cnn.com

7/20/09

Can computer software account for climate change?

• Story Highlights
• Greenhouse gas emissions software designed to track and then reduce GHGs
  
• Microsoft developed online tool for cities; many more designed for businesses
  
• Worldwide over 3,000 businesses use carbon accounting software; number to rise
  
• Being able to quantify emissions will lead to more effective action say analysts
  

By Dean Irvine
CNN

(CNN) -- Microsoft had trouble solving the problems with its Vista operating system, so what are its chances of fixing climate change?

The global software firm has created an online tool called Project 2 Degrees for cities across the world to monitor their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and, the hope is, then do something about them.

While Bill Gates' company have tailored an online carbon accounting tool for cities, businesses are increasingly turning on to the benefits and need to track their own GHGs, opening up an area for enterprise software companies to provide the best tools for the job.

"A lot of companies are worried and interested in carbon accounting, but don't necessarily feel an urgency to adopt it. But there is enough regulation in the pipeline, certainly in the U.S., that makes it look real and coming in a couple of years," said Scott Clavenna of Greentech Media.

"It will go from a niche of a couple of hundred companies using this kind of software right now to thousands."

The call for more carbon accounting doesn't have any emotive ad campaigns or Hollywood celebrity-backing, instead it uses cold hard data to track emissions and empower those responsible to try and reduce them.

Cities account for only 2 percent of the worlds land mass but produce up to 75 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, so became the focus for Project 2 Degrees that is a collaboration with software designers Autodesk and the Clinton Climate Initiative.

"This is a long journey for our governments, be they local or national, but we could have the biggest impact by working with local governments as they have the ability to measure what's happening locally in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and to have an effect on the local economy and the local environment first," Matt Miszewski, Microsoft's general manager for Worldwide E-government, told CNN.

Being one of the world's richest and most profitable companies, Microsoft offers it's online GHG accounting tool for free but says Miszewski, it goes further than that.

"We want to show how software can help solve some very difficult issues. A great deal of the importance of this project is to be able to share this information from city to city, region to region," he said.

The first cities that will be comparing their CO2 high scores come from the 56 cities associated with the inaptly named C40 group that is in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative. New York and Sydney were heavily involved in beta testing of Project 2 Degrees that started last year, and once more results are in it will be offered to around 1,000 other cities.

"It is eye opening to be able to chart actual emissions against targets to see the quantum of emissions reductions required. Typically these figures are not so readily accessed and this will be a major benefit of Project 2 Degrees," a spokesperson for Sydney's local government told CNN.

Who accounts for what?

Even if the tool is working as well as possible, it seems more needs to be done by businesses and cities to accurately collect and measure GHG emissions.

"Higher level guidance should come in the form of advising what emissions to report and provision of data where possible, however each city needs to take responsibility for the emissions it creates," a spokesperson for Sydney told CNN.

Knowing what needs to be reported is a challenge that is being met. The World Resources Institute's Greenhouse Gas Protocol is the most widely used international accounting tool for both governments and businesses, covering the six greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol.

"The World Resources Institute has done a really good job in defining the protocols in the data gathering. What do you gather from where and how do you report it? Now everyone is starting to compare apples to apples," Clavenna told CNN.

It could be a boom area for carbon accounting software developers. As well as numerous start-ups the big players including Microsoft's non-altruistic arm and SAP have begun their own programs aimed at businesses.

"The stakes are high for enterprise software," said Clavenna. "The big players are not aggressively marketing yet, but getting ready to come out with a big product when their customers need it."

Over 200 companies are developing accounting software, according to research by Greentech Media, and over 3,000 businesses are using their products to track their GHG emissions. Big corporations including Dell, Xerox and Pfizer have all been early adopters stretching back to 2002.

Limited carbon emissions regulations, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and at state level in the U.S., are in place, and a number of international voluntary programs also exist. Yet most of the early-adopter businesses are responding to public pressure for them to be environmentally-aware and shareholder requests for their business to be greener.

"There have been some light triggers -- stakeholder requests, even in HR, young people asking for proof that their company is green. In a down economy a company can choose to put them aside or table them for a while," said Clavenna.

But more significant factors are on the horizon: "The big triggers are a cap and trade regime, which [in the U.S.] would come through congress and set by the EPA who will say which companies need to report and what they need to report," said Clavenna.

A cap and trade program would mean thousands more companies would have to account for and report their GHG emissions as a market is created to trade excess CO2.

Strict accounting of emissions can also be a means to beat some corporate 'greenwashing', particularly in terms of companies making claims over their carbon footprints.

Ultimately however it is about reducing those footprints and aiming to limit global warming to only 2 degrees Celsius.

"There is a market out there for software that manages cap and trade, both from an intergovernmental aspect and a commercial aspect. Copenhagen will be a tipping point for those kinds of activity to move forward world wide. These folks are going to have an increased responsibility," said Miszewski.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/13/eco.carbon.accounting/

latimes.com

Dubai unveils $7.6-billion mass-transit rail system

The system includes VIP as well as regular-fare cars. Authorities are emphasizing the rail system's luxury and hoping the venture into mass transit will ease traffic congestion.

By Meris Lutz

11:28 AM PDT, September 9, 2009

Dubai, a Persian Gulf boomtown where Porsches share the road with truckloads of South Asian laborers, launched a mass-transit rail system today in an effort to ease crippling traffic that costs the city-state an estimated $1.4 billion a year.

Despite recent economic hardships, the railway in this city of superlatives -- home to palm-shaped artificial islands and the world's tallest building -- will retain a showy attitude. The system will include VIP cars with fares equivalent to $3.50 U.S., more than seven times the lowest cost ticket.

The $7.6-billion automatic rail system, under construction since 2005 and 80% over budget, made its inaugural journey today with several hundred contest winners as passengers, local media reported. Service opens to the public Thursday.

Initially only 10 of the 29 stations will operate on the Red Line. It runs from the airport through downtown, across the Dubai Creek and along the lengthy Sheikh Zayed Road adjacent to luxurious new high-rise towers, some of them unfinished because of the recent global economic downturn.

The Green Line is expected to open over the next year, expanding the system to about 47 stations along 46 miles of railway.

Currently only 5% of Dubai residents use public transportation, but authorities are hoping to raise that number to 20% by keeping regular fares between 50 cents and $1.50, the same as the bus system.

Rapid transit defines public space and life in cities such as New York, London or Paris. Many wonder whether Dubai's rail system can make a difference in a city defined by individualism and gated communities.

In seeking to establish itself as an international commercial center, Dubai championed exclusivity over accessibility, investing little in public space. Authorities are highlighting the grandeur of the new rail system over its convenience. But the system, which will run both above and below ground, might end up changing public attitudes anyway.

"There's a lot of emphasis on this being a luxurious public transportation system, which will distinguish Dubai from New York or London," said Tabitha Decker, a Yale University researcher and a visiting scholar at the Dubai School of Government, who is writing her dissertation on the development of the metro.

"It's about aesthetics and commercialism, but when you combine it with the fact that this is also a public good, this is a bit of a surprising moment in Dubai's history -- it's not fitting into our idea of what Dubai is," she said. "I think it's something Dubai should be proud of."

But some Dubai residents were skeptical about the metro's practicality, pointing out that the initial route only runs along Sheikh Zayed Road.

Ghassan Abdul-Sater, a 26-year-old Dubai resident and Lebanon native in the advertising business, said he will continue to drive to work rather than brave the hassle of public transportation.

"Parking somewhere to use the metro and then get off and walk to work?" he said. "I think I'll have minimal uses" for the metro.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-dubai-subway10-2009sep10,0,2016836.story

San Francisco Chronicle

September 9, 2009

Green buildings standard seen as flawed

Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Revelations that many buildings certified as green under a broadly accepted national standard for energy savings are not performing as well as predicted recently prompted changes to the program and are forcing San Francisco officials to consider amending city rules that are tied to the older guidelines.

The certification program, called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), is widely seen as the industry standard for green buildings. It uses a checklist and point system that rewards energy-efficient building designs and features such as low-flow water fixtures, bike storage, nontoxic paints and solar power.

Developers have used the stamp of approval as a way to expedite projects through city bureaucracies and charge high rents. Governments increasingly demand that new buildings adhere to the rules.

San Francisco boosted its reputation as one of the nation's most environmentally progressive cities in August 2008 when the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom approved an ordinance requiring that all new large commercial buildings be LEED certified.

The legislation was based on LEED standards established several years ago and it cemented the rules in place through 2012.

Meanwhile, studies released this summer by the U.S. Green Building Council, which developed the LEED system, suggested that 25 percent of the new buildings that have been approved nationwide do not save as much energy as expected, and most do not monitor their energy use. In June, the council announced a new requirement: Owners of all newly constructed buildings must agree to provide utility bills for the first five years of operation as a condition of certification.

Some construction and energy experts are urging the council to get even stricter and make certification contingent on meeting specific energy savings.

Council representatives note a gap between energy predictions made during buildings' design phases and how much energy they consume when actually operating. Tracking energy use and making it part of the certification process is an important development in the LEED system, they say.

"LEED is about how a building is designed, but we've always understood the building's performance is really critical," said Dan Geiger, executive director of the U.S. Green Building Council's Northern California chapter. "This is evolving in the direction that it should evolve."

San Francisco officials said Tuesday the city has long followed stringent state energy codes for new construction, which has kept building energy use down even before the rules adopted last year. But LEED's recent changes mean that the city should review its own rules before they expire in 2012.

"We need to reconvene the task force that recommended the legislation and makes some revisions way before 2012," said Rich Chien, the private sector green building coordinator for the San Francisco Department of the Environment. "With the changes coming along we could be out of date and we need to address that."

Architects and other private sector experts focused on the environment say the LEED certification system has placed green building practices on the map and that it is now moving into an important phase.

"LEED has done an exceptional job of raising awareness," said architect Jennifer Devlin of the San Francisco firm EHDD. "And the U.S Green Building Council recognizes that tracking energy use is vital to the sustainable building movement."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/09/BU1A19K7LM.DTL

USA Today

September 9, 2009

Study: Denser development may cut pollution By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY Would Americans drive less if they stopped living on big lots far from urban centers? If so, would that reduce pollution and dependence on energy? By how much? Meeting the growing demand for conveniently located homes in neighborhoods designed to encourage walking could significantly reduce the number of miles Americans drive while giving people more housing choices, a national research panel has concluded. How much it would shrink the nation's carbon footprint is not as clear. Such questions, which have dominated the debate over "smart growth" for two decades, are getting the attention of lawmakers. The Senate will debate a bill this fall that would cap greenhouse gas emissions, and Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to quantify the effect of where Americans live on driving habits. A boost from science After reviewing almost 100 studies conducted over 20 years, the National Research Council — one of the academy's research bodies — released findings last week. The research is potentially significant because it comes from a non-partisan group of mostly academics, scientists and researchers rather than advocacy groups: • More compact development would cut driving by 5% to 12%. "Simply reducing family-lot sizes — say, from 1 acre to a quarter-acre — should reduce vehicle trip distances by bringing origins and destinations closer together," the report says. Denser development can concentrate enough people in one area to attract businesses, public transit, schools and jobs. That, in turn, can reduce the need to drive everywhere. • Denser development will cut fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions. By how much is murky. "It will take awhile for that new development to have a very perceptible effect" on the number of miles driven, says José Go´mez-Ibáñez, chairman of the committee that produced the report and a planning professor atHarvard University. "Even if we started (developing) more compact and densely today, given (that) new housing stock is only 1% or 2% of housing stock every year, it will be several decades before there is an impact." If 75% of new and replacement housing units were built in more compact development — a scenario the report considers unlikely — residents of these communities would drive 25% less. Such a decline would cut carbon dioxide emissions 7% to 8% by 2030 and 8% to 11% by 2050, the report concludes. A more realistic scenario envisioned by the researchers has 25% of future housing in denser communities. The benefits: A 12% reduction in driving but as little as a 1% drop in emissions by 2030. The research suggests that many variables make it difficult to quantify the effect of denser development: • Building more densely won't stop driving if jobs and services are not nearby or if a community is built without sidewalks. • If cars become "greener," driving's impact on emissions will change. • Access to public transportation, such as light rail, subways, trolleys and buses, reduces driving more. Research 'underwhelming' The research council's findings are "underwhelming," says Samuel Staley, director of Urban & Land Use Policy for the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank. Staley, who says Americans should have a choice to live in exurbia if they want to, says the research offers scant evidence that dense communities produce great benefits. "CO2 reduction between 1% and 11%? That's a huge variation," he says. "In order to achieve this, we're talking about essentially not giving people much choice" of where to live. Greater benefits will come from technological improvements, such as plug-in hybrid cars, he says. "What comes out loud and clear is that if the miles we drive continue to grow at the projected rate, you blow your climate goals out of the water," says David Goldberg, spokesman for Smart Growth America, a national coalition that advocates denser development. "The basic message I got from this is that you can't go wrong by pursuing this strategy." In a 2007 report, the Urban Land Institute reached similar findings. "The most important thing is to reduce the amount we drive," says Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow at the institute, a research group that studies land use. "By just building two houses per acre from one house per acre would reduce (driving)." The research stresses that "you could have substantially more compact development without giving up single-family housing," Go´mez-Ibáña says.

New York Times

September 13, 2009

Urban Is Good

By ELIZABETH ROYTE

GREEN METROPOLIS

Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability

By David Owen

357 pp. Riverhead Books. $25.95

Monty PYTHON used to do a sketch in which the host of a children’s television show taught such broad lessons as “how to play the flute.” Breezily, the host would suggest blowing through one end of the instrument and wiggling one’s fingers over the holes. In “Green Metropolis,” David Owen sets out in similar vein to show how people can “permanently reduce energy use, water consumption, carbon output and many other environmental ills.” The answer, in short, is to live in densely populated cities. Would that it were so easy.

Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and use less energy to heat their homes (because those homes tend to share walls); and they’re less likely to accumulate a lot of large, energy-sucking appliances. People in cities use about half as much electricity as people who don’t, Owen reports, and the average New Yorker generates fewer greenhouse gases annually than “residents of any other American city, and less than 30 percent of the national average.”

And the carbon footprint of the hybrid-driving country dweller with her triple-paned windows, backyard composter and geothermal heat pump? Fuhgeddaboudit, Owen practically shouts: she’s still driving to work, to school, to shops and the post office. He doesn’t care if she’s powered by French fry grease or the juice of photovoltaic panels: “Wasted energy is wasted energy no matter how it’s generated.”

Even worse than the car itself is the sprawl and the energy-inefficient lifestyle that it enables — the duplication of infrastructure, larger houses with fertilized, irrigated yards, two-hour commutes. Spreading people thinly across the countryside may seem to decrease environmental impact (it certainly looks and smells better), but in fact it substantially increases that impact “while also making the problems . . . harder to see and to address.”

“Green Metropolis” challenges many cherished assumptions about easy-on-the-earth country living, though many of its revelations may not be revelatory to hardcore carbon counters, or to anyone who read Owen’s 2004 New Yorker article from which this book sprouted. Still, it contains some surprises (for example: it takes less energy and infrastructure to move people vertically, in counterweighted elevators, than horizontally). Pugnacious and contrarian, the book has a lot of fun at the expense of sentimental pastoralists, high-minded environmentalists and rich people trying to buy their way into higher green consciousness with expensive “eco- friendly” add-ons (photovoltaic panels on their suburban McMansions, say).

More generally, Owen attacks the anti-urban bias of the American environmental movement, from Thomas Jefferson through John Muir to the modern Sierra Club. He delineates how the movement has encouraged sprawl — by demonizing cities and exalting open space — and argues that they need to shift emphasis toward making urban living more “appealing and life enhancing.” According to Owen, the most critical environmental issues in dense urban cores aren’t carbon footprints but “old-fashioned quality of life concerns”: crime rates, bad smells, education. The more pleasant the city, the more people will stay in it, rather than fleeing to car-dependent suburbs — as Owen and his wife did when they left Manhattan for a leafy Connecticut town more than 20 years ago.

Of course, many environmental groups do work on building livable and affordable cities, even while others embrace a “buy it to preserve it” strategy (condemned by Owen as “Nature Conservancy brain”). Environmental groups, the author writes, should focus on “intelligently organizing the places where people are,” instead of where they aren’t. I would argue that if no one defends the places people are not, they won’t be people-free for long. Not only will we lose the idea of wilderness — which some consider essential to our human identity — but we’ll lose its invaluable services, like the protection of drinking water and the sequestration of carbon. (In general, concerns about clean water and air get scant shrift here, and New Yorkers are told they needn’t fret about conserving electricity, since they already use far less per capita than the national average. This reviewer, who is always looking for something new to unplug, is shocked. And doubtful.)

Waxing crankier, Owen takes some digs at solar power, net metering (which gives people credit for wind or solar power they deliver back to the grid) and distributed generation: he claims they spur growth and consumption in the ’burbs, though he doesn’t give their proponents a chance to rebut his charges, and many of his assertions have a “just so” flavor. He briefly disses locavorism as “arithmetical sleight of hand.” Yes, fruit trucked from California to Connecticut has a much lower “fuel per berry” expenditure than fruit Owen buys after making a special trip to a farm 20 miles away, but he ignores the value of supporting farmers so they don’t sell out to developers — not to mention common-sense route planning. Owen applauds the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program for raising awareness of environmentally responsible construction but condemns it for encouraging high-priced, high-visibility add-ons (argon-filled windows) instead of non-sexy, lower cost, simpler measures (hand-cranked awnings and better insulation). He correctly notes the perversity of a system that rewards points for “maximizing open space” to companies that build on the corners of large lots in auto-dependent exurbs. Erecting a tower near a downtown bus stop would do significantly less environmental harm.

AFTER laying out what’s wrong with the car-dependent lifestyle, Owen offers some nifty but politically challenging prescriptions. For mass transit to work, he writes, cities must not only achieve a threshold of mixed-use density, but driving must become an exceedingly unpleasant alternative. Bring on the double- parked Fed-Ex trucks, the jaywalkers, potholes and scaffolding; reduce road capacity, banish free parking and raise bridge and road tolls. Traffic jams, he writes, “actually generate environmental benefits, because they urge drivers (and cab riders) either into the subways or onto the sidewalks.”

And don’t get Owen started on high- occupancy-vehicle (H.O.V.) lanes: they mostly just ease traffic! (The author considers anything that makes driving more agreeable, whether hands-free cellphones or recorded books or drive-through Starbucks, an environmental negative.) The real way to make an H.O.V. lane work, he says, is to eliminate regular lanes, increase the number of occupants required to enter the H.O.V. lane, and then charge those single-occupant cars, forced into slow-moving lanes, tolls. Then pray they’ll give up and join a carpool.

Manhattan may be able to teach the country about true sustainability, but where will those lessons assume bricks-and-mortar shape? We aren’t about to tear down our suburbs and force their inhabitants into dense urban areas. Owen admits that “how to apply that template remains a frustrating mystery.” Before giving up entirely, however, he hops in a jet to see if rapidly urbanizing China or India is doing any better (nope).

Ultimately, almost all of Owen’s potential solutions for treading more lightly on the planet rely on economics (“Environmental solutions that depend solely on will power are doomed to fail,” he notes). Raise the price of doing bad, while making good more attractive. Tax energy consumption and emissions. Enact policy measures that lead consumers to feel they have no choice but to find or create alternatives to solo automobile use.

It sounds good on paper, but there’s always going to be a sticking point: human nature. We all yearn for our own personal space, a little fresh air and elbow room. Owen doesn’t want to give up his charming but energy-inefficient house in rural Connecticut any more than I would (if I had one). And so he does what anyone with some extra cash and a conscience must: he buys and installs more insulation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/books/review/Royte-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Utilities' smart meters save money, but erode privacy

By Andrew Maykuth

Inquirer Staff Writer

Those new smart meters Peco Energy Co. and other utilities will install soon are being touted as money-savers that will give customers more control over their electric bills.

But for the utilities, the meters' real worth lies in the information generated, including details that some customers might prefer remained secret.

Already, Peco is analyzing daily readings to spot thieves who intermittently bypass the meters and steal power. And experts looking at meter data can discern the telltale signs of illicit activity, such as a marijuana "grow house."

But the new generation of smart meters that Pennsylvania utilities are required to install will produce far more data, generating readings at least hourly. The meters could record material so frequently that power flows could be interpreted like DNA to reveal unique electrical signatures of individual appliances.

Some experts imagine an Orwellian future in a carbon-constrained world, where consumers are cited for excessive electricity use, or divorce lawyers comb through meter records and ask: Who used the hot tub while the spouse was away?

"The privacy implications are astounding," said Susan L. Lyon, a Seattle lawyer who specializes in data-security issues. She compared the smart grid's potential benefits - and risks - with those of the Internet.

"The drive to retool the United States' electricity generation and distribution networks may inadvertently raise a monster with unparalleled abilities to invade residential privacy," Elias Leake Quinn, a research analyst at the Center for Energy and Environmental Security in Boulder, Colo., wrote in a recent paper on smart meters.

Last month, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission opened an inquiry into the privacy implications. Other states are expected to follow.

"I think smart meters do raise issues around cybersecurity and data security that the industry in general hasn't addressed fully yet," said Bernard Bujnowski, president of Utilimetrics, a utility-technology association.

Peco announced plans last month to spend $650 million in 10 years for improvements to its distribution system, including installing 1.6 million smart meters. It applied for a $200 million federal stimulus grant to accelerate the plan and deploy 600,000 meters in the next three years.

Smart meters, which Pennsylvania is requiring for all large electric utilities, allow for two-way wireless communication with customers. They will set the stage for time-of-day discount pricing to encourage off-peak consumption. And for customers who consent, utilities can control some home appliances, such as air conditioners, remotely by sending a signal to a smart meter.

Smart meters also will allow utilities to shut customers off remotely; currently, a crew has to physically disconnect the meter. They also will improve utilities' ability to detect and manage outages.

But because they capture so much information, the meters also can reveal intimate details about activity inside a customer's house: when they are home; when they sleep; when they eat.

"What if insurance adjusters determined that you were coming home night after the night when the bars closed?" asked Quinn. "The smart grid will contain a library of information."

He acknowledged that some of the fears were hypothetical and "off the wall": Will the diet police really want to know who opened the refrigerator at 3 a.m.? And that utilities are adept now at keeping things private.

"Utilities tend to be very protective of their information, especially for big users where electrical usage is a trade secret," Quinn said.

Still, he recalled that in 2007, the day after Al Gore's climate-change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, received an Oscar, Tennessee political activists released the purloined electric billings for Gore's Nashville mansion to embarrass him - his usage was nearly 20 times the national average.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, in its smart-meter directive in June, acknowledged public concerns about keeping data secure. The PUC also said that it did not intend to preclude third parties from obtaining raw meter data "with customer consent."

"We wouldn't share customer data unless we had a contractual arrangement and a disclosure around privacy," said Charles H. White, a director in Peco's customer-operations department.

Analysts are only beginning to exploit the flood of data produced by the current generation of digital meters, which utilities such as Peco installed in the last decade to replace manual devices that had to be physically read every month by a meter reader.

"Utilities were putting that data on the shelf and not using it - terabytes of information," said Rick Brakken, chief executive officer of DataRaker Inc., a Sausalito, Calif., firm that specializes in analyzing energy data.

Brakken said DataRaker had devised algorithms that compared meter readings with weather patterns and public information on properties to detect abnormal consumption - too high, too low, or conspicuous interruptions.

Officials in Peco's Revenue Protection Unit, which investigates meter tampering, speak highly of DataRaker's services, which they have employed for two years. Peco investigators verified thefts at more than 80 percent of the accounts flagged through DataRaker's analysis.

Because bills are based on a single monthly reading, electricity theft often is committed by customers who systematically bypass meters when they mistakenly believe readings are not being taken.

Brakken's software demonstrated its value a few years ago at PPL Electric Utilities Corp., whose meters take hourly reads, said Bujnowski, who headed advanced metering at the Allentown utility before he joined Utilimetrics.

The analysts pinpointed the records of a customer in an affluent all-electric subdivision whose consumption shut down every Friday and resumed at the end of the weekend, Bujnowski said. At the house, PPL investigators found the meter rigged with a switch that allowed the customer to divert power.

Theft detection is only one benefit utilities say they will derive from more thorough meter analysis. Some utilities are analyzing data to pinpoint customers whose consumption is falling inexplicably, a sign of a failing meter that needs replacement.

Peco said it was exploring using DataRaker to identify customers with excessive energy use compared with their neighbors and offer them weatherization or low-income assistance. By targeting heavy users, the utility can maximize energy-conservation grants.

And after a Peco meter analysis revealed winter consumption had grown dramatically in some North Philadelphia neighborhoods where customers switched to electrical heaters, the utility last year replaced 17 overloaded transformers in danger of failing.

Brakken said he believed some benefits of smart meters were overhyped for the small savings they would provide.

But helping utilities understand their customers, and helping customers better understand their usage, can reap real dividends, he said.

"The real value of smart meters is the information."

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20090906_Utilities__smart_meters_save_money__but_erode_privacy.html

10 Innovative Cities to Become Greener

By Lee Hyo-sik Staff Reporter The previous Roh Moo-hyun administration designated Busan and nine other large cities in provincial areas as ``innovative'' cities to promote the regional economies in the name of balanced national development. But the Lee Myung-bak government Sunday took a step further by pledging to turn the 10 municipalities into environment-friendly and low-carbon urban metropolises. They are expected to house not only plants and other business-related facilities, but also universities and research institutes, becoming an academic-industrial cluster. After compiling development proposals from municipal administrations, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs unveiled these and other measures to establish the innovative cities in an environment-friendly and energy-efficient manner. The government introduced a range of policies worth billions of dollars over the past year to transform the nation into a low-carbon and alternative energy-based economy. The ministry vowed to actively lend financial and administrative support to municipal governments for the early completion of the city projects. Larger state-owned land for the construction of research centers and other urban facilities will be provided at cheaper prices. Under the scheme, a total of 161 kilometers of bicycle roads will be constructed across the 10 cities to reduce auto exhaust, with roads and other urban infrastructures being built in a way to help the elderly and physically handicapped live more conveniently. An innovative city to be built in North Chungcheong Province will adopt an environment-friendly energy system that recycles residential and industrial waste, as well as reuses rainwater. Buildings will be equipped with air-conditioning and heating mechanisms powered by sunlight and other renewable energy resources. Daegu will be developed into a model alternative energy-based metropolis, while the city being constructed in North Jeolla Province will have environment-friendly roads and other transport infrastructures. Both cities will house a number of privately run high schools and universities to improve the educational environment. Busan innovative city will be the home of a maritime, financial and multi-media cluster, with Ulsan being transformed into a center for energy and environment-related research. South Gyeongsang Province will create an industrial, logistics and tourism belt along its southern coast line, while Jeju will be developed into a tourism and convention hub. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_51343.html

60 solar powered Indian cities by 2020: US energy official

TNN 8 September 2009, 03:29am IST

PANAJI: Sixty Indian cities will be solar powered by 2020 if India is able to generate 20,000 MW of solar energy by then, said Mark Ginberg, senior official with the US Department of Energy, on Monday.

The US Department of Energy and the All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) launched a joint training programme on 'Energy efficient and green cities' in Goa, which will train Indian experts, universities, local self governments and civic bodies on getting cities to move to solar powered energy.

"Twenty cities in India have already been lined up for this programme and they will be partnered with cities in the US for moving towards this objective," said Ginberg, who is senior executive advisor to the assistant secretary of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US department of energy.

According to an initial list of partnered Indo-US cities, Ahmedabad has been tied up with Atlanta and Columbus; Bangalore with San Francisco; Chennai with Denver, Delhi with Chicago, Mumbai with Los Angeles, Surat with Philadelphia and Vadodara (Baroda) with Edison, New Jersey, which has a large Gujarati community.

"This tie-up with enable institutions such as schools to study energy-smart schools in the US and implement the same here, if they wish to do so," said Vatsal Bhatt, co-ordinator of US, India and China city partnership for sharing best practices in energy and environment.

"For example: Mumbai port could get an on-field experience how LA port has adopted energy smart measures," said Bhatt, who is also energy analyst, Brookhaven National Laboratory.

When queried whether the US government would be funding such projects in India, or provide the equipment, he replied in the negative.

It maybe noted here that the US government has realised the importance of renewable energy in the future and has pumped billions of dollars into such programmes in America.

"Barack Obama has marked 60 billion dollars into energy efficiency and renewable energy. Five billion dollars has been set aside each for cities and states, federal buildings and low income families to move to renewable energy sources," Ginberg added.

Also present was Union minister of state for power Bharatsinh Solanki, who said that the country could make use of its open fields and rooftops of houses to harness solar energy and water harvesting.

"Delhi has already considering on setting up an energy efficiency board. Nuclear energy will the answer in the future, even thorium techniques could be utilised. However, in India, we have financial constraints," he said.

Later, governor S S Sidhu said that of the 10 largest cities in the world, eight will be in developing countries. "We have been focussing more on space and less on people. We must also look at improvements in slums and housing for the poor," he said.

Also present at this conference are mayors and civic officials from 30 Indian cities and abroad.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4983715,prtpage-1.cms

Let the Sun Shine

With the price of solar panels falling, now may be a good time for consumers to take a look

By CASSANDRA SWEET

The solar industry has been struggling this year against weak demand, ample supply and sliding prices. Which means that for anyone thinking about putting solar panels on their roof, there probably hasn't been a better time.

All along the supply chain, prices have been falling, and could fall further still. Silicon, a main ingredient in most panels, has been selling for as little as half what it went for a year ago, while some panels and installed systems can be had for 25% less, retailers and installers say. Throw in a 30% rebate offered by the U.S. government, plus rebates in California, New Jersey, New York and other states, and, depending on where you live, you could be looking at $15,750 for a system that would have cost nearly twice as much a year ago when the federal rebate was much smaller.

"Solar is now affordable for people for whom it wasn't before," says Jeff Wolfe, chief executive of groSolar, a solar-panel system installer and distributor based in White River Junction, Vt. Mr. Wolfe says his company has been installing rooftop residential solar systems for three-quarters of the price it would have charged last year.

Slack Demand

Falling costs aren't the only reason. Lower government subsidies in Spain, the No. 2 market for solar panels, have helped reduce demand globally, and consumers and businesses are spending less amid the world-wide recession. With inventories of solar panels brimming, distributors and installers are much more willing to cut prices to keep sales volume moving.

For large buyers, negotiating a good deal for solar panels has never been easier. Installers who serve homeowners, though, are a fractured market of primarily smaller businesses. Solar panels account for a little more than a third of the total cost of a residential system, so there's a limit to how low an installer can go for individual customers. But bargains can still be had.

A group of San Francisco entrepreneurs called One Block Off the Grid has helped homeowners organize buying groups of 100 or more in the same city. The organization recently reached a deal in Los Angeles for $6.05 a watt for each installed system, 17% less than a similar deal it arranged last summer, which was below market at the time, says Dave Llorens, co-founder and general manager.

Some homeowners could be paying as high as $14 a watt because they're not aware of what others are paying, says Mr. Llorens, who previously worked for an installer. He says he started his group in part to give homeowners a way to compare prices. In early September, the group was preparing to launch a Web-based application that would give homeowners online solar-energy price estimates. Mr. Llorens says online quotes and other marketing innovations are needed to serve homeowners and boost residential demand.

"People appreciate transparency of pricing," he says.

The average wholesale price for solar panels charged to distributors ranges from less than $2 a watt for large-scale customers to under $2.50 a watt for smaller buyers, says Paula Mints, a solar-industry analyst at Navigant Consulting in Palo Alto, Calif. She adds that panel prices have been "reacting on almost a weekly basis." A year ago, prices ranged from $3.50 to as much as $5 a watt. A typical residential system produces 4 to 5 kilowatts, or 4,000 to 5,000 watts.

Apart from panel prices, the other costs of installing a solar system generally haven't fallen. But prices for inverters, which change the direct-current electricity from the panels into alternating current for use by home appliances, other materials and labor could eventually fall as technology improvements are made, says Sachu Constantine, a senior analyst at the California Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco.

Mr. Constantine adds that panel prices would be even lower now if it weren't for the weak leverage of small residential solar installers and long-term purchase contracts that many are locked into. Still, government analysts expect residential solar-panel prices to fall further over time.

"The oversupply is real and we expect to see an effect," Mr. Constantine says.

Prices are being further pressured by Chinese solar panel manufacturers, who are churning out much cheaper panels than those made in Europe and the U.S. Stimulus funds distributed by the Chinese government have kept many of the country's panel makers in business, and they're likely to gain a foothold in the market, says Henning Wicht, a solar-market analyst at iSuppli Corp., an electronics research firm based in Frankfurt.

It could take a year or more to work through the global oversupply of panels, Mr. Wicht says. "We know that prices will stay low and the margins are close to zero for most makers," he says, adding that he thinks an exception is First Solar Inc., a Tempe, Ariz.-based thin-film solar-panel maker that has managed to cut its manufacturing costs.

Mr. Wicht estimates U.S. retail solar-panel prices have declined about 10% on average from a year ago, due to a lag between wholesale and retail price moves and a lack of prompt retail pricing data. But retail prices likely will keep falling as wholesale prices stay low amid the global oversupply, he says.

In the meantime, homeowners looking for a deal can turn to online wholesalers like Wholesale Solar, a small family-owned company in Mt. Shasta, Calif., that designs plug-and-play solar systems. Wholesale Solar's business is up by more than half this year, says owner Ellen Coleman.

Convenience Factor

"As prices come down, the only thing that's going to hold people back from putting solar on their own homes is how easy or difficult it is to set it up," she says. Wholesale Solar designs and builds the system, then ships it to the customer, who hires an electrical contractor to install it. Because the system is already built, the customer saves on labor and overhead costs, Ms. Coleman says.

Some companies also install and own residential rooftop solar panels, then sell the electricity to the homeowner in a long-term contract. SolarCity of Foster City, Calif., and SunRun Inc. of San Francisco have been providing such services for a few years. Solar-panel maker SunPower Corp. of San Jose, Calif., offers leasing options, loans and other financing help.

--Ms. Sweet is a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in San Francisco. She can be reached atcassandra.sweet@dowjones.com.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204313604574330572870415610.html#printMode

Edison's rooftop solar project powers up

Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Solar panels atop ProLogis’ warehouse in Fontana can power about 1,300 homes. The building is the first of 150 that Edison hopes to outfit with panels.

The utility's ratepayer-financed plan to outfit 150 buildings with the panels is cheered by business owners but criticized by consumer activists.

By Marla Dickerson 
December 2, 2008

Southern California Edison on Monday unveiled its newest power plant: 33,700 solar panels atop a warehouse in Fontana that will feed green energy directly into the grid.

It's the first piece of what the utility says could become the largest rooftop solar installation in the world, a swath of photovoltaic panels spanning two square miles.

The 600,000-square-foot warehouse rooftop, owned by logistics firm ProLogis Inc., is the first of 150 commercial buildings that Edison is looking to outfit with solar panels over the next five years. Collectively, solar panels on all those roofs would provide 250 megawatts of electricity, enough by Edison's reckoning to power more than 160,000 homes when the sun is shining.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand to flip a mock switch on the 2-megawatt Fontana system, which cost $10 million and can light about 1,300 homes. 

"I am a fanatic about renewable energy, and I have been trying to push the power companies . . . to create more," said Schwarzenegger, who urged Edison to move even faster on its proposed plan. 

If approved by state regulators, Edison's photovoltaic project would be the largest ever attempted by a U.S. utility; 250 megawatts roughly equals the capacity of all the solar panels manufactured in the United States last year. 

The massive size reflects the pressure California's investor-owned power companies are under to meet state mandates requiring them to boost the use of clean energy. It also underscores an evolution in solar financing. Rather than pay for their own panels, companies such as ProLogis are increasingly leasing out their roofs to utilities or striking long-term power contracts with third parties, which own, install and maintain the panels.

The approach is a hit with business owners who are finding their roofs to be unexpectedly valuable real estate. Urban solar is also popular with environmentalists because it can be linked to existing transmission lines and it transforms barren industrial space into platforms for clean power.

"This is exactly what all the energy companies should be doing," said Terry Weiner, conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council. She said the solution to global warming "is right there on the roof."

But not everyone is enamored of Edison's plan. The Rosemead-based utility, a subsidiary of Edison International, wants its customers to pick up the nearly $1-billion tab for the proposed 150-roof project.

Consumer activists object. They say Edison should be looking to cheaper sources of renewable power, such as large solar and wind farms and geothermal plants. They contend that Edison International shareholders, not utility ratepayers, should finance the company's huge bet on photovoltaic rooftop solar, one of the most expensive forms of clean energy.

Edison used so-called thin-film panels on its first rooftop project. Supplied by Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc., that technology is significantly cheaper than traditional silicon-based solar cells. Still, Edison estimates that electricity from the Fontana facility costs about 27 cents a kilowatt hour, compared with an average of 8 cents a kilowatt hour from conventional generation.

"This is not the most cost-effective renewable they could invest in," said Sepideh Khosrowjah, policy advisor for the Division of Ratepayer Advocates of the California Public Utilities Commission. The independent advocacy operation has asked the commission to reject the ratepayer-financed plan. Others fear that Edison would drive up the cost of solar panels by gobbling a limited supply and that the utility would have an unfair advantage over private-sector solar providers, which don't have a captive group of ratepayers to fund their operations.

"This is a solar monopoly that will eliminate its competition," said Michael Boyd, president of the nonprofit Californians for Renewable Energy Inc., in a filing with utility regulators.

Edison executives said their entry into the market would help to lower solar panel prices for everyone because of economies of scale. The company's big orders would help manufacturers improve designs, increase efficiency and ultimately cut prices, said Ted Craver, chief executive of Edison International.

Edison is complementing, not competing, he said, with the private-sector firms that are thriving under California's existing Million Solar Roofs Initiative. That program provides hefty state incentives to homeowners and businesses that install systems less than 1 megawatt in size. 

Craver said Edison's photovoltaic project aimed to install systems ranging from 1 megawatt to 2 megawatts on commercial rooftops.

"It fills a gap," Craver said.

California law requires Edison, PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to procure at least 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. Schwarzenegger wants to boost that minimum to 33% by 2020. Edison is currently at 16%.

Edison already is the nation's largest purchaser of solar power with 354 megawatts under contract. Much of that comes from large-scale solar projects located in remote desert areas, which take years to permit and build.

Craver said Edison wanted to add urban rooftop solar to the mix because it can be rolled out rapidly, getting more clean megawatts online sooner. The Fontana project was completed in a few months.

Edison on Monday announced its second rooftop project atop a 458,000-square-foot industrial building in Chino that is slated for completion in early 2009. Craver said it would probably be Edison's last if the state Public Utilities Commission didn't approve its proposal.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sunroof2-2008dec02,0,3036433.story

City wants new energy plant built near airport, but aviation expertsand others say that could have disastrous consequences

By Michael Burge

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 23, 2008

The city of Carlsbad's fight to shift a proposed power plant away from the coast, where the owner wants to build it, to eastern Carlsbad faces a serious obstacle: airplanes.

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune With the Encina Power Station's 400-foot-tall smokestack visible about four miles away, a small private plane came in for a landing at McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. Hot exhaust from smokestacks at a power plant proposed for a site near the airport could cause turbulence for planes landing there.

The city's favored site, the Carlsbad Oaks North industrial park in eastern Carlsbad, is within a mile and a half of McClellan-Palomar Airport's runway, posing potential trouble for air navigation. And one of Carlsbad's backup sites, the city's police and fire safety center, is even closer.

Building a power plant near an airport can be dangerous because the stacks would stand 140 feet tall, creating a physical and visual hazard for aircraft. Also, hot exhaust emanating from the stacks could cause turbulence for planes landing at the airport.

“Both of those areas are in the arrival area of light aircraft, where they're descending,” said Ron Cozad, an attorney and regional vice president of the California Pilots Association. “That would be disastrous. It couldn't be done.”

Graphic: Power plant sites

There have been 10 accidents since 2000 involving aircraft taking off or landing at McClellan-Palomar Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Five were fatal crashes that killed a total of 13 people, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The National Transportation Safety Board has determined probable causes in six of the 10 accidents. All were the result of pilot error, and weather was a factor in three, Gregor said.

NRG Energy, which owns and operates the 54-year-old, oceanfront Encina Power Station, has applied to the California Energy Commission to build a 540-megawatt plant on its coastal property west of Interstate 5 on the south shore of Agua Hedionda Lagoon. It hopes to have the plant operating by 2011.

The city wants any power plant moved off the coast to an inland location in Carlsbad.

“It all comes down to we don't think the coastline is an appropriate site,” said Joe Garuba, the city's municipal projects manager. “All we're trying to do is point out there's a whole lot of sites that are better than the coast.”

City officials have said the land, with an unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean, is prime property for a hotel and other developments that would serve the public.

The California Energy Commission – not the city – has authority over issuing permits for power plants. The city can question NRG's data and comment during the application process.

City officials offered two alternative sites – Carlsbad Oaks North and Maerkle Reservoir in the city's northeast – but have since said the reservoir is off the table because it is too close to the Ocean Hills senior community in Oceanside.

Carlsbad Oaks North is a 400-acre business park north of Faraday Avenue and west of Melrose Avenue that is seeking tenants.  NRG has rejected both sites for various reasons.

Tim Hemig, NRG's project manager for the proposed power plant, says the business park falls within a proposed safety zone for the airport where development is limited. The purpose of the zone is to ensure that structures around an airport don't pose hazards to airplanes and people on the ground.  “There's a black-and-white restriction that says no power plant can be sited in (the safety zone),” Hemig said.

Sandi Sawa, manager of airport planning for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, which is establishing safety zones around airports, said McClellan-Palomar's zone has not been adopted, so it is not black and white.  “Under current plans, there's no reason a power plant couldn't be allowed there,” Sawa said.

A power plant would have to be approved by the FAA and the California Department of Transportation's aeronautics division, she said.  Gregor said developers hoping to build near airports must apply to the FAA, which determines whether a structure's height would interfere with air navigation.

The FAA has no authority to block developments, but its recommendation carries weight with other agencies that can, he said.  Caltrans' aeronautics division has such authority.  “We may look at it and suggest against it ... if we think it creates a hazard,” said Phillip Miller of Caltrans' aeronautics division.  Miller said the agency would comment on the proposal to the California Energy Commission.

When Caltrans declared that a 180-foot building under construction in Kearny Mesa endangered airplanes flying into Montgomery Field, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre used that as ammunition to force the developer, Sunroad Enterprises, to shave 20 feet off the building's height last year.

NRG points to the California Energy Commission's recent rejection of a proposed power plant in the San Francisco Bay Area, called Eastshore Energy Center, as an example of why it doesn't want to pursue the Carlsbad Oaks North location.  The commission found that hot exhaust from the proposed plant would have been hazardous to planes landing at nearby Hayward Executive Airport.

Carol Gold, vice president of the California Pilots Association, said that because of the heavy air traffic around Hayward – Oakland International Airport is to the north and San Francisco International to the west – planes have limited airspace. Any attempt to go around the power plant would have forced them into another airport's traffic pattern.  “You can't avoid it by flying above,” Gold said.

Hemig said NRG has determined that a plume from its power plant could go as high as 1,700 feet, and planes fly at a lower altitude near the Carlsbad Oaks North industrial park, creating a hazard.  Garuba said the energy commission's Eastshore Energy Center ruling doesn't apply to Carlsbad.  He said another, larger power plant was approved within a mile of Eastshore and that pilots had to avoid the plant. That left no other space for airplanes to go if Eastshore was built.  “They're boxed in,” which is not the case with McClellan-Palomar Airport, Garuba said.

Peter Drinkwater, director of airports for San Diego County, which owns and operates McClellan-Palomar, said a new power plant near the airport would require close scrutiny.  “One thing for certain is if something gets built and it affects the flight path, then one thing that can mitigate (it) is a change in the flight path or pattern, or the approaches,” Drinkwater said. “But those things obviously cause other problems.”

Some residents who live near the airport complain that planes fly over their homes, and the airport tells pilots to avoid residences to minimize the noise. Many residents say that doesn't take care of the problem.  Garuba said the city contacted the FAA this year about aviation issues regarding a proposed power plant.  “That was one of the first things we did, and ruled out stuff” based on that contact, Garuba said.  He said there is enough space around Carlsbad Oaks North to mitigate the possible impacts.

Cozad, of the pilots association, said he doesn't see how the city's chosen site can get off the ground.  “This is a very scary issue,” he said. “You just don't put a power plant at the arrival end of an airport.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20081123-9999-lz1mc23power.html