Between the Poles

Autodesk Cloud announced

Autodesk has announced Autodesk Cloud, a collection of web-based capabilities, products and services.  Autodesk began providing cloud-based applications for the design industry more than a decade ago with Autodesk Buzzsaw.  Autodesk Cloud enables users to begin using the cloud to access and store their work; to view their work through web browsers or mobile devices; and to share their work with other users, I've blogged previously about AutoCAD WS which allows users to perform CAD design with a browser or with a mobile iOS or Android device.

Autodesk cloud is provided through partnerships with multiple partners, including Amazon and Citrix. Amazon Web Services for more than three years has hosted applications such as Autodesk Homestyler software and Autodesk Seek web service using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Block Store (EBS).

Additional cloud services provided by Autodesk include;

• Rendering ― server-based rendering to better visualize designs, increase the number of renderings they can create and reduce hardware investments.

• Simulation ― cloud-based simulation tool to test multiple design options in the cloud, and to create more sustainable designs and higher-quality products while reducing material, transportation and energy costs.

• Conceptual energy analysis ― cloud-based energy analysis to determine energy consumption and building energy costs of early design concepts from within the design application.

• Green Building Studio ― efficient cloud-based energy analysis to help designers, architects, engineers and building energy analysts perform faster, more accurate energy analysis of multiple building design iterations, optimize energy efficiency and design for carbon neutrality early in the design process.

• Buzzsaw - cloud-based document, data and design management solutions for AEC firms and owner-operators to centralize information and improve team collaboration.

Autodesk Cloud services are available now worldwide in English and will be available soon in other languages including Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish and Traditional Chinese.

FOSS4G: Two thirds of this year's attendees were new to FOSS4G

I blogged earlier about this year's FOSS4G conference in Denver, which attracted the highest attendance ever.  I've seen statistics that for two thirds of the attendees this was their first time at a FOSS4G event.

Of these an estimated 100+, according to a tweet I've seen from Arnulf Christl, president of OSGEO, attended the newcomer event, which suggests that a significant number of new FOSS4G attendees are also new to open source geospatial.

Some of the videos of this year's FOSS4G presentations are available on line at FOSSLC, and I expect more will be available in the future.

Can electric vehicles balance out intermittent power sources like wind ?

Many states have mandatory or voluntary renewable energy portfolios standards (RPS). Wind is the most widely deployed source of renewable energy in most of the US.  Wind energy is variable and the intermittent nature of this source of energy creates imbalances on the power system that can be mitigated by electric storage capacity which currently is not available except in a few locations such as Niagara, where excess power capacity is used to pump water to reservoirs.  A fascinating recent study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) looks at the possibility of using battery capacity in plug-in electric vehicles to mitigate imbalances from wind generation in the power grid.

Electric vehicles could be used for both charging and discharging pruposes, but apparently automobile manufacturers qare concerned about battery warranty issues if  electric vehicles are used for discharging power back into the grid.  Therefore, PNNL looked at two different charging scenarios. In the first electric vehicles are charged from the grid, but never feed power back into it.  In the second electric vehicles are used for both charging and discharging.

  The wind power scenario that PNNL has adopted is 2019 expected wind scenario where an additional 10 GW of wind capacity is added to the Northwest Power Pool (NWPP). Vehicle travel patterns are based on data from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey data.

The study concludes that under certain market scenarios and penetration levels, electric vehicles can provide a feasible resource for meeting the imbalance imposed by significant wind generation, but it will require a viable and compelling business model, either for the individual electric vehicle owner, or a third-party service provider.

PNNL finds that if about 13% of the existing light-duty vehicle stock (about 2.1 million vehicles) were electirc vehicles with a 33-mile electric range and could be charged both at home and at work, all of the additional balancing requirements of 3.7 GW could be provided by the electric vehicles.

If electric vehicles could be used for both charging and discharging,  about 30 to 35% fewer vehicles would be required.

PNNL considered and interesting limiting case in which all the electric vehicles are available for charging and dischargign 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, basically a distributed stationary energy storage system.  In this scenario only about 560,000 vehicles would be necessary to balance the intermittent wind energy.

Carl Bass: Biggest change is the move to the cloud and mobile

There's an interview with Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, on Bloomberg West, that is particularly interesting because Carl discusses how customers are increasingly turning to Internet apps and cloud computing and the impact on traditional desktop computing.

"The biggest thing has been the move to the cloud and mobile.  We are reaching an audience that is far larger than we have ever reached before."  Carl points out that Autodesk spent almost 30 years selling engineering design software to accumulate 12 million customers, but it took a single iPhone app, Sketchbook Mobile, in just over a year to attract 7 million more.

US photovoltaic installations up while PV module prices decline dramatically

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the solar photovoltaic market in the US continues to expand.  In 2010, 887 MW of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) capacity were installed, doubling the capacity installed in 2009. In Q2 2011 grid-connected PV installations in Q2 reached 314 MW for a total installed capacity of 2.7 GW.  California and New Jersey lead the country in PV installation.

The US market in the first half of 2011 is rapidly changing.  PV module prices decreased precipitously across the country, on average 30% so far this year, but at the same times incentives also decreased in many locations.  Overall the drop in prices is expected to drive demand in the second half of 2011 leading to a doubling of capacity installed in 2011 compared to 2010.

Domestic manufacturing capacity is increasing.  There are about 50 facilities manufacturing PV polysilicon and components (wafers, cells, modules, inverters) in 21 states in the US.  Many of these plants are located in California, Oregon and Arizona, but also in Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey.  There appears to be increasing manufacuring capacity in the Midwest at the expense of the Eastern seaboard, which has seen a total of five plant closures in the last year and a half.

New record minimum for Arctic sea ice extent reported

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) the last record low for Arctic sea ice extent was recorded in September 2007. That year was also the first time the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic was ice free since satellite records began in 1978.

Researchers at the University of Bremen have reported that according to their calculations September 8, 2011 represents a new record minimum for the extent of Arctic sea ice extent.  They used high-resolution microwave data from a sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite. They estimated that the observed sea ice extent was 4.24 million km², 27,000 km² less than the previous record in 2007. However, other researchers report this year's minimum extent was a close second to 2007.

The Northwest Passage was again ice free this year, and the Northeast Passage north of Russia was passable with the help of an icebreaker.

A dramatic change in the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland has also been reported.

Gridweek: Smart grid scope for electric distribution companies

I have blogged previously about what Duke Energy, a vertically integrated electic power company that has generation, transmission, and distribution facilities, is doing to implement smart grid technology.  Many of the electric power utilities in the US and in Ontario are electric distribution companies, called local distribution companies (LDC) in Ontario, meaning that they buy their power from external sources.  In the US 70% of publically owned utilities don't own their own generation facilities and buy electric power in bulk.  Becasue they buy most of their power externally, electric distribution companies' priorities for smart grid can be different from vertically integrated companies.  For example, demand response is especially appealing to this type of power provider.

PECO, based in Philadelphia, is an example of an investor owned electric (and natural gas) electric distribution company.  PECO has 1.6 million electricity customers in southeastern Pennsylvania and  operates a network of 550 electric substations and 21,000 miles of distribution and local transmission lines.

Pennsylvania’s 2008 Act 129 requires that all Pennsylvania utilities install digital metering technology for customers as well as help customers reduce their overall energy use and their energy demand during the 100 highest use hours of the year.

PECO's parent Exelon also has an in-house plan for reducing carbon emissions calles Exelon 2020:  A Low-Carbon Roadmap, with a goal of reducing, offsetting or displacing more than 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year by 2020.

At Gridweek Todd McGregor of PECO outlined the scope of his utility's smart grid deployment.  This provides interesting insight into what electric distribution companies are focussng on in deploying smart grid.  The smart grid equipment PECO is deploying includes

• Smart meters (smart meters, AMI, data management)
• Communications (fiber, wireless, backhaul)
• Distribution automation (reclosers, vacuum circuit breakers, communications with other device types)
• Intelligent substations (TRU, line relays, disturbance monitoring equipment)

Installation of this equipment will provide the foundation for the smart grid programs that PECO is piloting currently and plans to roll out to customers.

Smart Home/business Demonstrations

• Dynamic pricing plans
• Liberty Smart Buildings
• Drexel Smart Campus
• PHA In-home display pilot
• Electric vehicle and energy storage pilots

Smart meters (AMI)

• Two way information flow to support
• system  status, customer outage status, power usage and pricing signals

Smart distribution system

• Real-time reporting of status and outages
• Automated control relays and reclosers
• Efficient field force management
• Effective interconnection of renewable energy sources

Smart utility

• More efficient data collection, processing, and back office functions
• Enhanced operations and customer insight

The overall project cost is $650 million and in October 2009, the Department of Energy awarded PECO a $170 million SGIG stimulus (ARRA) award.  Work is underway to deploy digital metering technology for all of PECO's 1.6 million electric customers during the next 10 years -- 5 years earlier than required under Act 129.

BIM for shale gas extraction

I've blogged previously about the tremendous impact that shale gas (also known as unconventional gas) extraction has had on the energy market in the US and potentially in Europe.

For companies and firms engaged in identification, design, construction and maintenance of extraction processes, what is needed is a streamlined process of design and data management that reduces errors, is model based, supports 3D visualization and simulation, and capable of sustainable workflows. BIM (Building Information Models) is being adopted by engineers, designers, geotechnical scientists, and operators are using to gain the most efficient process for resource extraction. BIM for Resource Extraction is comprised of various workflows focused at site identification, design (piping, plant, transportation), asset tracking, hydrological analysis and asset management.

Key Benefits:

• Integrate different data to identify optimal site locations for gas, oil pads?
• Putting your design information into real world context by creating 3D representations to share with stakeholders, review boards and public hearings.
• Perform hydrologic analysis capable of mitigating environmental impact and reducing permitting time
• Reduce design errors and the impact of change requests
• Manage operational assets and facility information

Neal Niemiec and Tanya West have developed a finished wellpad in Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler that shows various BIM models and integration of GIS information, a true BIM geospatial integration story.

Gridweek: Smart meters and geospatial technology help restore power faster

One of the questions Martin Rosenberg asked at the beginning of Thursday's panel discussion at Gridweek is if smart grids are so smart, why did the blackout in the Southwest that left millions withour power happen ?

 Alabama Power, which won a GridWeek Leadership Award last week at the Gridweek conference in Washington DC, provided a very interesting answer.  Alabama Power has deployed about 1.4 million smart meters in its operating territory. One of the initiatives they have undertaken to take advantage of their smart meters is to integrate their automated meter infrastructure (AMI) system with their outage management system (OMS).  The smart meters give them immediate information about whether what appears to be an outage is due to the electric network or a customer problem.  The integrated AMI/OMS system has helped in reducing unnecessary truck rolls.

Tornados

April 27th thirty tornados (there is an incredible video of a huge tornado moving through Tuscaloosa where you can see even flashes as power fuses go) hit Alabama Power's operating area completely destroying two substations, flattening transmission pylons, breaking 7500 poles, and leaving 400,000 cutomers without power. The 3.3 GW Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, which has three reactors similar in design to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, also lost power and had to shut down its reactors and use backup generators for cooling.

Monitoring the power outage house by house

By looking for smart meters that were read the day before and comparing them with the meters that could not be read after the tornados, Alabama Power was able to put together a detailed picture (see photo, and yes it uses Google Maps) of where power has been lost, without making telephone calls.  The application could also tell emergency response officials whether the power was on or off in specific buildings - critical information that first responders require before entering a damaged building.  In addition, they could also track power restoration trends as customers started coming back on-line.

The answer to the question at the beginning of this post is that smart grid may not be able to prevent an outage caused by this type of event, but it can help get power restored faster and more safely.

Gridweek: Smart meters, intelligent meters, digital meters or iMeters ?

A number of speakers at Gridweek preferred to use any term but smart meters when referring to electricity meters that are able to record electricity usage by the hour or quarter hour.  Duke Energy seems to prefer digital meter, one speaker used the term intelligent meter. 

But one speaker on Martin Rosenberg's panel Thursday morning conjectured tongue in cheek that if Apple had introduced an iMeter, we would see people lining up to buy one, rather than resisting them as has happened in Bakersfield.