As the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere reaches a level not seen in human history, it’s worth considering how much the conventional wisdom surrounding energy has changed in the last 5 years.  In 2008, domestic fossil fuel production (other than coal) was considered to be in permanent decline, with local debates on where to site natural gas import terminals.  Coal-based electricity generation was assumed to be as irreplaceable as it was undesirable.  Increasing energy costs and volatility were unavoidable, while renewable generation cost parity appeared within reach as the bar moved lower.  A nuclear power renaissance was effectively promoted as the only carbonless solution with the potential capacity to displace coal.  The dawn of transportation electrification seemed upon us, while the smart grid took a laser focus on peak load reduction.

Much has changed since then.  Conventional wisdom has caught up with the gas industry experts (including some of my Navigant colleagues), who foresaw how the shale gas boom would reshape the North American energy landscape.  With domestic oil and gas production up sharply, costs are expected to stabilize and volatility decrease.  Planned natural gas import terminals, while still locally controversial, are morphing into export terminals.  Natural gas generation is rapidly displacing coal, leading to significant carbon emissions reductions, though the enabling fracking technologies trigger new concerns.  Even as the cost parity goalposts keep moving, the cost of renewables continues to decline.  The Fukushima accident stalled a North American nuclear renaissance while driving Germany and Japan, at least notionally, to nuclear exits.  Home refueling of natural gas vehicles could replace electric vehicle charging stations in consumer imaginations.  Meanwhile, long-haul trucks, fleet vehicles, and even locomotives are adopting natural gas.  And the smart grid is becoming more important as a means of power resiliency in the face of hurricanes and superstorms than as a vehicle for peak load reduction.

Cheap Gas, Smart Buildings

This all came to mind recently when I moderated a panel discussion titled “The Future Direction of Energy in North America and the Impact on the Intelligent Buildings Sector” at CABA’s Intelligent Buildings Forum in Toronto.  CABA is the Continental Automated Buildings Association, a 25-year old organization dedicated to the advancement of intelligent home and intelligent building technologies (I am privileged to serve on CABA’s board).  The panel participants represented the perspectives of commercial property owner/managers (Cadillac Fairview), utilities (Ontario Power Authority), suppliers (Siemens), and technology researchers (CanmetENERGY).

So what do the major shifts of the last half-decade mean for intelligent buildings?  The panelists agreed that demand for improved energy efficiency remains strong, even if all the incentives for deploying the technology to deliver such efficiency are not always aligned.  Local codes and mandates may be drivers, but even lower-cost energy is not free energy.  Building-to-grid technologies and distributed generation may become even more important if natural gas enables local generation, which is becoming an intriguing option for the storm-ravaged Northeast United States.  Most importantly, all agreed that “cheap, abundant” natural gas is unlikely to spur new interest in dumb buildings.

The Japanese market for building energy efficiency technologies has been strong for decades, thanks in large part to the 1979 Act Concerning the Rational Use of Energy, the foundation of Japan’s stringent building energy codes.  In the 2 years since the Fukushima earthquake and the ensuing energy crisis – which has caused a 17% increase in the price of energy for non-residential customers of TEPCO, the monopoly utility that serves the greater Tokyo region – demand for energy efficiency technologies in Japan has grown significantly.

In particular, demand for building energy management systems (BEMSs) has grown as much as 30% to 40% year-on-year over the last few years, according to discussions I’ve had with market participants and key industry players in Japan.  Although the concept of BEMSs is mature in Japan, given that it is a requirement of the Act Concerning the Rational Use of Energy, the concurrent timing of the energy crisis and the market availability of software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based BEMS software has led to a surge in its adoption.   (It should be noted that the concept of BEMSs in Japan overlaps significantly with the concept of BEMSs in Europe and North America, though BEMSs in Japan often include additional technologies such as building-to-grid connections, smart meter technology, and others that are often considered part of the smart grid in other regions.)

Driving DR

At the recent World Smart Energy Week at the Big Sight in Tokyo, I was focused on learning more about the adoption of technologies such as building energy management systems (BEMSs), direct digital controls (DDCs), demand response (DR), and other intelligent building products in Japan within the 3^rd Eco House & Eco Building Expo.

I attended several sessions of the event’s Smart Grid Technical Conference, where representatives from organizations such as Itron, NEDO, and Toyota discussed smart building technology in the context of the increased intelligence of the utility grid.  In particular, the increased growth of PV and wind in Japan will continue to drive the country’s emerging DR market, which will expand further through the adoption of smart building technology.  As Taichiro Kawahara of Hitachi put it, “Demand-side energy management in Japan must be promoted through demand-side management and demand response.”

The conference not only explored the application of these technologies in Japan, but also compared and contrasted similar successes and challenges with smart grid integration experienced in Europe and North America.  This perspective is critical for ensuring that the adoption of smart grid technology in Japan unfolds as smoothly as possible and for providing Japanese technology developers with important insights into the market landscape in other regions into which many Japanese companies are looking to expand.  This sort of international forum is critical for spreading market-leading technology – and ensuring that the industry doesn’t make the same mistakes twice.

Utilities want to know if vendors are overselling their wares.  Are vendors making commitments that that they really should not?  Sometimes it’s hard to know what a product will actually do – or not do – until it’s installed and running.  So most buyers will try to assure themselves that the product – hardware or software – will do what it says on the label.

But there’s another side that gets less attention: do vendors underplay the difficulty of living with a product?   As Calvin once explained to Hobbes, there’s a big difference between getting something and having something.  After the discussion session at a recent smart grid conference, I understand that having meter data management (MDM) can be more complicated than buyers may grasp during the acquisition cycle.

At the conference session, I joined five utility executives discussing their experiences implementing MDM.  The group was given a preset list of questions to discuss.  The first, “What have you learned from going beyond billing?” resulted in a bunch of blank stares.  The reason: that’s all these utilities have done with MDM – generate bills.  There is little “beyond billing” yet.

Perhaps the most common theme of the discussion was the difficulty of installing MDM and then integrating it with other applications.  All of the participants felt that this aspect had been underplayed by their vendors during the MDM purchase cycle.  Integration of MDM to other applications such as energy management, outage management, or customer information systems, has proven far more difficult than expected.

Response Times Slowed

All five utility officials were also dissatisfied with their MDM’s reporting capabilities.  Several utilities had reinstalled legacy reporting systems, piping the data from the new MDM back to the reinstalled legacy systems.  The group also wanted a separate replicated MDM database for reporting because running complex analyses against the online database significantly slows the response to real-time queries – usually driven by customer portals on the Internet or help desk agents on a call.

Everyone present agreed that MDM should be done before a smart meter rollout, or at least simultaneously.  No one thought it a good idea to deploy smart meters before the MDM was in place.  Some of the group felt that the holy grail of smart metering – interval readings every 15 minutes – is useless for residential applications, although useful in commercial and industrial applications.  One panelist said his utility had activated remote disconnect for only 1% of its smart meters, although that was due to local regulations governing disconnect processes.

Navigant Research’s report, Meter Data Management, published 3Q 2012,  stressed the need for detailed planning before installing an MDM system.  These discussions reminded me how true that is!

You might have guessed that the United States, Germany, or even Israel would be the proving ground for the latest innovations in electric vehicles (EVs), but, in fact, France is where the technology is becoming part of everyday driving.

Carshare programs featuring EVs have expanded rapidly on the streets of Paris.  The Autolib program is now nearly 2,000 cars strong, as both locals and tourists are becoming comfortable with electric drive and short term vehicle borrowing.

Recently, Autolib auto provider Bollore Group announced that it will begin retail sales of its EVs.  Bollore is offering the innovative business model of selling the vehicles and leasing the batteries separately, becoming the second French company (after Renault) to do so.  Battery leasing is more of a psychological marketing tool that splits up the upfront cost of the vehicle and the monthly operational cost (i.e., the battery lease) to make it easier to compare EVs with conventional cars and their fuel costs, but if it continues to be popular with customers, other companies may adopt the strategy.

Think Small – Really Small

Renault offers battery leasing on the tiny Twizy, which has been hailed as the best-selling EV in Europe.  Getting consumers to buy into a smaller-than-smart-car are feats of both engineering and marketing.  Renault and ally Nissan have developed the strongest EV maker partnership, and the tandem recently crossed the 70,000 mark in EV sales.

Renault, Peugeot Citroën, Nissan, and other players from across Europe will be presenting at the eCarTec Paris conference and trade fair on April 16-18, where I’m looking forward to learning more about other upcoming developments in e-mobility.

Another EV car share program will launch next year in Grenoble, France, where Toyota is partnering with the City of Grenoble, Grenoble-Alpes Métropole, Cité Lib, and EDF.  The “last-mile” project looks to use shared emissions-free cars to close the gaps around public transport while reducing the overall use of personally-owned vehicles.  The project will feature 70 EVs, including Toyota’s COMS vehicle and a new model based on the i-ROAD concept that recently debuted with much fanfare at the Geneva Motor Show.

Thinking small – in vehicle size, cost of personal transit, and emissions footprint – is catching on rapidly in haute couture Paris, and this trend is not likely to go out of fashion anytime soon.  The lessons learned in the marketing and logistics of EVs in France are becoming the blueprint for sustainable transportation everywhere.