Apple only interface (and it took a while for a PC version of Thunderbolt to be introduced)," Conner said.

Hard disk drive prices were also affected by the 2011 Thailand floods, which shut down manufacturing and resulted in drive shortages. That bumped drive prices higher, pushing consumers toward cheaper options, "which really squeezed out Thunderbolt unless the higher speed was a necessity," Conner said.

Thunderbolt will definitely continue to grow, Conner continued, but more as a replacement for Firewire/1394 and eSATA, not as a replacement to USB.

The speed of Thunderbolt is definitely sought by media professionals and other niche users who really need top-level performance, Connor said. But USB 3.0's speed continues to be "good enough" for most users. That, plus the fact that USB 3.0 is backwards compatible, makes it significantly cheaper than Thunderbolt.

At the same time, the worldwide market for personal and entry-level storage hardware saw double-digit growth in the second quarter of 2013. The market includes storage products that range from a single disk through twelve-drive bay storage arrays marketed for individuals, small offices/home offices, and small businesses.

The worldwide market grew 10.7% year over year with 16.8 million units (worth $1.5 billion) shipped in the second quarter, according to IDC's PELS tracker.

It was the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, according to IDC.

"The second quarter of 2013 brought ... a return to normal for the personal and entry-level storage market," Conner said. "For the last four quarters, the PELS market has seen a distinct focus on recovery after Thailand floods."

Drive maker Western Digital was hardest hit by the flooding, with up to 75% of the company's production lines temporarily shut down by the floods, IDC said.

By the beginning of 2012, disk drive production began to recover, but prices remained inflated because of shortages. According to ecommerce tracking site Dynamite Data, the top 50 hard drives on sites such as Newegg.com and Tigerdirect.com saw prices jump by 50% to 150%. The price hikes kicked off in October 2011, when inventory levels plummeted 90% in less than a week.

Users continue to migrate to higher capacities to meet growing storage needs. In the 3.5-in personal storage market, 2TB drives represented 51.9% of shipments in the quarter.

For the 2.5-in personal storage market, 1TB drives had 51.7% of the market, with 4TB devices comprising 28.6% of units shipped.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian. His e-mail address islmearian@computerworld.com.

Bloodsucking leech puts 100,000 servers at risk of potent attack

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 21:47:00 +0000

And naive computer companies continue to want the Smart Grid to rely on their years of security experience. This article proves why managing mission-critical communications networks related to the Smart Grid can not be open and should not be touching the Internet in any way.

NIST, NERC, SGIP and other Energy Standard Agencies should push hard to fix this problem.

Andres Carvallo

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Bloodsucking leech puts 100,000 servers at risk of potent attack

Think IPMI admin tool is secure and no one connects it to public addresses? Nope.

by Dan Goodin - Aug 16 2013, 9:25am CDT

ARS Technica

At least 100,000 Internet-connected servers sold by Dell, HP, and other large manufacturers contain hardware that is vulnerable to potent remote hack attacks that steal passwords and install malware on their host systems, researchers said.

The threat stems from Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs) that are embedded onto the motherboards of most servers. Widely known as BMCs, the microcontrollers allow administrators to monitor the physical status of large fleets of servers, including their temperatures, disk and memory performance, and fan speeds. But serious design flaws in the underlying Intelligent Platform Management Interface, or IPMI, make BMCs highly susceptible to hacks that can cascade throughout a network, according to a paper presented at the Usenix Workshop on Offensive Technologies.

Heightening the risk, a recent Internet scan detected at least 100,000 IPMI-enabled servers running on publicly accessible addresses, despite long-standing admonitions from security professionals never to do so.

"IPMI can be a convenient administrative tool, but under the control of attackers, it can also serve as a powerful backdoor," the scientists from the University of Michigan wrote in the paper, which was titled Illuminating the Security Issues Surrounding Lights-out Server Management. "Attackers who take control of the BMC can use it to attack the host system and network in a variety of ways."

"Parasitic server"

One possibility, the paper continued, is the installation of BMC-resident spyware that captures administrative passwords when an operator remotely accesses a host server. Another scenario: attackers could gain unfettered "root" access to the host by remotely booting the server into recovery mode. Worse yet, attackers could abuse vulnerable BMCs to run an unauthorized operating system on the host that gives raw access to the server disks.

The researchers aren't the first to warn of the threats posed by widely used IPMI and BMC technologies. Last month, Dan Farmer, the highly regarded white-hat hacker, posted his own manifesto that used even stronger language to describe the lurking danger. At one point he wrote:

Imagine trying to secure a computer with a small but powerful parasitic server on its motherboard; a bloodsucking leech that can't be turned off and has no documentation; you can't login, patch, or fix problems on it; server-based defensive, audit, or anti-malware software can't be used for protection; its design is secret, implementation old, and it can fully control the computer's hardware and software; and it shares passwords with a bunch of other important servers, stores them in clear text for attackers to access.

HD Moore, chief research officer of security firm Rapid7 and chief architect of the Metasploit project used by penetration testers and hackers, provides an equally bleak security assessment of IPMI and BMC here.

BMCs contain different names and specifications depending on the server they're bundled with, and there's little public material documenting their inner workings. But because each runs the same IMPI protocol, they're all believed to be susceptible to the same threats. The University of Michigan researchers tested this hypothesis by selecting one such controller, which came embedded on the Super X9SCL-F motherboard of a Supermicro SYS-5017C-LF 1U rack-mounted server. After performing a thorough analysis of the device, the scientists found that its firmware (designed by a firm called ATEN Technology) contained "numerous textbook security flaws, including exploitable privilege escalation, shell injection, and buffer overflow vulnerabilities." The researchers developed proof-of-concept attack code that exploited the vulnerabilities to remotely obtain root access on the BMC. (Supermicro has since issued BMC firmware updates that fix some or all of the vulnerabilities.)

They went on to catalog a list of attack scenarios malicious hackers could mount when exploiting the bugs. They included:

Subverting the host system or other machines on the management network
Installing BMC spyware that eavesdrops on remote management sessions to sniff passwords or even the physical server console
Installing persistent BMC rootkits that provide attackers with backdoor access that remains hidden from IPMI logs
The creation of IPMI botnets to take advantage of the large amount of network bandwidth at their disposal

In all, the scientists detected more than 100,000 Internet-exposed IMPI devices, 40,000 of which used the Supermicro BMC they tested at length.

"We conservatively estimate that it would take less than an hour to launch successful parallel attacks against all of the 40,000 ATEN-based Supermicro IPMI devices that we observed listening on public IP addresses," they reported.

Either incompetence or indifference

The paper includes a list of defenses that should be required reading for anyone who administers a server anywhere. Suggestions include keeping IPMI firmware up to date, changing default passwords, and never, ever running IPMI devices on public IP addresses. This last admonition is widely repeated—often by the manufacturers of the servers that are put at risk by the vulnerabilities. The scientists' Internet scans provide convincing evidence that this advice is frequently ignored, so unfortunately, it's worth repeating often.

But the researchers also take engineers at original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to task for, among other things, building devices that have IPMI capabilities turned on by default. The researchers go on to direct some harsh words at the people developing IPMI devices and the servers they go into.

"Given the power that IPMI provides, the blatant textbook vulnerabilities we found in a widely used implementation suggest either incompetence or indifference towards customers' security," the paper states. "While some OEMs recommend helpful precautions such as dedicated management networks, this should not be an excuse to shift blame to users who fail to heed this advice and suffer damage because of vulnerabilities in IPMI firmware. We believe that properly securing IPMI will require OEMs to take a defense-in-depth approach that combines hardening the implementations with encouraging users to properly isolate devices."

US Electricity blackouts skyrocketing - CNN.com

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:12:00 +0000

CNN.com

By Thom Patterson , CNN
October 15, 2010 7:26 p.m. EDT | Filed under: Innovation

(CNN) -- New York's Staten Island was broiling under a life-threatening heat wave and borough President James Molinaro was seriously concerned about the area's Little League baseball players.

It was last July's Eastern heat wave and Consolidated Edison was responding to scattered power outages as electricity usage neared record highs.

So, authorities followed Molinaro's suggestion to cancel that night's Little League games, which were to be played under electricity-sucking stadium lights.

"Number one, it was a danger to the children that were playing out there in that heat, and secondly it would save electricity that people would need for air conditioning in their homes," said Molinaro, who'd been forced to sleep at his office that night because of a blackout in his own neighborhood.

Throughout New York City, about 52,000 of ConEd's 3.2 million customers lost power during the heat wave. Triple-digit temperatures forced residents like 77 year-old Rui Zhi Chen, to seek shelter at one of the city's 400 emergency cooling centers. "It felt like an oven in my home and on the street," Chen said.

Should Americans view these kinds of scenarios as extraordinary circumstances -- or a warning sign of a darker future?

Power interruptions by region

Video: Could the lights go out?

Video: Too darn hot

Experts on the nation's electricity system point to a frighteningly steep increase in non-disaster-related outages affecting at least 50,000 consumers.

During the past two decades, such blackouts have increased 124 percent -- up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota.

In the most recently analyzed data available, utilities reported 36 such outages in 2006 alone.

"It's hard to imagine how anyone could believe that -- in the United States -- we should learn to cope with blackouts," said University of Minnesota Professor Massoud Amin, a leading expert on the U.S. electricity grid.

Amin supports construction of a nationwide "smart grid" that would avert blackouts and save billions of dollars in wasted electricity.

In a nutshell, a smart grid is an automated electricity system that improves the reliability, security and efficiency of electric power. It more easily connects with new energy sources, such as wind and solar, and is designed to charge electric vehicles and control home appliances via a so-called "smart" devices.

Summer of '77

You might say Amin's connection with electricity began in New York City with a bolt of lightning.
In July 1977, Amin was a 16-year-old high school student visiting from his native Iran when lightning triggered a 24-hour blackout that cut power to nine million.

As he and his father walked near their Midtown Manhattan hotel, they were shocked to see looters smash their way into an electronics store less than 20 yards down the street.

Amin recalls feeling violated by the ugly scene -- and wondering if the nation's infrastructure was in danger of collapse. "... not just the electric grid that underpins our lives," he said, "but also the human condition."

More than 30 years later, the United States is still "operating the most advanced economy in the world with 1960s and 70s technology," said Amin. Failing to modernize the grid, he said, will threaten the U.S. position as an economic super power.

Millions remember the historic August 2003 blackout, when overgrown trees on powerlines triggered an outage that cascaded across an overloaded regional grid. An estimated 50 million people lost power in Canada and eight northeastern states. Smart grid technology, experts say, would have immediately detected the potential crisis, diverted power and likely saved $6 billion in estimated business losses.

By April of 2013 ConEd hopes to install a "smart" automated self-healing system aimed at preventing the burnout of large feeder cables during peak demand periods -- such as heat waves.

The new technology would anticipate possible equipment failure in specific neighborhoods and reroute electricity to compensate. For example, a project to help Queens' Flushing neighborhood will "give us the capability to remotely control up to 26 underground switches," said Con Ed smart grid manager Thomas Magee.

Had systems like this been in place, said ConEd's Aseem Kapur, it might have prevented or reduced New York's scattered outages last July.

Who's got the juice?

Some of the most reliable utilities are in the heartland states of Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas.

In those states, the power is out an average of only 92 minutes per year, according to a 2008 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study. On the other end of the spectrum, utilities in New York Pennsylvania and New Jersey averaged 214 minutes of total interruptions each year. These figures don't include power outages blamed on tornadoes or other disasters.

Map: How often do the lights go out where you live?

But compare the U.S. data to Japan which averages only four minutes of total interrupted service each year. "As you can see, we have a long way to go," said Andres Carvallo, who played a key role in planning the smart grid in Austin, Texas.

Experts point to the northeastern and southeastern U.S. as regions where outages pose the most threat -- mainly due to aging wires, pole transformers and other lagging infrastructure.

"They know where they have tight spots," said Mark Lauby, of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which enforces reliability standards. Without mentioning specific regions, Lauby said utilities are "making sure the generation and the transmission are available to help support those consumers."

Building a national smart grid "won't be cheap and it wont be easy," acknowledged Amin. Much of it could be completed as soon as 2030 at a cost of up to $1.5 trillion, according to the Department of Energy. It's unclear who would foot the entire bill, but the Obama administration has committed about $4 billion in investment grants.

The 'Easy Button' Carvallo jokes about the so-called "Easy Button" at Austin Energy. It's not really a big red button on the wall, but it is a mechanism that allows an operator to control tens of thousands of home thermostats.

"Austin is two to three years ahead of everybody else," said Carvallo, now chief strategy officer for the smart grid software firm Proximetry.

He points to a volunteer program that offers free thermostats to customers who allow the utility to remotely control their air conditioners during specific months and hours. This way, thousands of power-gulping air conditioners can be cycled off for a short time when electricity was needed elsewhere.

By summer's end, Austin expects to begin enabling its 700,000 streetlights to be turned "on and off with a flip of a switch," saving $340,000 in electricity each year, and eliminating 200 tons of carbon dioxide air pollution.

Replacing old-style electric meters with "smart meters" is often described as the first step in creating a smart grid. All 400,000 of Austin's meters are smart meters.

Nationwide, 26 utilities in 15 states have installed some 16 million smart meters in homes and businesses.

Soon, when power goes out in a neighborhood with smart meters, utilities won't have to wait for customers to report outages -- the smart meters will alert utilities automatically. Utilities will then e-mail or text message each affected customer information about when the lights will be back on.

Critics question smart meter accuracy and whether the devices will really save energy in the long run.

"It feels a bit like the utilities are jumping the gun and they're trying to put these meters in before the rest of the pieces of the so-called smart grid are in place and before we even know that the smart meters are going to have advantages commensurate with the cost," said electricity consumer advocate Mindy Spatt of The Utility Reform Network.

One advantage of smart grid technology may be jobs.

High-tech manufacturers want to locate their factories in places where electricity is most reliable, said Carvallo. "That's where the manufacturing facilities move to. That's where you get your high-paying jobs."

IEEE Survey Report Illuminates Smart Grid Future by Andres Carvallo

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:11:00 +0000

http://smartgrid.ieee.org/december-2012/733-ieee-survey-report-illuminates-smart-grid-future

A comprehensive polling of industry leaders around the world finds that North America leads in energy storage, while Europe is ahead in distributed generation and microgrids. Energy management systems, distributed management systems and communications technologies will be critical to full realization of all the anticipated smart grid benefits.

A new report from Zpryme, commissioned by IEEE and available at the IEEE smart grid website, details how energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies stand to evolve given the rapid deployment of the smart grid across the globe over the next five years. The report is based on a survey done in September 2012 of 460 smart grid executives around the world, almost all of them highly educated. Two thirds of them said they believe energy storage and distributed generation will be very important to the future development of the smart grid, and half thought microgrid development will be very important.

Top-rated benefits of energy storage include provision of supplemental power to meet peak demand, improvement of power system reliability and reduction of energy costs. Yet, on a somewhat skeptical note, the report says, “If the cost of grid-scale storage technologies does not significant decrease over the next five years, the market will not realize its full potential.” Specifically, "Industry experts from the U.S. Department of Energy, EPRI and KEMA estimate that costs must decrease by at least 50 percent relative to today’s costs in order for energy storage technologies to realize mainstream adoption. If the costs do not significantly decrease, utilities will continue to rely upon gas-fired turbines (peaker plants) for lead shifting and renewable integration.”

The report finds that Europe is the global leader in adopting and utilizing distributed generation and microgrids, while North America is prominent in energy storage technology. The report says that these regions stand to “take the lead when it comes to developing an deploying next-generation distributed energy systems.” But Japan, South Korea and China “will also continue to make strong investments in energy storage as these countries are determined to lead the world when it comes to clean technologies,” the report says.

Energy management systems, distributed management systems and communications technologies are identified in the report as the critical enabling technologies for energy storage, distributed generation and microgrids, as well as advanced grid services such as net metering, load aggregation and real-time energy monitoring that in many cases will be delivered in the cloud.

Key interrelated themes emerge from the research behind the report, such as the necessity of customer demand to drive the market for the three technologies and, in turn, the need for customer feedback to infuse their R&D strategies. The report illuminates how energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies can support important new revenue streams for manufacturers, utilities, end users and third-party providers alike, spurring new global markets for software and systems that integrate these technologies into modern and future energy systems.

Among the report’s finding are the following highlights:

- Electricity demand of the future will be met with distributed-energy systems.

- Customer demand—not further regulation, policies or subsidies—must drive the viability of the market for the three technology areas of focus in the report (energy storage, distributed generation and microgrids).

- Market-driven innovation will lead the transition to a high-growth phase for the three technology areas, so manufacturers must, in turn, “closely integrate customer feedback into their R&D (research and development) roadmaps.”

- Better coordination on standards, R&D and funding is required to drive down costs and advance energy storage, distributed generation and microgrid technologies.

Digitized or connected energy systems will be necessary to support advanced smart-grid functionality and distributed energy systems.

- The three technology areas offer opportunities for utilities, end users and third-party providers to create new revenue streams.

- One of the major challenges to advancing deployment of energy storage, distributed generation and microgrids remains the need for more driving of costs down.

The Zpryme report indicates that importance of all three technology areas is coming into clearer focus with rising global interest in more efficiently managing energy consumption, heightening electricity demand and increasing awareness of the cost of service interruptions. Ultimately, the report states, there is strong growth potential for all three technologies.

In conclusion, to summarize the most important overarching findings:

1- Microgrids, distributed generation and especially grid-level energy storage still need external private- and public-sector funding for both R&D and projects/pilots. The benefits would include more cost-effective solutions, better businesses cases for the technologies and development of best practices with regard to technology installation, application and optimization.

2 - The most important enabling technologies for distributed generation, microgrids and energy storage stand to be energy management systems, distributed management systems and communications technologies. Future distributed energy systems must be able to interact across both centralized and decentralized electrical networks, supporting advanced grid services (net metering, load aggregation and real-time energy monitoring, for example) that often will be delivered in the cloud.

3 - And further, network-layer change stresses investment in a future-proof architecture and communications network that will be able to accomplish not only the defined goals of the present and near-term future, but also the undefined but likely expansive needs of a dynamic digital future, replete with emerging innovative applications and equipment. A well-informed design and resilient integrated IP network foundation puts the utility in a position of strength, able to choose from best-of-breed solutions as they emerge, adapting the network to new purposes and functionality, consistently driving costs out by leveraging information in new ways.

IEEE Interview with Andres Carvallo

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:00:00 +0000

In this interview, Andres Carvallo outlines his vision for a fully realized Smart Grid, discusses why its importance goes beyond electric utilities, and pinpoints the major obstacles to success.

Question: You are a leading proponent of deploying the Smart Grid as an engine for economic progress in the U.S. What should our national goal be?

Our goal should be the complete automation of a nationwide grid. That implies many things including automated fault, detection, isolation and restoration, real-time load forecasting, dynamic volt/VAR control, and direct customer flow control of distributed energy resources like solar panels, electric vehicles and energy storage. The Smart Grid should be able to recognize and manage every device that it powers. Today, when something new is plugged into the grid, all that is typically known is the load. The grid of the future will be self-healing, distributed, interactive and intelligent enough to know if the device is a thermostat or a computer or a solar panel or an electric vehicle – and to manage them in real-time.

Question: What is the present state of affairs?

The good news is that Smart Grid genie is out of the bottle. But there is still a great disparity across the country in the degree of implementation. Some utilities such as Austin Energy, Oncor, and Centerpoint in Texas are very close to the automation goal. Baltimore Gas & Electric is well on its way. Utilities in California like Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, and other pockets of the country, are making good progress. But most utilities haven't even started in any significant way.

Question: Is there a single game-changing decision or policy that will be critical to optimizing Smart Grid deployment?

The best thing that could happen would be for the nation's Public Utility Commissions and Public Service Commissions (PUCs and PSCs) to enact a mandate for building the Smart Grid by 2020. This is not a totally new concept. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) initiatives have been mandated in 20 states. We need a mandate for a fully automated Smart Grid and it should be a national priority. In that regard, I think that the efforts of the IEEE in creating working groups and standards that help establish a common technology platform are essential to a successful, nationwide Smart Grid rollout.

Question: Why do you contend that the Smart Grid is not just an issue for public utilities and their customers but for the national interest as well?

A fully deployed Smart Grid will provide benefits far beyond those the electric power industry typically talks about — that is, better reliability, better outage management, greater energy efficiency use, customer empowerment and so on. Smart Grid 3.0 — which I refer to as Advanced Smart Grids Interconnected — will enable a better quality of life, create more jobs, improve education, power an era of wealth creation and even provide better healthcare for our people. We have to start thinking of the Smart Grid as the ultimate 21st century platform. It will give us a phenomenal quality of service at a reasonable — if not inexpensive — price. The Smart Grid will make our economy more competitive in a world where other nations are well on their way to building Smart Grids. Australia, China, Japan, India and Western Europe are all on the same journey and in many instances are ahead of us. It is not unreasonable to forecast that in the next decade, we will be talking about a Smart Grid divide in much the same way that we now talk about the Internet divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Question: Can you give a current example of an approach leveraging the Smart Grid as a platform?

In Austin Energy's service area, the Zero Energy Capable Homes (ZECH) program requires new single-family homes to be zero net-energy capable by 2015. These homes will be 65% more efficient than homes built to the Austin Energy Code in 2006. This does not mean that developers have to add, for example, a $100,000 solar energy system to a conventional home that might cost $150,000 to build. The goal is more one of assessing weather patterns and energy demands over a 12-month cycle and assuring zero energy over the course of a year.

Question: How would that work in practice?

In most areas of the country, five or perhaps ten days in a year establish the peak energy demand. During the remaining 360 days, energy use is substantially lower — sometimes very low. The idea is size the home's renewable energy system and its associated energy storage so that the home supplies its own power most of the time, extracts energy from the grid at peak times, and actually returns energy to the grid at times of low energy usage. Over a year, the net energy extracted from the grid is zero. In addition to generation and storage, increased energy efficiency is also a major contributor to a zero-energy home. I should add that although we cite solar panels when we talk about home-based distributed generation, it is just one option. The amount of natural gas available today and new, small-scale generation technologies will probably make gas-fired generation a viable option in the future for homes in some areas of the country.

Question: Speaking of new technologies, could you mention a few of the key technologies that will be integrated into the Smart Grid?

We've already mentioned distributed generation. Two other key technologies are microgrids and electric vehicles, which are likely to become an important energy storage resource. Energy generated during periods of low demand such as overnight can be stored in car batteries and used the next day. Other interesting technologies include sensors integrated into every device on the grid, telemetry everywhere, solid-state transformers, machine-to-machine networking, and advanced power control systems. The list goes on and on. But I should point out that there is no silver bullet, no one-size-fits-all solution.

Question: Although there may not be a silver bullet, what will bridge the gap between the various technologies being deployed so they work together seamlessly?

The interconnected aspect of Smart Grid 3.0 involves telecom and software. Ideally, each utility will approach its rollout from the perspective of a software architecture that includes not just the grid infrastructure but includes architectures for homes, buildings and other types of customers. At Austin Energy, we adopted The Open Group's Architecture Framework (TOGAF), which now has a Smart Grid template, and built our own architecture from it back in 2004. In addition, we should create a virtual network communications fabric that creates interoperability between the proliferation of networking technologies and frequencies being deployed by different utilities and even within the same utility. This enables the architecture to be technology agnostic.

Question: Earlier you mentioned that many utilities haven't even started on their Smart Grid journey yet. What's holding them back?

There's a deeply engrained supply-side management approach to power generation and distribution at most utilities. Supply side means that it is sufficient to provide customers with a connection to the grid adequate for their needs and to throttle generation up and down to maintain a 60-Hz balance that everything depends upon. For the most part, utilities have ignored the demand side of the equation. That has to change to a service-oriented paradigm. We need to deploy software, hardware, telecom and power to make the grid far more intelligent, dynamic and capable of two-way energy flow. As buildings, homes, and vehicles become intelligent and power generation enabled, utilities need to extend their thinking to connecting and collaborating with this new smart asset.

Question: What's standing in the way?

Most utilities are being impeded by their regulators and by their corporate culture and business processes. Utilities are typically vertically organized according to function. Over time, this results in a "siloed" corporate culture in which the different people responsible for generation, transmission, distribution, metering, customer service, and so forth don't talk to each other that much. They independently undertake projects that often use incompatible technologies. One of the most important steps we took at Austin Energy while I was Chief Information Officer was to create a technology governance process that encompassed everything from hiring to purchasing to how organization charts were created. We also created an Enterprise Data Council, a Project Management Office, a Technology Security Council, a Disaster Recovery Council, and an Enterprise Architecture Council to professionally manage how the people, process, and technology transformation would create a much better utility with happier customers. These cultural and business process changes are one of the main reasons that Austin Energy has been among the first utilities to achieve a successful Smart Grid rollout. While it is true that Smart Grid technology is far from trivial, it is not the most important barrier. In fact, a successful rollout depends a great deal on a highly functioning corporate culture.

As EVP and Chief Strategy Officer at Proximetry, Andres Carvallo is responsible for global strategy, branding, marketing, products, business development, commercialization, and solutions that deliver technology agnostic virtual network communications' fabrics for the energy, telecommunications, and transportation industries.

http://smartgrid.ieee.org/questions-and-answers/629-interview-with-andres-carvallo

ERCOT unveils Energy Saver mobile phone app

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 21:30:00 +0000

This is a very good move in the right direction.

---

Free app helps consumers conserve electricity when needed most

AUSTIN, TX, June 13, 2012 -- Want real-time updates on the ERCOT grid—and tips on how to effectively conserve electricity during peak times? Now there is a free smartphone app that will make energy conservation a little bit easier for iPhone, iPad and Android users.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator for most of Texas, unveiled its long-anticipated mobile app today. The initial version includes current system operating conditions, conservation tips and an overview of ERCOT.

Most notably, the app will provide "push" notifications straight to Apple and Android devices. When ERCOT is experiencing high demand and conservation is critical, users who enable the feature will receive alerts notifying them of the situation. That's also when the conservation tips page will be especially useful.

"ERCOT is committed to using every avenue available to communicate with consumers about the need for conservation during the hours of 3-7 p.m." said ERCOT External Affairs Director Theresa Gage. "Texans who conserved during the summer of 2011 were vital to keeping the electric grid strong. We hope people in the ERCOT region will adopt this new energy conservation tool during summer 2012."

iPhone and Android users can find the free ERCOT Energy Saver app by searching for ERCOT in the Apple and Google app stores. Over time, additional features may become available, depending on system needs and user feedback.

http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/26221

Andres Carvallo Speaks at IEEE Power & Energy Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:11:00 +0000

Jesse Berst – Founder and Chief Analyst at SmartGridNews.com moderates a panel titled “The Future of the smart grid – technology, policy, standards, and consumer behavior”

The Smart Grid must create economic benefits to fuel long term investments. Motivations, venture funding, national and state policies, and job growth are some of the factors that will be addressed. In addition, the esteemed panel will share their thoughts on where technology is headed, how and when policy will change, how standards will impact our future, and the best practices that have successfully moved the smart grid forward.

Panelist include:

Anne Pramaggiore, ComEd

Andres Carvallo, Proximetry and Former CIO at Austin Energy

John Estey, S&C Electric

Paul De Martini, Former CTO at Cisco and VP at SCE

Sharon Allan, Accenture

John McDonald, GE Energy

Patty Durand, Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative

Mark Wyatt, Duke

Paul Centolella, Ohio PUC Commissioner

Doug Kim, SCE

Andres Carvallo Featured on Next Smart Grid Educational Series Webinar on May 14

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:41:00 +0000

Dear Colleagues:

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the next Smart Grid Educational Series Webinar scheduled for May 14^th 2012 at 1 pm Pacific will feature Andres Carvallo of Proximetry (former CIO of Austin Energy) in a 45 minute keynote address followed by a detailed Q&A with audience participation for 30-45 minutes. Andres is a renowned speaker on Smart Grid related issues in the industry and has authored a book on the subject as well as lead a revolutionary grid modernization program at Austin Energy prior to joining Proximetry.

The presentation is titled: “Why do we need a Smart Grid Network Management System?”

To register for the webinar, please click on the link below and select the “register” button to input your info. Registration is mandatory to log into the webinar. The webinar will be recorded and the link for the recording will be sent by May 16^th 2012.

https://thebitbazaar.webex.com/thebitbazaar/onstage/g.php?d=660638487&t=a

Here is a summary of what will be covered in the presentation.

Are you planning to deploy a fully integrated smart grid 1.0? Meaning smart meters, demand response, distribution automation, substation automation, SCADA/EMS integration, back office integration (CIS/Billing, ERP, EAMS). Or are you planning to deploy a fully integrated smart grid 2.0? Meaning customer EV charging automation, customer Solar PV integration, customer Home/Building Energy Management System integration, and customer Energy Storage integration with smart meters, demand response, distribution automation, substation automation, SCADA/EMS integration, and back office integration (CIS/Billing, ERP, EAMS). If you are doing either, you would not want to miss how to architect this challenge and not make the same mistakes that many early pioneers have already made.

Learn how to serve mission-critical, multi-protocol, multi-frequency, and multi-vendor networks seamlessly (4G LTE, WiMAX, 3G, 2G, Wi-Fi, PLC, Fiber, Ethernet RF, and using Mesh, P2P, etc), how to achieve policy and network optimization with easy traffic prioritization across a variety of wireless infrastructures, how to deliver comprehensive network management capabilities from the network operations center to all devices within the network environment, and how to build true accountability, security and traceability across all your network environments to finally support all your desired applications, preferred device vendors, preferred software systems into one single world.

Topic: Smart Grid Educational Series May 2012 Webcast

Date and Time:

Monday, May 14, 2012 1:00 pm, Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco, GMT-07:00)

Event number: 660 638 487

Event password: SGES0512

I look forward to your participation in this informative and thought provoking Smart Grid webinar on May 14^th at 1 pm Pacific featuring a true industry pioneer.

Best Regards

Erfan Ibrahim, PhD

Founder & CEO

The Bit Bazaar LLC – A Marketplace for Digital Ideas

Erfan97150@gmail.com

Network Management System Helps Utilities Reduce Outages

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:20:00 +0000

What is the Smart Grid?

The smart grid is the integration of a power grid, communications network, software and hardware to monitor, control and manage the creation, distribution, storage and consumption of energy. The smart grid of the future will be distributed, interactive, self-healing and will reach every electric device.

An advanced smart grid enables the seamless integration of smart utility infrastructures with smart buildings, smart homes and smart electric vehicles that pervasively use distributed generation, energy storage and smart devices to increase grid reliability, energy efficiency, renewable energy use and customer satisfaction-while reducing capital and operating costs.

The Smart Grid Emerges

First generation smart grids usually start with one application, such as smart metering, distribution automation or demand response, and then incrementally expand by adding more applications over time- each with a stand-alone and dedicated companion communications network. This is primarily because integrated utilities are organized in silos-such as generation, wholesale energy, transmission, distribution, metering, retail energy and conservation-and each silo does not have vested interest in understanding a company-wide return on investment. In deregulated markets where utilities are broken up into generation, wires and retail companies, a similar challenge occurs. Both integrated and deregulated utility markets require standards and interoperability to achieve system-wide or company-wide return on investments. These utility markets also need new investment rules to guarantee returns while being more energy efficient and potentially selling less power volumetrically.

On the other hand, advanced smart grids, or second generation smart grids, start with a company-wide or system-wide smart grid architecture designed to address requirements in the areas of coverage, control, quality of service, service restoration and integration with engineering applications and back office systems to deliver the desired company-wide return on investments. Because the advanced smart grid is designed to support any variety of applications as needed, short or long term, the communications network, or network of networks, must be designed to support necessary new services and capabilities.

Why Does the Smart Grid Need a Network Management System?

Designing and deploying multiple networks that potentially have millions of devices within the different utility silos is costly and difficult to manage and maintain over time.

Investing in a Smart Grid Network Management System (SGNMS) to coordinate the smart grid communications infrastructure allows utilities to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and outage times while increasing reliability, safety, security and customer satisfaction. By developing the right set of requirements, architectural imperatives, and security and interface standards, the utility can achieve many benefits such as: upgrading to new networking technologies as they emerge, choosing from multiple vendors that meet the same open standards, increasing back-up capabilities by leveraging private and public network solutions, managing all assets via a central console, reducing training costs, reducing outages, improving fault-detection and restoration times, and improving customer satisfaction.

Advanced Requirements, Benefits of a Smart Grid Network Management System

To realize its potential, a SGNMS should be built using industry best practices. The solution must include visualization, business logic, distributed processing and network element management with built-in geospatial and asset management features for easy integration. With well-defined and documented interfaces between each tier, a SGNMS provides greater flexibility, scalability, extensibility and security than trying to provide services using non-integrated systems. The SGNMS should support all individual networking protocols and standards to leverage the quality of service capabilities inherent in the available infrastructure and transition between ranges of network services.

Some of the key network services of a SGNMS should include: the ability to serve mission-critical multi-protocol, multi-frequency, multi-device and multi-vendor networks; enabling policy-based control for asset management, network optimization and traffic prioritization across different communications infrastructures (differing protocols and vendor implementations); and delivering comprehensive network management capabilities from the data center to all devices within the networks.

Network Design, Implementation of a Smart Grid Network Management System

A SGNMS allows multiple networks comprised of different protocols, vendors and service providers-including public and private resources-to perform as one logical network fabric. The SGNMS must provide differentiated services with dynamic allocation of resources, including bandwidth optimization, resource selection and modification, and centralized scheduling-allowing networks to achieve greater efficiencies in throughput that ensure the "best network, best frequency and best utilization time" with predictable performance and compliance. It also must give priority to different types of packets so real-time communications are not broken up, but also avoid causing any deterioration of low-latency applications and services. The SGNMS also needs to have built in system redundancy and proactively monitor for performance, utilization, quality of service and outages.

Once the SGNMS is deployed, closed-loop performance monitoring feeds data into the policy-based rules manager to anticipate and resolve problems before they become an issue. Fault management features will automatically correlate multiple events to pinpoint the root cause of outages and degradations. Many of the reports could be used to plan future additions and changes to the networks and services delivered.

Monitoring Security, Performance of a Smart Grid Network Management System
A SGNMS enables the automation of network monitoring as utilization management allows network and business managers to focus on strategic initiatives for the utility, rather than reacting to unrelated alarms. The SGNMS also increases uptime dependability and productivity for network devices because it helps contain and remediate problems faster-before devices are impacted-than manually addressing each problem as it arises.

If a software upgrade during the night extends itself to the morning, affecting daily network performance, for example, the SGNMS would alert network staff that utilization is above normal behavior and when traditional utility operations function as normal during the day, if left unattended. The SGNMS would also be intelligent enough to automatically correlate related events to avoid inundating network staff with alerts triggered from a single event. When there's a problem, the SGNMS should automatically discover the disruption's root cause and suggest remedies or, where appropriate, automatically fix the problem.

In Conclusion

A SGNMS is an essential element in the successful deployment of an advanced smart grid; if we believe that when every electric device becomes smart and networked, the utility grid becomes the advanced smart grid. A SGNMS enables the automation needed to manage from tens of thousands to millions of connected devices via multiple networks that might be using different network transports. When edge devices become smart, equipped with the right network communication functionality and local intelligence, they become capable of being pre-programmed to operate independently and managed remotely.

As such, the SGNMS enables the networks and devices under management to bring back levels of detailed information about the grid status never before seen by utility managers and energy consumers. In short, a SGNMS orchestrates multiple networks, and intelligent edge devices suggest a dramatic transformation in grid management capability as processes designed for maintaining grid stability in the absence of information must be replaced by processes designed to leverage an abundance of information.

http://www.utilityproducts.com/articles/print/volume-16/issue-04/product-focus/transmission-distribution/network-management-system-helps-utilities-reduce-outages.html

Austin Energy and Andres Carvallo Receive Top 10 Smart Grid Award

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:23:00 +0000

Austin Energy has one of the longest-running smart grid programs in the United States. Under the guidance of former CIO Andres Carvallo, the electricity provider achieved 100 percent meter penetration in 2009. Its current smart grid 2.0 offering includes more than 110 megawatts of load shedding capacity via 120,000 remotely controllable smart thermostats.

In February, Austin announced its plan to implement 4.8 megawatts of backup power using Vycon Energy flywheels at its 190,000-square-foot data center. Furthermore, the utility has partnered with the Pecan Street demonstration project which will feature a smart grid community of 1,000 residents and 75 businesses designed around integrating smart meters with distributed generation, energy storage, PEVs, and new electricity pricing models.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/top-ten-utility-deployments-in-north-america/

Andres Carvallo Keynotes University of Kansas 2012 Energy Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:19:00 +0000

Mr. Carvallo will join several experts this week at the 2012 KU Energy Conference

In his presentation, Mr. Carvallo will cover the genesis of Smart Grid, the new energy paradigm, Smart Grid Architectures, Smart Grid design, Building2Grid design, Home2Grid design, Vehicle2Grid design, Smart Grid standards, and the Smart Grid Ecosystem of vendors. His experiences draw from two books that his has co-authored and from his work and first hand knowledge at Austin Energy, San Diego Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, Baltimore Gas & Electric, Oncor, Centerpoint, American Electric Power, Duke, Direct Energy, Reliant, SP Aus Net, Energy Australia, ActewAGL, and others.

http://www.kuenergyclub.com/?page_id=5

Andres Carvallo Speaks at The Networked Grid

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:05:00 +0000

Join over 300 of smart grid industry executives in the east coast capital of smart grid innovation, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Learn the latest on the state of the market from GTM Research and network with utilities, thought leaders, and technology experts. The Networked Grid 2012 is more than just a conference, it's the event to attend to make a difference in the smart grid community.

Attendees will receive the following benefits:

• A tour of the Envision Center by Duke Energy and ABB's Center of Excellence on the N.C. State Centennial Campus

• An enterprise license of The Networked Grid 150: The End-to-End Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Profiles and Ranking

• Access to an exclusive social network of attendees, speakers, and sponsors that allows you to connect and network before, after and during the event, making the most of your conference investment

• An end-to-end understanding of the current state of the market from GTM Research, the leader in smart grid market research

• Participation in recognition ceremonies for the Top Ten Networked Utilities, the Top Ten Vendors in Smart Grid, and the Top Ten Vendors to Watch in Smart Grid and the resources to understand what made these organizations successful in these categories

• A welcome reception highlighting why Raleigh-Durham is an innovation center for the smart grid industry and how your company can move the industry forward in your own region

http://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/the-networked-grid-2012/?utm_source=LastChance&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NetworkedGrid12

The Advanced Smart Grid available on Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:23:00 +0000

Review

"The Advanced Smart Grid is the visionary book on smart grids. It is the right book for these times. If you read only one book on the smart grid - you have already picked the right one." (William R. Moroney, Former President & Chief Executive Officer, Utilities Telecom Council) "...a timely, comprehensive and insightful overview of the powerful potential that a truly advanced smart grid has.... Carvallo and Cooper deliver a must-read for anyone interested in the promise and capability of these fast-evolving networks." (Laura Chappelle, J.D., Former Chairman/Commissioner, Michigan Public Service Commission)"

Product Description

Placing emphasis on practical 'how-to' guidance, this cutting-edge resource provides a first-hand, insider's perspective on the advent and evolution of smart grids in the 21st century. Professionals gain a thorough understanding of the building blocks that comprise basic smart grids, including power plant, transmission substation, distribution, and meter automation. Moreover, this forward-looking volume explores the next step of this technology's evolution. It provides a detailed explanation of how an advanced smart grid incorporates demand response with smart appliances and management mechanisms for distributed generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles.

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Smart-Grid-Sustainability-ebook/dp/B007PJ0V58/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Andres Carvallo Named to 2012 The Networked Grid 100 People

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:07:00 +0000

Andres Carvallo, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Proximetry

Andres Carvallo has brought his technical expertise and next-next-thing vision to the smart grid ever since he coined the term “smart grid” as an alternative to EPRI’s “Intelligrid” concept back in 2003, the same year he joined Texas utility Austin Energy. Carvallo ended up as CIO of the utility, which has broken ground on its smart grid efforts. In March 2010, he left Austin to join Grid Net as executive vice president and chief strategy officer, where he led that company’s move away from strict backing of WiMAX toward supporting LTE and other technologies. In April 2011, he made his most recent move to Proximetry, a startup promising an advanced network management platform to keep the smart grid’s disparate systems running.

--

As the smart grid market continues to move from the fundamental ‘blocking and tackling’ of infrastructure and communications build-out to a wide swath of new, advanced applications ranging from consumer behavior analytics, to next-gen control and protection, to greentech integration and grid optimization, we thought it helpful to once again call attention to those leading the charge. The global upgrade to Grid 2.0 has billions, if not trillions, of dollars, euros, yen and yuan on the table, as well as the future safety and security of our power grids, and it is not a job for the faint of heart. Luckily, the folks on this list are all on top of it. Are these folks in your Rolodex? If not, they should be.

For a comprehensive understanding of the companies leading the global smart grid market, please refer to The Networked Grid 150: The End-to-End Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Profiles and Rankings report.

Lastly, if you are hoping to meet many of the Top 100 Movers and Shakers to both introduce yourself and get autographs, the best place to do that is at the upcoming 4^th annual Networked Grid conference.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-networked-grid-100-the-movers-and-shakers-of-the-smart-grid-in-2012/

Andres Carvallo Keynotes UTC Latin America - Brazil

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:03:00 +0000

Mr. Carvallo will deliver the opening keynote on March 22^nd.

UTC America Latina Summit 2012 – the Annual Latin America Utility Telecom Conference of the Utilities Telecom Council – will be the largest gathering of ICT executives from electric, gas and water utilities, pipeline companies, and their technology partners from Latin America and the world. The event will feature informative and provocative presentations on utility telecommunication, intelligent grid, advocacy/regulatory issues, latest technologies and financial matters facing utilities throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States. In addition, UTC America Latina Summit 2012 will have special networking opportunities and social events.

UTC America Latina Summit 2012 will be an extension of UTC's International program offered by UTC's International Division. This division spearheads UTC's global efforts as the telecommunications and ICT professional's trade association for electric and gas utilities, water companies, energy pipelines, and other critical infrastructure companies - united worldwide in their commitment to ensuring the best, most reliable systems and networks critical to their core businesses and the customers they serve.

Founded in 1948 in the United States, UTC is now a multi-national organization with a formal presence in Canada and Europe but members around the world. Working together with its technology partners and other corporate telecom/IT users, UTC's ongoing mission is to create a favorable business, regulatory and technical environment in which its members and stakeholders will thrive. UTC does this through a variety of advocacy, regulatory, technological, information and education programs. UTC America Latina Summit 2012 will launch UTC's efforts to establish a full service trade association focused on the needs of electric, gas and water utilities, pipeline companies and their technology partners in Latin America.

http://utcal2012.utc.org/

Andres Carvallo Speaks at GridCom Forum West

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 19:21:00 +0000

The GridCom Forum West is an event designed to explore the best of empowering grid communications.

The International Engineering Consortium (IEC) is pleased to present its next educational program in the GridCom Forum series of events entitled GCF West 2012, taking place March 7-9, 2012, at the Westin San Diego in San Diego, California.

Hosted by San Diego Gas & Electric, GCF West will provide a unique conference for electric power utilities, vendors, and suppliers involved in Smart Grid technology deployment.

In the session titled “Open the Grid: Developing a Multi-Application Field Area Network Architecture to Drive Smart Grid Interoperability”, Andres and his co-panelists will explore the long term vision for smart networks, where should utilities start, what requirements, which standards, key challenges, and business cases to build the right network architecture and system.

http://www.gridcomforum.com/GCFWest/index.aspx

http://www.gridcomforum.com/GCFWest/conference/schedule.aspx

Andres Carvallo Speaks at Smart Energy Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:55:00 +0000

The Smart Energy Summit is a unique event focus on the customer adoption and benefits of the smart energy transformation.

In this panel titled the “Hybrid Solutions: Beyond Home Networks”, Andres and his co-panelists will explore and debate how service providers are aggressively implementing home management systems today. How energy utilities continue a slow, methodical examination of in-home solutions. How common wisdom suggests that utilities may accomplish their agendas in cooperation with traditional service providers rather than building competitive control and monitoring networks and hardware. This interactive panel session will also explores the partnership opportunities between utilities and service providers in offering energy management solutions to consumers.

http://www.parksassociates.com/events/smart-energy-summit

http://www.parksassociates.com/events/smart-energy-summit/agenda

Andres Carvallo Speaks at IWCE

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:46:00 +0000

At IWCE 2012, learn from other cities, other colleagues, other agencies, other enterprises and the experts in communications technology systems. At IWCE, see an exhibit hall packed with over 330 leading suppliers showcasing the latest products and services in the communications technology marketplace. Touch the most innovative technology that will help you do your job more efficiently and effectively. Connect with colleagues from around the world, and attend an expansive conference program of training, workshops and sessions on specific technologies and applications. Join the global connection at IWCE 2012, the pre-eminent communications technology systems event for the working world. http://iwceexpo.com/iwce2012/public/enter.aspx

Mr. Carvallo, along with four other experts, will speak at an important panel titled: “Smart Grid 101”

Smart Grid 101 will cover the overarching goal of the smart grid concept to improve the efficiency, reliability, resiliency and overall quality of the power utility system through the integration of communications technologies. Review smart grid concepts, focusing on how they impact and leverage communications networks and technologies. In addition, discuss telemetry and other machine-to-machine wireless applications, encryption and other cybersecurity techniques and regulatory compliance. http://www.iwceexpo.com/iwce2012/Public/SessionDetails.aspx?SessionId=1005972

Andres Carvallo's Top 10 Smart Grid Trends for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:46:00 +0000

As you will read in my new book “The Advanced Smart Grid” – www.theadvancedsmartgrid.com – you will get to understand the beginning, evolution, and current journey of grid automation. Additionally, you will get to discover the coming future to a utility near you soon. In this post I am sharing my top 10 smart grid trends and the pages in the book the touch first on each trend. These trends are already on their way at different levels of inception and maturity. They will become more evident in 2012 and most will be in full force by 2015.

1) Advanced Grid Infrastructure (AGI) – (page 63) –

AGI follows Advanced Metering Infrastructure (a.k.a AMI), with real-time system information and control to integrate advanced metering with Distribution Automation functionality such as control of capacitor banks, switches, transformers, feeders, distribution/substation management, as well as Demand Response and Distributed Energy Resources system integration and management (e.g., inverters, solar PV, Electric Vehicles, Energy Storage, and Smart Appliances).

2) Deliberate Design and Planning – (page 90) –

Advanced Smart Grid architecture design starts with customer use cases, followed by process innovation, application selection, data flow design, and infrastructure design. Advanced Smart Grid architectures will emerge as a mandate requirement and best practice across the globe.

3) Smart Grid Architecture Framework (SGAF) – (page 197) –

An SGAF is a set of standards, best practices, rules, and methodologies to build a Smart Grid Architecture. Smart Grid Architectures will need to answer the how to questions of better grid reliability, safety, interoperability and security in a more smart device and distributed generation rich world where residential and commercial customers also evolve from passive customers to proactive prosumers (i.e. producers and consumers at the same time).

4) Smart Grid Optimization Engine (SGOE) – (page 200) –

Like a utility network modeling tool, the SGOE enables dynamic, predictive balancing of Volt/VAR levels with real-time data inputs from multiple devices. The main differences reside in the SGOE is built for massive scalability and interoperability of devices from many vendors, using multiple networking technologies, and collecting huge amounts of data to feed customer, operational, reporting, and regulatory needs and services offered by utilities and/or new energy service providers.

5) Predictive Volt/VAR Control (PVVC) – (page 193) –

The ability to anticipate the ratio between power (Volts) and reactive power (VARs) on the grid to maintain grid balance will become a bigger need to monitor, control, and manage as distributed resources emerge on the edge of the grid. Line loses today average 2% to 3% of the energy consumed. This is an important new efficiency strategy to pursue that helps reduce our ever growing fuel expenses.

6) Dynamic Modulation – (page 192) –

A new strategy for fine tuning the distribution grid and the edge resources within it in real time will emerge. Dynamic Modulation will enable utilities to better manage grid frequency and voltage levels with sensors for better demand management, load management, quality of service, and enhanced reliability.

7) Energy Municipal Utility District (eMUD) – (page 213) –

eMUDs will emerge in a similar fashion than water MUDs became a viable business model. Distributed Energy Resource advances such as Distributed Generation (e.g. solar PV), Community Energy Storage, and aggregated Demand Response, will become the basis for eMUDs to emerge and provide new local energy options for residential and commercial customers with or without connection to the utility grid. I expect electric utilities to be proactive in supporting this trendsby offering new services for a monthly fee such as back-up power, Volt/VAR modulation, etc.

8) Resource Islanding – (page 190) –

This new strategy will become a dynamic mechanism to manage the voluntary or involuntary off-grid functioning of a premise, community, or local area that has the capability to provide power for itself, or export power back to the grid. Resource Islanding will be required for managing dynamic Distributed Energy Resources on the distribution grid.

9) Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading (P2PET) – (page 212) –

P2PET will enable wheeling of power from the edge when Distributed Generation (e.g. solar PV), energy storage, and Demand Response are integrated within the Advanced Smart Grid and the utility adopts a Distribution Systems Operator (DSO) role for formally coordinated distributed resources within its service territory.

10) Energy Roaming – (page 208) –

Accounting transactions within a utility service territory to allow you to charge your electricity back to your master account regardless of where you charge will be the first incarnation of energy roaming. Once utilities enable the systems to manage such programs the next phase will start to happen as well. In this second phase, utilities will offer intra-utility energy roaming by enabling their back offices for Electric Vehicle charging that decouple energy service from the commodity energy sale, making the service open to be provided by third parties will emerge as a new viable business model. The proliferation of deregulated and competitive retailers will start to transform energy services across the globe.

Famous University of Kansas Alumni

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Phillip Anschutz

Founder, Qwest Communications whose portfolio includes telecom, sports and entertainment ventures, including San Francisco Examiner, LA's Staples Center, stakes in NBA's LA Lakers, soccer's LA Galaxy and hockey's Kings. Film company Walden Media produced Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie and the Narnia series. Cited on Business Week's 50 Most Generous Philanthropists List.

Harold Arlin

First broadcaster to call a baseball game on the radio, 1921. Also was the first to announce a college football game on the radio in the same year.

Sheila Bair

Chairwoman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (2006-2011). Named second most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in 2008.

Etta Moten Barnett

Actress and singer (first African-American woman to entertain at the White House).

Mark Batenic

CEO, IGA, Inc., largest independent grocers affiliation in world with 4,000 stores in 41 nations

David G. Booth

Cofounder of Dimensional Fund Advisors; namesake for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business; and owner of James Naismith's original 13 rules to basketball

William E. Borah

Influential U.S. senator from Idaho (1906-1940); 1889 graduate sponsored bills establishing labor department, Children's Bureau

George Brown

First African-American elected lieutenant governor in the U.S, (1974) and first African-American elected to statewide office in Colorado

Peter Brown

Former president, CEO and chairman of AMC Entertainment Inc., North America's second-largest theater chain

Sam Brownback

Governor of Kansas, 2011-. Former member of U.S. Senate and House.

Anand Burman

Chairman, Dabur India, a $3.1 billion consumer goods company.

Francisco Santos Calderón

Former Vice President, Republic of Colombia

Cynthia Carroll

CEO of Anglo-American, one of the world's largest mining conglomerates; in 2008 named most powerful woman in the world by Fortune magazine; 7th most powerful woman by Forbes magazine.

Andres Carvallo

Smart Grid Master. Defined Smart Grid term on March 5, 2004. Inventor of first Smart Grid deployment from 2003 - 2010. Co-Author of “The Advanced Smart Grid” published in July of 2010.

Wilt Chamberlain

NBA superstar

John E. Christensen

Chancellor, University of Nebraska-Omaha

Linda Zarda Cook

Former executive director of Shell Gas & Power (highest ranking woman) and CEO of Shell Canada; named 3rd most powerful woman in the world by Fortune magazine in 2008.

Dale R. Corson

President, Cornell University (1969-1977), physicist who discovered basic element Astatine (AT)

Jack Del Rio Jr.

Head football coach, Jacksonville Jaguars

David Dillon

Chairman and CEO, Kroger Co

Bob Dole

Former U.S. Senate majority leader, presidential and vice-presidential nominee.

More info: The Dole Institute of Politics

Bob Dotson

Award-winning NBC News correspondent and author

David Ewing Duncan

Award winning science writer, author and commentator

Robert Eaton

Former CEO of Chrysler Corp.

Joe Engle

NASA astronaut (see also Ronald E. Evans, Steve Hawley)

Paul Ehrlich

Environmental scientist, population expert and author ("The Population Bomb.") Also a MacArthur Fellow recipient

Ronald E. Evans

NASA astronaut (see also Joe Engle, Steve Hawley)

Lorenzo Dow Fuller Jr.

First African-American host on NBC-TV; first African-American to sing with KU symphony.

Sam Gilliland

CEO of Sabre Holdings, owner of Travelocity, a leading online travel company.

Moses Gunn

Actor ("Heartbreak Ridge," "Roots")

Benjamin D. Hall

Genetic scientist who developed, with a colleague, a vaccine for hepatitis B, one of the world's most common blood-borne viruses.

Ann Hamilton

Sculptor, installation artist and MacArthur Fellow recipient

Steve Hawley

NASA astronaut (see also Joe Engle, Ronald E. Evans )

Steve Haynes

President, National Newspaper Association

Kevin Helliker

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. At least 13 KU alumni have won the prize (see also Colleen McCain Nelson, Gerald Seib, William Allen White.)

David Hillis

Evolutionary biologist and MacArthur Fellow recipient

Jane Dee Hull

Governor of Arizona, 1997-2003.

Dave Hunke

President and publisher, USA Today

William Inge

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright ("Picnic"), Oscar Award-winner for "For Splendor in the Grass"

Wes Jackson

Environmental historian; president of The Land Institute, Salina, Kan., a research center on sustainable agriculture; a MacArthur Fellow recipient

Nancy Landon Kassebaum

First female U.S. senator (1979-1997) elected in own right without having been preceded in office by her husband.

Kenton Keith

U.S. ambassador to Quatar, 1992-1995.

Paul Keim

World's leading expert in anthrax DNA fingerprinting

Rick Kellerman

Past President, American Academy of Family Physicians

Clarence Kelley

Federal Bureau of Investigation director, 1973 to 1978

Rod Keenan

Noted milliner whose hat collection is sold internationally. His hats have been featured in movies and magazines, and custom clients include numerous actors and singers.

Rebecca Kolls

Gardening expert (HGTV's "Rebecca's Garden," ABC's "Good Morning America")

Lee Kyung-sook

President of Sookmyung Women's University, South Korea

Doug Lamborn

U.S. Congressman, 5th District, Colorado.

Alf Landon

Kansas governor and 1936 Republican nominee for president.

Neil LaBute

Film director/writer (Wicker Man, Nurse Betty, In the Company of Men)

Anne Levinson

co-owner of Seattle Storm, 2004 and 2010 WNBA champions

Delano Lewis

Former National Public Radio CEO and ambassador to South Africa

Rear Adm. Wayne E. Meyer

Engineer known as the "Father of Aegis," the Navy's primary air-defense weapon system, described as the first integrated air weapon system and the world's preeminent maritime combat system. A guided-missile destroyer is named for him.

Billy Mills

Olympic gold medalist in track (only American to win the 10,000-meters medal)

David McClain

President, University of Hawaii, 2004-2009

James A. McClinton

First African-American mayor of Topeka, Kan., 2004-2005

Brian McClendon

Google Earth director of engineering (that's why KU is the center of Google Earth)

Elmer McCollum

Scientist (discovered vitamins A and D)

John B. McLendon, Jr.

First African American basketball coach at a predominantly white university (Cleveland State University) and first African American head coach in professional sports (Cleveland Pipers in American Basketball League).

Lou Montulli

Co-founder of Netscape; co-authored Lynx text web browser while at KU; responsible for browser innovations such as HTTP cookies, the blink tag, server push and client pull, HTTP proxying, and encouraging the implementation of animated GIFs into the browser.

Dennis Moore

U.S. Congressman, 1999 to 2011.

Rep. Jerry Moran

U.S. Senator representing Kansas, 2011-. Former member of U.S. House.

Alan Mulally

President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company (link to video)

Janet Murguia

President, National Council of La Raza, U.S.' largest constituency-based Hispanic organization

Colleen McCain Nelson

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. At least 13 KU alumni have won the prize (see also Kevin Helliker, Gerald Seib, William Allen White.)

Chester Nez

One of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers, who during World War II transmitted U.S. military messages in their native language—a code the Japanese never broke. The code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945.

Lawton Nuss, Carol Beier and Eric Rosen

Current Kansas Supreme Court justices

Sara Paretsky

Best-selling mystery writer (V.I. Warshawski series)

Mark Parkinson

Kansas governor, 2009-2011

Mandy Patinkin

Actor ("Yentl," "The Princess Bride"; TV's "Chicago Hope")

Dave Peacock

President, Anheuser-Busch

Artur Pizarro

Concert pianist

Dr. William Plested III

President of the American Medical Association, 2006-07

William Powell

Leading Hollywood movie star of the 1930s, best known for The Thin Man series.

Malcolm S. Robinson

President, National Bar Association, 2002

Charles "Buddy" Rogers

Silent screen star whose 1927 movie "Wings" was first to win "best picture" Oscar; married Mary Pickford

Paul Rudd

Actor ("Clueless", "Knocked Up", TV's "Friends")

Roseann Runte

First woman president of Carleton University (Canada). Past president of Old Dominion University.

Adolph Rupp

Third winningest men's basketball coach after KU graduate Dean Smith, winning 876 games and four national championships in 41 years at University of Kentucky (His coach at KU was James Naismith)

Jim Ryun

Three-time U.S. track Olympian and world-record miler, former member of U.S. House of Representatives

Gen. Pahol Sanganetra

Deputy Permanent Secretary of Defense of Thailand.

Mathana Santiwat

President, Bangkok University in Thailand

Juan Manuel Santos

President, Republic of Colombia.

Luis Santos

CEO of Casa Editorial El Tiempo (CEET), a leading media company in Colombia, South America Its holdings include the national newspaper El Tiempo.

Gale Sayers

Famous football player and youngest player in NFL history to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Kathleen Sebelius

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 2009-; governor of Kansas, 2003-2009

Gerald Seib

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. At least 13 KU alumni have won the prize (see also Kevin Helliker, Colleen McCain Nelson and William Allen White)

Douglas Shane

Director of flight operations for SpaceShipOne, first private manned space program

Bruce A. Smith

CEO of major oil refiner Tesoro, 1995-2010 (Retailed under Shell, USA Gasoline, Mirastar and Tesoro brands)

Dean Smith

NCAA's all-time winningest coach (at University of North Carolina) with 879 games until 2006 when surpassed by Bobby Knight; was member of 1952 KU national championship men's basketball team

Vernon Smith

Nobel Prize laureate in economics

Marla Spivak

Entomologist who studies bee colony health and a MacArthur Fellow recipient

Deanell Reece Tacha

Chief judge of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit

Clyde Tombaugh

Astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto

Rosalie Wahl

First woman justice on the Minnesota state Supreme Court

Kent Whealy

Founder of the Seed Savers Exchange and a MacArthur Fellow recipient

William Allen White

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. At least 13 KU alumni have won the prize (see also Kevin Helliker, Colleen McCain Nelson, Gerald Seib)

William F. Woo

First Asian-American to be the editor of a major daily American newspaper, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sir Robert Worcester

British political commentator and market research pioneer; also chancellor of the University of Kent (UK)

Kevin Yoder

U.S. Congressman, 2011-. Former student body president.

Andres Carvallo & Three Other IEEE Smart Grid Experts Among FierceEnergy’s “Top 15 Most Influential People in Energy”

noreply@blogger.com (Andres Carvallo) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:40:00 +0000

Andres Carvallo, Dick DeBlasio, Erich Gunther, and John McDonald recognized for their achievements in advancing Smart Grid development and deployment

PISCATAWAY, N.J., USA, 30 November, 2011 – IEEE, the world's largest professional association advancing technology for humanity, announced today that four of its globally recognized Smart Grid experts have been named to FierceEnergy Magazine's "15 Most Influential People in Energy" list. IEEE Life Member Dick DeBlasio, IEEE Fellows Erich Gunther and John McDonald, and IEEE Computer Society member, Andres Carvallo are among the individuals singled out by the publication as having the greatest amount of influence in the energy industry during 2011.

"IEEE is home to the world's foremost Smart Grid innovators and experts – talented individuals dedicated to and responsible for architecting inspired, effective solutions that will carry us into a new generation of intelligent power generation, transmission, and distribution. Without their invaluable contributions, we would be without many of the meaningful Smart Grid milestones achieved to-date," said Wanda Reder, chair, IEEE Smart Grid, and vice president Power Systems Services at S&C Electric Company. "We congratulate Dick, Erich, John, and Andres on this honor, and thank them and all IEEE volunteers for their dedicated efforts in making the Smart Grid a reality."

Individuals named to the inaugural FierceEnergy list were selected by the publication based on a diverse array of factors, including industry nominations and recommendations, regulatory influence, business acumen, leadership, and technical expertise. Each of the four IEEE experts selected has had demonstrable impact upon the creation and deployment of the rapidly emerging Smart Grid.

Dick DeBlasio, an IEEE Life Member, IEEE 2030 Working Group chair, and a member of the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Board of Governors, is also the chief engineer and principle laboratory program manager for electricity programs with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. As working group chair for IEEE 2030, he was a driving force behind delivering its interoperability reference and knowledge base. The world's first system-of-systems, the foundational standard was created from the ground-up to ensure Smart Grid interconnection and interoperability.

Co-founder, chairman, and chief technology officer of EnerNex, Erich Gunther is an IEEE Fellow, as well as a member of the IEEE Smart Grid Task Force, chairman of the IEEE Power & Energy Society's (PES) Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee, and an IEEE PES Governing Board member. He has focused on establishing a collaborative environment for the utility community to come together and develop broad requirements for grid modernization in a disciplined, traceable, and defensible way.

John McDonald, P.E., is an IEEE Fellow, a member of the IEEE-SA Board of Governors, IEEE PES Past President, as well as director, technical strategy and policy development at GE Energy's Digital Energy business. He pioneered the definition of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), as part of IEEE Std. C37.1, and the concept of their two types of data – operational and non-operational, which has been widely adopted by electric utilities and become a key Smart Grid component. Additionally, by providing detailed insight on how to manage these different data types, he has enabled utilities to realize considerably greater benefits from investments made in IEDs.

Andres Carvallo, IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Power and Energy Society member and Proximetry Inc. executive vice president and chief strategy officer, is recognized as a leading Smart Grid pioneer and innovator. Co-author of "The Advanced Smart Grid", he leveraged his expertise while overseeing the first end-to-end Smart Grid deployment in the U.S at Austin Energy from 2003 - 2009. He also helped establish the Pecan Street Project in 2008, a living Smart Grid lab designed to foster emerging technologies for residential and commercial use.

For FierceEnergy's complete roster of the 15 Most Influential People in Energy, please visit http://www.fierceenergy.com/slideshow/power-players-15-most-influential-people-energy.

Additional IEEE Smart Grid experts from around the world will be speaking during the second European conference and exhibition on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT-EUROPE 2011), sponsored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society and hosted by the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Manchester. Full details about the conference, which is being held in Manchester, England 5-7, December 2011, can be found at http://www.ieee-isgt-2011.eu/.

For more information on IEEE Smart Grid efforts, follow @ieeesmartgrid on Twitter, or join the IEEE Smart Grid group on LinkedIn at http://linkd.in/udDFqG.

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