Standardisation of ICT solutions is an essential enabler for climate change. Whether it is for infrastructures supported by ICT (buildings, energy networks, logistics…) or ICT infrastructure itself (fixed and mobile networks, data centres, PC’s…and the various applications running on these…), interoperability of ICT products and services enable energy reduction in two ways: firstly by avoiding (or at least reducing) the need for development of interfaces between systems, which themselves require hardware to run, consuming unnecessary energy;
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As COP15 is rapidly approaching its climax, a number of conflicts between developed and developing countries have surfaced. These conflicts should not be surprising. First, the costs and benefits of actions taken to stop climate change vary across countries. Second, poorer nations argue that rich countries have caused the problems and should clean up their own mess. Third, individual countries have a unilateral incentive to free-ride on other countries actions.
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-The divergence between material standards and the ethereal world of ICT

We have standards for nearly everything in this green world of ours. There are Green Building Standards (LEED, Green Globes, BREEM, Energy Star, NAHB Green and ASHRAE 189 to name a few)
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Standardization work is essential to the credibility and scalability of Green IT, and thus for the ICT industry’s ambitions of supplying the world with solutions for combating climate change.
There is much focus today on smart grids. In Sweden, the Zigbee trials demonstrate the necessity for open standards because we want to keep our opportunities open for the new applications that might come. In order for such trials to be economically feasible there must be a perception that smart technology invented in one corner of the world may be used in other corners as well
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At a time when Climate Control initiatives are getting embroiled in quotas and targets, it is remarkable that the ICT industry has stepped up to the challenge and begun to deliver genuine solutions that reduce CO2 emissions.
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Throughout the industrialized world legislation for greenhouse gas emissions is being, or will likely be enacted, over the coming years. These programs will introduce significant operational/financial cost impacts as well as opportunities for many industrial sectors.
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ICT in general is both a heavy user of energy, and can be a tool to make more efficient use of energy possible. ICT and Energy in this respect are somewhat like symbiotic twins, both need the other to thrive, especially in a perspective of increased demand for energy, depletion of fossil fuel reserves and especially climate change.

In order to meet our goals of increasing the amount of sustainable energy and increasing energy efficiency, a transformation towards smart grids, including smart meters, is essential. It makes information on energy consumption available to the user in real time, which allows him to adapt his consumption patterns. Besides this, smart grids make large scale infusion of sustainable energy from various local renewable sources into the grids possible.

This transformation will necessitate smart investments in new technologies and changes in the value chain. Investments that will likely only render a sufficient return if they are monopolized and the costs for users are increased, or when there are sufficient possibilities of value added services. Value added services in particular could open up possibilities for new services and better deals for consumers and businesses. Consider for instance how domotica-services or the uptake of electric cars can be expanded in combination with smart metering systems.

In order for a broad array of services to be offered standardization is critical. It is up to the Energy and ICT industries to come up with these standards. And soon. In March of this year the European Commission mandated CEN/CENELEC and ETSI to come up with a standard for smart meters. It goes without saying that this standard should be open, needs to be as secure as possible, and sufficiently protect the privacy of consumers. We need to hurry because quite a large number of countries are already, or will soon be, investing in smart metering systems. Open standards for other parts of the smart grids infrastructure need to follow as soon as possible, but given the early stages of development, may need some more research.

Apart from the smart grids systems, it goes (almost) without saying that the ICT industry should lead by example and continue to develop ever more energy efficient applications, hardware and software. If needed regulation could help these developments along. Regulation in fact also needs open standards, although of a different kind. Standard methods for measuring and monitoring energy efficiency are needed in order to make claims of efficiency transparent.

To stabilize and eventually reduce greenhouse gas emissions is an enormous challenge that will require many new technologies, behaviors and business practices . New standards will ensure that these technological systems work together well, and provide end-users with the information they need to make informed decisions. This short post describes a few of the environmental standards initiatives that have already begun.

Conservation is the largest single opportunity for short-run improvements in energy efficiency. In both the US and Europe, “Smart Grids” are touted as a promising conservation tool. The basic idea is to add some digital intelligence to electricity meters and household appliances, so that usage can be more easily, measured, monitored and controlled. Smart Grid technology will also allow some consumers to become energy producers, by selling the excess capacity from their own solar or wind generators back to the electrical grid. In addition to providing basic tools for inter-operability and security, Smart Grid standards must be designed for usability. Experience shows that consumers are unlikely to invest in conservation unless it is extremely easy (or prices increase substantially, bringing some of the long-run savings forward into the immediate future). Andrew Updegrove provides a nice overview of Smart Grid standardization, and the US Smart Grid standards initiative has an easily accessible home page.

Environmental labeling and certification programs are another case of standardization in support of the environment. Many consumers will pay a bit more for environmentally friendly products, but cannot distinguish among options at the point of purchase. This has given rise to a number of eco-certification programs, such as Energy Star for appliances, LEED for buildings, Forest Stewardship Council certification for paper and lumber or a host of different organic food designations. For an overview of eco-labeling, see here. In some cases, such as organic food, the number of labels has grown so quickly that it may be adding to customer confusion, leading to calls for government certified labels such as USDA organic. Assessing the costs and benefits of competing certification schemes is an interesting area for standards-related research.

Finally, since this blog is primarily devoted to ICT standards, we should consider the growing problem of electronic waste. Computers and electronics contain a variety of toxic materials (which are also sometimes quite valuable). Short product life-cycles and poor systems for reclamation cause much of this material to end up in landfills. However, there is growing pressure from groups such as the Electronics Take-back Coalition to push some of the costs and logistics of reclamation back onto electronics manufacturers. This is an area where governments are becoming involved. For example, the EU recently passed the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has endorsed a set of principles for called Responsible Recycling (R2) for accreditation of electronics recyclers. If electronics manufacturers want a voice in these regulatory efforts, they will have to begin developing and adopting new standards for Green designs and more comprehensive take-back policies to facilitate recycling and component re-use.

Governments are playing an active role in all of the standardization efforts described above. However, the most critical policies have little to with the standardization process itself. The value proposition for all of these efforts depends on raising the price of carbon to a level where the private and social costs of consumption are roughly equal. When these prices are in place – and let us hope that is soon – the remarkably diverse and adaptive international standards system will begin to deliver a variety of tools for change.

G B Shaw said: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Much of the discussion around Smart Grids is ‘reasonable’. It is mostly oriented towards the existing infrastructure, with the assumption that the existing infrastructure will also have an important role to play in future.

This is a ‘reasonable’ perspective, but what if we were to be ‘unreasonable’? And therefore progressive and also disruptive in the words of GB Shaw?

This article explores the role of customers as creators of energy rather than mere consumers. It explores the creation of a ‘cottage’ industry of Peer to Peer energy producers. In such an ecosystem, the standard would be used to connect the peer producers and the consumers. The standard would be the unifying glue to bring together peer producers with the value being abstracted to higher levels of software and services which create the peer trading ecosystem based on small amounts of energy produced by individuals at ‘home’.

The role of customers as energy producers is a use case for Smart Grids, but it is relatively less explored. And for good reasons; it is disruptive, and it does not really benefit the incumbent providers of energy. But even so, Peer to Peer energy production may be an idea whose time has come.

George Papanikolaou explores this idea further and I summarise some of my thoughts on this discussion

a) The current approach to Smart Grids and Green initiatives is ‘top down’. It predicates infrastructure investment first and needs many players to come together especially large producers of energy.

b) While the traditional approach is beneficial, a more long reaching impact can be realised if we were to empower the customers and create a ‘bottom up’ network of cottage (home) energy producers who create and distribute energy within a social network – and not always for commercial gain. The Internet provides us such a network – but it needs a peer to peer social network to create and distribute energy

c) Producers are unified with the ‘means of production’. This means, the need for an intermediary is reduced. The motivations for the peers may be sustainability and other additional ‘soft’ benefits apart from revenue itself.

d) Energy produced by solar, wind and other means could lead to potential population realignment away from the cities if it is found that small producers are economically viable. This is not as far fetched as it first sounds. The Web has a tendency to commoditize content and services since it tends to make prices globally transparent. However, the Internet cannot commoditize physical goods and energy production will always have a commercial value. Thus, a whole class of middle income energy producers could arise if the methods of production and distribution become economically viable.

To conclude,

I have read Peter Drucker’s books for a long time. In his book the Post Capitalist Society, Peter Drucker says that productivity of nations will arise from infrastructure investments and since many people will no longer be involved in producing goods, the knowledge economy could play an increasing part. The vision of Peer to Peer production of energy brings these ideas together by the ‘ultimate; decentralising of production (to the individual) and by also adding a knowledge component in empowering the individual.

However, the promised benefits of this vision cannot be realised unless we have standards that foster the connectivity and the ecosystem to make Peer to Peer energy production economically viable.

Comments welcome. Happy holidays!

Developments in telecommunications are moving towards more eco-efficient solutions. One example is the multi-standard base station marketed early this year by Nokia Siemens.
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