Deepak Advani, General Manager, Cloud and Smarter Infrastructure, IBM

By Deepak Advani

The Internet Age has made it possible for dramatic amounts of information to be available at our fingertips. And as capacity expands and accessibility grows, we push ever closer to the  Internet-of-things, where our physical and digital worlds are tightly coupled and leveraged.

With the ability to generate, share, store and access increasing amounts of data – Big Data – the challenge soon becomes one of management and analysis. Left alone, the mountains of seemingly disparate information are useless. But when mined intelligently, they become treasure troves of insight that can unlock benefits, such as improved customer service, equipment-saving predictive maintenance, and new business opportunities, to name a few.

Take for example, the second largest commodity rail carrier in the European Union, PKP Cargo. The company manages 63,000 wagons and 2,400 locomotives that transport more than 110 million tons of cargo every year. PKP Cargo offers one-stop logistical services that include 10 multi-system locomotives, ensuring continuous journeys along routes electrified by more than one system. These trains and wagons are used for international transport in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Belgium. On average, the company runs about 1,000 trains a day, servicing several thousand customers.

The amount of data being generated and needing to be tracked was difficult for PKP to sift through. The company realized it wasn’t just the task of tracking their wagons and trains that was vexing; it was the lack of analytics that it could turn into actionable information. Through IBM Maximo Asset Management software, PKP can now better predict when and where cargo will arrive, making sure each train is on schedule and meeting customer expectations. Just as important as tracking their assets, analytics empowers more than 10,000 of PKP’s employees with information to make more intelligent decisions, which ultimately enables PKP to expand its business. By also tracking the usage of each physical asset, PKP is using IBM analytics to predict potential repairs before failures occur and to perform preventative maintenance on its rolling stock.

PKP’s use of analytics is not uncommon and neither is the concept of gleaning intelligence from data to create new opportunities. Consider Pakistan. The country is quickly outpacing its current power generation capacity, with energy consumption growing by almost 80 percent in the last 15 years. The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) forecasts the country’s electricity demand will increase to around 40,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020. The country’s current power generation capacity is at 23,538 MW.

To meet these growing demands, Pakistan created its first hydroelectric power plant through its operator, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) Remaco. The recently-constructed $235 million plant will help meet Pakistan’s growing energy needs by adding an estimated net annual energy of 540 GWh to the national grid and enhance the hydro power generation capacity of Independent Power Producers (IPP) by 40 percent. The addition of this power source will replace about 135,000 tons of imported oil, reducing carbon emissions and saving Pakistan approximately US$100 million per year in fuel costs.

The inherent challenge, however, was managing the hydro plant operations in a way that could scale to meet business demands. Through IBM’s asset management software, TNB Remaco now employs a single, converged view of all energy data, as well as asset and service management data. That enables employees to identify problematic equipment and make better informed decisions that are critical to the operations of the plant

The moving parts of a hydroelectric plant or railroad system serve as good examples of how our world is dependent on the mechanics and operations of physical objects. But today, we can do more than just monitor these systems and machines. We can collect data from them and apply analytics to make better, more strategic decisions on how to use them. The next step will be finding ways to create “cognitive” systems that can learn, adapt and hypothesize answers.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, PKP Cargo, smarter analytics, Smarter Transportation, smarter utilities

Andrea Pedretti, CTO, Airlight Energy

By Andrea Pedretti

It would take only two percent of the Sahara Desert’s land area to supply the world’s electricity needs. Unfortunately, current solar technologies are too expensive and slow to produce, require rare Earth minerals and lack the efficiency to make such massive installations practical. To address this, scientists at Airlight Energy have teamed up with IBM and Swiss university partners to develop an affordable photovoltaic system that is capable of concentrating, on average, the power of 2,000 suns, onto hundreds of 1×1 cm chips.

The prototype system uses a large parabolic dish made from a multitude of mirror facets. The dish is attached to a tracking system that determines the best angle based on the position of the sun. Once aligned, the sun’s rays reflect off the mirror onto several microchannel liquid-cooled receivers with triple-junction photovoltaic chips. Each 1×1 centimeter chip can convert 200-250 watts, on average, over a typical eight-hour day in a sunny region. 


The solar receiver system will use hot-water cooling processor technology, developed by our partners at IBM for supercomputers. Based on a collaboration with the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center  it was reapplied to cool photovoltaic chips.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I am particularly proud of the design, which I refer to as “frugal innovation.” I describe it this way because we have replaced expensive steel and glass with low cost concrete and simple pressurized metalized foils. Our business will manufacturer the small high-tech components, in particular the microchannel coolers and the molds, in Switzerland, while the remaining construction and assembly will be done in the region of the installation. This will create jobs in my home country and abroad, which is also rewarding for me.

To provide fresh water our colleagues at IBM are using a unique concept that they originally helped to develop for water-cooled supercomputers. With both the Aquasar and SuperMUC supercomputers water is used to absorb heat from the processor chips, which is then used to provide space heating for the facilities.

In the HCPVT system, instead of heating a building, the 90 degree Celsius water will pass through a porous membrane distillation system where it will be vaporized and desalinated. A large system could provide 30-40 liters of drinkable water per square meter, enough for a small town.

With such a high concentration and a radically low-cost design, we are targeting a cost-per-aperture area below $250 per square meter, which is three-times lower than comparable systems. This is a good price point for locations around the world including Southern Europe, Africa, the Arabic peninsula, the southwestern United States, South America, and Australia. Remote tourism locations are also an interesting market, particularly resorts on small islands, such as the Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius.

Over the course of the next several months, thanks to a generous grant from the Swiss government, we will be building up new prototypes here at Airlight in Biasca and at the IBM lab in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. By Earth Day 2014 we should begin to have some very promising results.

Till then, Happy Earth Day.

Technorati Tags: Airlight Energy, Earth Day, IBM Smarter Planet, IBM SuperMUC, innovation, Photovoltaic devices, Smarter Energy, solar, solar power, SuperMUC, sustainability

Dr. Anna Topol, CTO, Energy and Utilities, IBM

IBM today christened a new generation of technology innovators, naming 66 new Distinguished Engineers from across the company. The DE rank recognizes people for their outstanding technical accomplishments, as well as their potential for breaking new ground in key areas such as cloud and mobile computing, Big Data analytics, social business, and many more.

This year’s class includes Dr. Anna Topol, IBM’s Chief Technology Officer for the Energy and Utilities sector. A native of Poland and mother of two young boys, Topol holds a doctorate in physics from the State University of New York Albany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and has earned nearly two dozen patents. She joined IBM in 2001. The Smarter Planet editorial team recently sat down with Topol for an inside chat with one of the company’s newest DE’s.

Smarter Planet: Where do you see the biggest potential for breakthroughs in your current area of specialization?

Anna Topol: There is a lot of innovation happening in the energy and utility sector. What has been learned from other industries such as telecommunications and retail, where the use of data analytics has had transformational benefits, is now being applied to help us be smarter about how we generate, consume and conserve energy. Right now, there is a focus on automation and the use of smart meters, devices and sensors. For energy consumers, this translates into a decrease in change-related outages through increased efficiency and reduced mean time to repairs.

SP: How can utility companies benefit from Big Data?

AT: For many utilities, maintenance is performed because it’s scheduled, not because something is defective. The savings come from a new understanding of when not to do the work in the first place. Now we have digitally based instruments, sensor networks and simulation devices, which can provide more data and insights. The analytics-driven information can help a company decide the best time to fix or replace a power transformer, for example, based on real-time information instead of an outdated maintenance schedule. Smarter utility companies are using their data to increase equipment utilization, reduce maintenance expenses and defer capital expenditures. This cost consciousness is particularly important for industries like energy and utilities which have an aging infrastructure.

Dr. Anna Topol

SP: Did you always want to be an engineer?

AT: I always liked math and physics and loved astronomy. My parents instilled a love of learning early on. My mother was a physical therapist and my father was in the Polish navy and later taught navigation and ship construction. I moved to the United States when I was 18 years old, and I studied physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. After graduating, I worked briefly for an IT company in Boston and realized I needed to learn more. I earned my masters and doctorate at SUNY-Albany. The professors there cultivated my interest in nanoscience and in industry research. I began my IBM career at IBM Research, working on 3D integrated circuit technology, and then moved into client-facing roles.

SP: What advice would you give young women who might want to follow in your footsteps?

AT: Always ask questions. If you don’t know something, ask. Sometimes, we’re reluctant to ask because we feel embarrassed that we don’t know enough, but that’s the very time we should be asking. In college, I found professors were incredibly generous with their knowledge. Ask your professors about their research; ask if you can shadow them in the lab. Experience is a better teacher than the textbook. Finally, be persistent. Expect to fail, but learn from your failures.

SP: What do you look for when you are hiring?

AT: Two things that go in different directions. First, you have to be a good team member. The smartest and best brains never create in a vacuum. I listen closely to see how eager people are to collaborate. Second is having a vision. Sure, you can be an engineer, follow orders and do a good job. But the only thing that moves us forward is vision. Where do you want to take our company, our clients, our industry, our world? Are you a follower or are you capable of independent thinking and making a difference? I’m looking for people who want to be a force for progress.

SP: Where do you get your best ideas?

AT: I get my best ideas by talking to people who have different backgrounds than me. I like to gather information from various sources. I also like to hear from people of different ages – older and younger generations. I think it’s very important to get those different perspectives, so you are looking at a problem from many different angles, not just your own. It’s what I call diversity of thought.

SP: What does being named Distinguished Engineer mean to you?

AT: It’s very humbling. It makes me thankful for the people I have met and the help they have given me along the way. Recognition is important. It has a direct influence on staying passionate about your work.

SP: What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?

AT: I like playing volleyball. On Sundays, I go to church and pray for a good week. On Wednesdays, I play volleyball for recreation. Sometimes, that also helps me work out frustrations by banging the ball. But mostly, time with my family, my two boys, ages 5 and 6, are the wings to my day. They are my guiding angels. They wake up in the morning and they are eager to meet the day. I love seeing how the world looks through their eyes.

SP: What music do you enjoy?

AT: I play the piano and being from Poland, Chopin of course is my favorite. I like harmony – with a good portion of discord. I listen to smooth jazz and other music, but classical is my first choice.

Technorati Tags: IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research, IBM Smarter Energy, IBM Smarter Planet, Smarter Energy, smarter utilities

Eoin Lane, IBM Smarter Water Architect

By Eoin Lane

People often say that water is the new oil, but really, it’s not. Oil is a fossil fuel that takes millions of years and a lot of pressure to create. When we burn oil – for example, by driving our cars – it is gone forever (or at least for a few more millions of years before it can be created again!).

Water, on the other hand, cannot be created or destroyed (this is not strictly true, but bear with me). The same amount of water is around today that was around when the Earth was formed. The truth is there is a lot of water on Earth – just not a lot of drinking water.

Here are some facts about just how little drinkable water is available:

* 97.5 percent of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5 percent as fresh water
* Of that fresh water, nearly 70 percent is locked in ice
* Most of the rest of that freshwater is in aquifers which we are draining much more quickly than the natural recharge rate
* Two-thirds of our freshwater is used to grow food
* With 83 million more people on Earth each year, water demand will keep going up unless we change how we use it.[1]

Margaret Catley-Carlson of the Global Water Partnership has said, ”We cannot create water, but we can manage it better, much better.” [2] Take, for example, the longest water tunnel supplying NYC: it is 85 miles long, and it leaks 35 million gallons of water every day. We need to become much smarter about how we manage this precious resource and about how we collect, analyze and use water data.

There are three ways we can become smarter about water management:  Instrumentation, Big Data analytics, and cooperation.

Instrumentation involves smart meters and sensors that take digital readings (pressure, flow etc.) and stores them in a database. The combination of smart meter data and GPS location data allows for rich visualization of the information. On top of this we can also display water pipe information, asset information (such as manholes, pumps, and work orders), as well as customer information. We can be smart about this and organize all of the information using a semantic model. For now, think of a semantic model as a flexible model that allows us to connect information from different sources, for example, one that allows the water utility operator to determine what pipes are associated with which customers.

Big Data analytics can then be applied to the data collected through instrumentation. We can classify analytics into three broad categories:

•  Descriptive analytics (finding patterns in things that happened in the past)
•  Prescriptive or optimization analytics (the math of making things better in the present)
•  Predictive analytics (foretelling the future)

Let’s look at concrete examples of these, as applied to an instrumented water system.

To understand the power of descriptive analytics, watch the movie Moneyball. Moneyball tells the story of a poor baseball team that takes a sophisticated descriptive analytics approach and wins 20 consecutive games. The same kind of descriptive analytics can be applied to water assets such as pipes, pumps, etc. Descriptive analytics could allow a water utility to pinpoint leaky water pipes down to a particular type of pipe that’s manufactured by a local company.

For prescriptive or optimization analytics, let’s travel to Europe. I come from a town in southern Ireland called Cork, and a couple of years ago I was walking home when I met some water utility workers making holes in the road. After chatting with them, I learned that the holes in the road were for acoustic sensors, which use sound to locate leaks. I also found out that the pipe networks were very old, and nobody knew where the pipes really were. But they did know they were leaking very badly. This story is echoed across many European cities and towns, and indeed, around the world.

One of the major contributing factors to these leaks is the water pressure in the pipes, which is kept high to ensure good pressure on the tap side. However, analytics can help here. We can run optimization analytics on the pressure reading data across the network to optimize the pressure in the network. This optimization will still maintain good pressure on the tap side, but bring down the overall pressure in the water network. Long term, this will reduce wear and tear on the pipes, and as a consequence reduce the leaks.

Lastly, predictive analytics can provide water utilities with information about when leaks or failures (pumps, pipes, sensors, meters, etc.) are likely to occur.

The theme of World Water Day 2013 is the International Year of Water Cooperation. Instrumentation and Big Data analytics are truly the foundation for cooperation about water management. Getting back to our Moneyball analogy, analytics enabled the Oakland A’s to build a better baseball team, for less money, but team players still had to cooperate and play as a team in order to win. Citizens and corporations, alike, must also cooperate when it comes to smarter water management.

In some communities such as Dubuque, Iowa, citizens use online water conservation portals to gain a better understanding of their water usage. They can also compare their water use with other similar local households. Here we are seeing cooperation between the citizens and the water utility company. Citizens can also collaborate by becoming the collective “eyes” of the water utility. This allows for authorities to get up-to-the-minute information on the state of the water infrastructure and prioritize fixing these problems. Check out the WaterWatcher initiative in South Africa.

I believe we can manage our water better by making our water networks smarter and by encouraging cooperation.

I’ll be on a live Facebook chat today, to discuss how technology can help conserve water. Please join me.

But before I go, I will leave you with a few more sobering facts about how we currently use water:

Americans use about 100 gallons of water at home every day * Millions of the world’s poorest subsist on fewer than five gallons per day * 46 percent of the people on Earth do not have water piped to their homes * Women in developing countries walk an average of 3.7 miles daily to get water * In 15 years 1.8 billon people (a third of the world’s current population) will live in regions of severe water scarcity [1]

_______________________________________________________________

1. National Geographic – Water Our Thirsty World

2. The Atlas of Water – Maggie Black et al.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, IBM Smarter Planet, smarter analytics, smarter utilities, Smarter Water, smarter water management, utilities, water management

Jack Kardys, Director of Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces

By Jack Kardys

Miami-Dade County Parks is the third largest county park system in the United States, consisting of 260 parks and 12,825 acres of land. It is made up of 17 miles of beaches, the renowned Zoo Miami, golf courses, marinas, large athletic stadiums, campgrounds, pools and more.

As Miami-Dade County looks at new ways to re-vitalize the region, create jobs and spur business growth while benefiting residents, the parks system is at the epicenter. In  addition to making sure we’re good stewards of the environment, we are committed to ensuring social equity with the right distribution of park facilities and programs throughout the community for people of all ages, sizes, shapes, and income levels.

Most of the parks in Miami-Dade County are anywhere from 50 to 75 years-old. Our beachfront parks were built in the 1930’s and 1940’s and the saltwater intrusion has been wreaking havoc on the system ever since. Our community pools were built in the 1960’s and the early 1970’s. The pipe corrosion from chlorine and the chemicals we use to keep those in balance tear up our pipes. It’s a challenge we face throughout the region.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Though the infrastructure is aging, we’re looking at innovation in a meaningful way to help save on costs and redirect those savings to benefit residents and to spur economic growth.

Today, the Miami-Dade County Parks department pumps about 360 million gallons a year throughout our system at a cost of about $5 million. It’s a combined water and sewer system, so what comes out of the faucet gets charged going back into a sewer system as well. We know that we have leaky pipes and other problems, but it’s a significant expenditure and a very labor-intensive undertaking to go out and try to diagnose these problems.

By using IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center (IOC), we’re now able to monitor and flag any irregularities in our water usage, which are significant time and cost savings. We have sensors and intelligent meters that can basically talk to our computers in a central location. If we see any spikes or other changes within a very short period of time, within hours, we know immediately. The smart sensors alert our system and each of the park managers receives this alert through their smart devices, laptops or on their computers in their offices. They can respond in near real-time to get the problem fixed. As a result, we’re saving literally months in detecting and reacting to repairs that are needed.

When fully deployed, we anticipate we’ll save the county an estimated $1 million a year using IBM’s IOC water module. And we plan to reinvest this savings into other key areas that will benefit residents. For example, the savings may be used for heating pools to expand the Learn-to-Swim programs, acquiring more land for local parks, adding playgrounds where needed, building additional boat ramps for access to the bay or even re-lamping ball fields and walking paths with high-efficiency lighting that can generate further savings.

In a partnership with the Miami-Dade County transit department, we’re expanding the use of IBM’s technology from internal operations to include a business and citizen engagement model to be piloted in the Brickell business district. Taking a ‘MobileFirst’ approach using IBM Worklight, the enhancement will expand the transit department’s existing mobile  application to include parks, recreation and open spaces outreach and special event opportunities while promoting transit ridership. The new ‘Hop on Miami’ mobile application will alert residents to special events in the downtown area, spurring economic vitality. Restaurants and merchants will be able to send out coupons and special offers to residents who opt-in to provide businesses a new way to engage with their customers.

The collaboration of working with other departments and especially working within the divisions of our own departments has been greatly enhanced as a result of advanced technology. By integrating the parks systems with the transit department and business community, we’ll make places like the Brickell business area really hop.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, Big Data, IBM Intelligent Operations Center, IBM Smarter Planet, Miami-Dade County, Smarter Cities, smarter government, Smarter Water

Scott T. Rickards, CEO, Waterfund

By Scott T. Rickards

In our data-rich financial universe, a fundamental economic question remains unanswered: at what cost is it economical for the world’s largest cities to bring additional water supply online?  

The oil industry will tell you that $100/barrel oil is the value below which capital allocation can earn a return. Given its critical importance in our lives, why does the water industry not have a similar fast answer to the question? Is the ‘global water crisis’ a resource crisis or perhaps a capital crisis?

Precisely because of its critical importance, the water industry has been given a pass on cost transparency by everyone from politicians, to Wall Street, to economists due to the unimaginable consequences of not having an abundant supply of fresh water. As a result, the subject of water production costs remains largely unexplored and water has taken a back seat to virtually every other resource in the battle for private investment dollars.  

The large scale and non-uniformity of water financial data is also a major challenge to creating a precise water finance benchmark; no two water enterprises publish comparable financial statements. Water volumes, interest expense, energy costs, and capital expenditures must first be extracted from unstructured data sets often thousands of pages in length. Then, hidden costs and subsidies must be interpolated and modeled alongside the available information. Complex data challenges such as these are the main barriers to a successful and precise global water cost index.  

To be clear, the subject of water scarcity has not been ignored. Indeed, there are a number of benchmarks and even exchanges which value the scarcity of physical supply. Chile has an electronic water exchange as does Australia and several other important water-short regions. Others have attempted indices which measure the scarcity value of physical water supply.

What’s missing in these marketplaces and valuation metrics is an accounting of the massive capital spending required between the raw resource and the production of ‘finished water’ at your tap.  Ugandais endowed with widespread and plentiful natural water resources, yet 93 percent of the country does not have access to piped water in their home. Facts such as this lead one to believe that the ‘global water crisis’ is in fact, to a significant degree, an investment crisis – and a grand challenge in Big Data.

To that end, the Water Cost Index being developed by IBM and Waterfund seeks to shed light on exactly what it costs the world’s major cities to produce a unit of ‘finished water’ by applying IBM’s Big Data expertise to the volumes of unstructured information about water that exists today. Accounting for big-ticket items such as capital expenditures, debt service, and energy costs, how much does it really cost for Los Angeles, Jakarta, Singapore, Dubai and other cities to deliver water to homes?

Once complete, the index can be used to ring-fence and manage risk exposure to major water infrastructure projects. To take one specific example, the Jordan Red Sea Project seeks to intake and desalinate water at the Red Sea and deliver it via pipeline to severely water-stressed Amman, Jordan and the Dead Sea. The geopolitical upside of a successful outcome to this project is obvious, but total project costs run upwards of $25 billion dollars. Billions have already been pledged by major governments and the World Bank has recently given its seal of approval.

However, private investment will certainly be required. If the index could be used to create insurance to underwrite the investment exposures of private financiers in situations such as the dire one faced in Jordan, so enabling the investment to take place, it would be a valuable tool in changing how business gets done in the water industry and in extending and revamping the world’s water infrastructures.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, investment, smarter analytics, Smarter Water

Christopher Luongo, Writer/Strategist, IBM Communications

By Christopher Luongo

More school systems across the U.S. are looking for ways to balance their commitment to providing a top-notch education with the pressure of keeping their buildings in tip-top shape. To achieve this, some schools are moving away from paper-based systems and putting all their data, from operational and maintenance information to real estate and resource data, online. Doing so, however, is creating a whole new set of issues as the schools are now left to deal with the management of “Big Data.” 

Since it’s unreasonable to build brand new, energy-efficient buildings from the ground up, more school districts are looking within and starting to leverage and exploit the Big Data of building information. They’re starting to sift through critical data to make school structures more energy efficient and more cost-effective.

School districts from Portland, Oregon to Palm Beach, Florida are taking this approach. And with IBM’s help they’re finding highly profitable solutions that are helping to cut costs, save energy and enable schools to make smarter decisions on how school buildings are maintained and used. 

In times of tight budgets, being able to do more with the data has huge benefits. For schools, this enables them to cost-effectively and easily maintain old buildings that consume enormous amounts of energy and continually demand unexpected expenditures for equipment repairs.

Here are just a few examples of schools that are putting Big Data to work in their buildings with positive results:

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, efficiency, innovation, smarter analytics, smarter schools

By Martina Koederitz, IBM Germany Country General Manager

At the United Nations’ climate summit in Rio, the German minister of environmental development, Peter Altmaier, created a new word for the English speaking world: Energy-Wende.

Energy-Wende is the shift away from nuclear power toward alternative energy sources like solar energy, wind power and other renewable energies. After the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in March 2011, the German government under Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to phase out nuclear power, which is being followed with great interest by the whole world. “If we succeed in converting the energy revolution, and still remain competitive, then we become a model for the world,” Altmaier added.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Large power networks are required for the nuclear phase-out and conversion to renewable energy. Wind is currently the most important source among renewable energy. Unfortunately, wind power is generated not where the need is greatest, but where the wind blows most – in front of the North and Baltic Sea coast.

This electricity has to be transported from the north to the south. That was different in the past, when conventional power plants were built near large cities and industrial centers. In addition, the supply varies with wind and solar power, depending on the weather. The electricity networks must be able to efficiently absorb it and move it to the point of consumption. The network expansion is therefore a fundamental part of energy policy, just as Smart Grids should be.  Smart Grids use IT to gather and act on information in an automated way to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity.

IBM Germany calls for the extension of intelligent networks to support the “Energy-Wende” in Germany
Smart Grids: Nervous system of the energy transition

By 2020, renewable energy sources should supply at least 35 percent of the required electricity in Germany. This conversion will cost about 200 billion Euros, though reliable estimates are difficult. Apart from investments in new power plants, transmission lines and energy storage, power grids must be equipped with additional intelligence. Without “smart grids” the green rebuilding of the energy supply is inefficient and the stability of the networks is at risk. Therefore the technology industry and leaders like IBM must partner with energy suppliers and governments to help accelerate smart grid activity.

Economist and policy advisor Jeremy Rifkin noted that it will be the computer scientists who will develop the nervous system for this new infrastructure, but there is no finalized plan for the necessary funding of the reconstruction yet. With the German chancellor’s announcement to manage the expansion by law by the end of the year, an essential step was taken.

When considering the safety and sustainability of the energy supply of tomorrow, not only should building new power plants be in the foreground and the major electricity suppliers should not be the only ones being consulted. The IT industry and smart grids should also play a role.

Without a comprehensive plan, Germany will miss a unique opportunity to become the European pioneer regarding the needs of power supplies in the 21^st century. Which challenges do we face, actually? The energy supply will become more diverse; variable energy will play a bigger role, large power plants will lose importance and will be replaced by innovative and decentralized structures. Politicians must recognize this and combine resources in order to manage the challenge. It will be necessary to not only invest in copper – the physical network expansion – but also in the modernization of required intelligent network equipment. Intelligent networks are one of the keys to reliably meeting peak loads.

For this, one needs an integrated approach. It has to include all areas, not only centralized power generation, but also distributed generation, possibly energy storage and the intelligent involvement of the consumer. The IT industry is ready to implement the vision of intelligent networks into practice. From a technical perspective, this is already feasible today, but the costs for innovations will be in the billions of Euros. In return, intelligent networks can reduce power consumption dramatically and make the supply more efficient.

Currently, our industry is still investing – researching, testing and developing these intelligent network solutions, together with the energy industry or public utilities. However, our breath is limited and our resources are too. The politicians should be in close consultation with the industries affected to agree on a framework so that the necessary investments can be made.

However, there is a current government requirement that the costs of smart grid expansion may not be recovered. This is counterproductive and prevents much-needed investments in a safe and sustainable energy infrastructure. In addition, uncertain and partially paralyzed anti-competitive conditions as well as unconcluded discussions of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) regarding protection profiles for smart meters, reduce the willingness to invest. Much is tested, but no comprehensive transformation has taken place.

One has to act quickly: Only if this revolution can be supported by a viable business model, companies will be willing to make the appropriate investments.

We now need an intermediate sprint and then a long breath to get closer to the goal: To make Germany a leader of intelligent power supply “made in Germany.”

Technorati Tags: Angela Merkel, environment, Germany, green, IBM, nuclear power, smart grid, solar, wind

One of their biggest headaches is infrastructure–their roads, bridges, sidewalks, water lines and sewer pipes. They used to fix things when they broke. These days, increasingly, the forward-thinkers among them aim to fix things before they have a chance to break. And they’re using technology to help them optimize the way they invest in infrastructure maintenance and renewal.

Cambridge, a small city in Ontario, Canada, is in the vanguard of getting this right. It has been working with IBM Research to develop a system for prioritizing the city’s investments in fixing or replacing physical infrastructure so they meet the public’s needs while making the most of their limited budget. “We look at how we can use technology and revised business practices to make the city work better,” says Mike Hausser, Cambridge’s director of asset management and support services.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Canadians got their wake up call about crumbling infrastructure a few years ago when a series of mishaps and mistakes led to the contamination of the water supply in tiny Walkerton, Ontario, by E. coli bacteria. Half of the city’s population of 5,000 became ill and seven people died. That incident and others led to development of Federal and Provincial regulations regarding asset management. Campbridge, in anticipation of those regulations, pro-actively created an Asset Management Division to comply with regulations and to better understand and manage its infrastructure debt and deficit. A few years later, after IBM announced its Smarter Planet agenda, the two organizations began working together on a capital investment management system that’s being tested in the city today.

The system, called PALM (for Planning Analytics for Asset Lifecycle Management), is integrated with Cambridge’s pre-existing asset management and logistics systems. Working together, the systems help managers answer a series of key questions: What do I need to do? How should I do it? What funding will support it? And how should I optimize my activities so I get the maximum return on investment?

The IBM Research team that designed PALM had just completed a major technology project in a similar vein for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Dept. They conducted a series of meetings with Cambridge leaders in mid-2011 and then agreed to collaborate on a so-called First of a Kind (FOAK) project. “I’m a math guy sitting with a guy who has 30 years of experience in fixing roads and water pipes. He knows a whole lot more about that stuff than I do,” recalls Tarun Kumar, the researcher who heads the IBM team. “We didn’t have a lot in common on the surface, but we came up with something that’s unique–a common innovation agenda.”

The infrastructure investment project was high on Cambridge’s priority list. That’s because it’s facing a ticking infrastructure time bomb in the coming decades. The city of 135,000 went through growth spurts in the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1980s. In each case, new roads and water and sewer pipes were installed. Since then, the city has invested in basic maintenance, but it hasn’t yet taken on the more challenging task of replacing large chunks of infrastructure (road, water, and sewers) before they fail.  And some of them are beginning to fail now.

For example, in the 1960s the city installed thin-wall cast iron water main pipes made from new metal alloys that were designed to save money and materials. Unfortunately, about half of the pipes are starting to break down–decades ahead of their original life expectancy.

When a city starts contemplating digging up a lot of water mains, it has to take into consideration the other stuff that’s nearby–including roads, sidewalk and sewer lines. This is where the analytics comes in. The IBMers gathered millions of discreet pieces of information about the city’s 250,000 critical transportation and public works assets drawn from the records of multiple city departments. That’s a lot of data to manage, but, adding to the complexity of the challenge, some vital information is missing. The city has only 10 years of asset management information, and, in many cases, it doesn’t know the condition of the pipes buried deep underground in specific locations.

The IBM Research team developed technology that is now enabling Cambridge’s leaders to make strategic and operational decisions. The researchers developed algorithms to predict which assets will fail and when. Those predictions feed into a needs-assessment engine that helps city planners to identify the options they should consider. Should a water pipe be relined or replaced? Should a road be repaved with a thin overlay or should it be reground and resurfaced? Each option comes with a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, the technology allows planners to consider other factors, including the effect that one repair would have on other nearby infrastructure. That way, the city managers hope to avoid situations like having to dig up a road to replace water pipes just a new months after the road has been repaved. Better to wait to repave after the digging is done.

The prescription options are then fed to an investment planning tool that helps planners choose the best funding sources for each project. The analysis tool considers factors such as criticality, risk and funding constraints. When planners put forth their investment proposals to elected officials, they can back them up with solid facts and rationales.

This kind of technology has potential not only in cities but in any industry that buys a lot of equipment and maintains a large physical infrastructure. Think oil and gas exploration and distribution companies, and electric utilities. They all need to better  manage the stuff they own. “Companies need to listen to their assets so they can figure out what they need to do,” says Kumar.

Listen to your assets. That has a nice ring to it. In the era of big data, you can bet we’ll be doing a lot of listening.

Technorati Tags: Cambridge, IBM

Some transformations can affect a person, a team, clients, and sometimes even reach a continent.  Global Energy & Utilities Industry Leader, Michael Valocchi’s journey as a consultant has taken him through all of this and more.

Last year, Michael joined a group to revitalize IBM’s strategy in Africa which included examining how dozens of African countries can be transformed – infusing intelligence into government, bank, communications, energy processes.  The team was steeped into African cultures, speaking and listening to African leaders about their critical challenges.

“Visiting an orphanage in Kenya and in the regional planning offices in Nigeria, I was a first-hand witness to the consequences of a basic lack of infrastructure,” said Michael.  “I worked on a team that helped identify and map out technology solutions that could modernize essential aspects of African society — from introducing new broadband, banking and healthcare services, to increasing access to clean water, energy and congestion-free roads.”

The outcome of this experience was three-fold: African leaders obtained a new view of the future; IBM created global leaders that understood a major growth region for the company like Africa; and Michael experienced a personal transformation that has changed how he works with clients and his practice.

“It is unbelievably rewarding to be involved in a larger effort that improves the quality of life and promotes the long-term sustainability of a rising continent,” said Michael.

This experience resonated stateside, as well. Under Michael’s leadership, his team is helping transform a Northeastern energy company from strategy to technology implementation.  The transformation gives the company the flexibility to handle incidents such as a catastrophic ice storm that rendered the region without power for days.

Michael and his team have also been critical in advancing the Smart Grid transformation globally, by helping utility companies transition their electric grid, gas and water infrastructures to a dynamic, automated and reliable network. As a result of this transformation, utilities companies are moving to a smarter digital system and consumers are being empowered to manage their energy usage through detailed real-time data. In addition to recent smart grid projects such as the nation-wide implementation in Malta, Michael remains heavily involved in helping utilities identify barriers, discover opportunities and better engage with their consumers.

“Energy is essential” said Michael. “I believe in the criticality of this issue. It affects everybody in the world.”

Last night, Michael was recognized by Consulting Magazine as one of the Top 25 Consultants, for excelling in the Energy field. He was one of just 25 consultants chosen from 476 submitted names. It is no surprise that Michael was chosen for this distinction given his talent, dedication and skills.

Technorati Tags: africa, energy, grid, Kenya, Malta, Michael Valocchi, Nigeria, smart grid, utilities