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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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ApocaDocuments (3) matching "efficiency increase" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "efficiency increase"]
Sat, Apr 17, 2010
from Greenmonk:
Are utility companies ready for full smart grids?
Do utility companies have billing systems in place which are able to take in these vast quantities of data and output sensible bills? Today's bills are generated off that single monthly meter read, however bills generated from 2,880 meter-reads a month (or even 720 - one meter read per hour) will be very different. They should be easy to understand, reflect the intelligence gained from the extra information and offer customers ways to reduce their next bill based on this.... Consumers will need to be given ubiquitous, secure access to their energy consumption information. But more than that, consumers will also need to be given the tools to help them reduce their bills, without necessarily reducing their consumption (i.e. load shifting).... All of these changes require seismic shifts by utility companies both in terms of IT investments, but also in terms of their approach to customer care and communications. ...


Rejiggering the energy system requires planning?

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Fri, Apr 16, 2010
from DOE:
DOE Awards Nearly $100 Million for Smart Grid Workforce Training
DOE announced on April 8 it will award nearly $100 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to 54 Smart Grid workforce training programs that will help prepare the next generation of workers in the electric utility and electrical equipment manufacturing industries. Located in 32 states and the District of Columbia, the 54 training programs will leverage more than $95 million in funding from community colleges, universities, utilities, and manufacturers. The programs will train approximately 30,000 U.S. workers in Smart Grid technologies. The funding is the latest investment by the Obama Administration to develop the Smart Grid, and builds on the more than $4 billion in Recovery Act funding for Smart Grid deployment and demonstration projects throughout the country. The programs will focus on training activities that support electricians, line workers, technicians, system operators, power system engineers, cyber security specialists, and transmission planners. The selections include broad efforts to develop and deploy new training programs and curricula at a variety of educational institutions, as well as workforce programs conducted by electrical equipment manufacturers and electric utilities to train new hires and retrain current employees. The award selections include 33 projects at educational institutions and 21 training projects at electrical equipment manufacturers and electric utilities. ...


Oh, so now you're going to discriminate against the dumb grid!

ApocaDoc
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Tue, Apr 13, 2010
from New Scientist:
Skip the hard cell: Flexible solar power is on its way
So, the sceptics say, solar cells are only ever likely to be a small, disproportionately expensive part of our future energy mix. In the temperate, oft-cloudy climes of much of Europe and North America, satisfying the population's electricity needs with photovoltaics alone would mean plastering something like 5 to 15 per cent of the land surface with them. Such criticisms might be tempered by a new generation of solar cells about to flop off the production line. Slim, bendy and versatile, they consume just a fraction of the materials - and costs - of a traditional photovoltaic device. They could be just the fillip solar power needs, opening the way to a host of new applications: solar-charged cellphones and laptops, say, or slimline generators that sit almost invisibly on a building's curved surfaces or even its windows.... So why the fuss, if these devices are no more efficient than what went before? The key is that although these cells are merely as efficient as conventional devices, they use only about a hundredth of the material. What's more, they are highly flexible: grown on a bed of silicon, Atwater's microrod arrays can simply be peeled off and stuck pretty much wherever you want. "They could even be integrated into buildings, as components that match the shape of roof tiles," says Atwater. ...


I'd even pay ten times a hundredth of the price.

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