Steve Fludder

COP15: Information is (less) power

December 15, 2009

powermeter-gadget

Google Power Meter

Lord Kelvin said it more than a century ago: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve.”

Today, it’s become a business cliche: “What you don’t measure you can’t manage.”

In that light, and against the backdrop of the UN climate negotiations unfolding here in Copenhagen, Google, GE, The Climate Group and NRDC came together to call on governments around the world to provide people with real-time information on their home energy use.

Simply getting useful and timely information (as opposed to a monthly bill) about their electricity usage drives people to curb usage and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5 to 15%, the companies said and studies show. When their usage is compared to their neighbors’, they cut back even more.

“This simple but bold call to action makes common sense,” said Steve Fludder, who oversees GE’s EcoMagination efforts.

The technology to deliver real-time information about electricity consumption — essentially, a meter and software — exists today and it’s not expensive.

GE makes so-called smart meters that it sells to electric utilities.  It is also developing a wireless home energy monitor to be sold to consumers that will measure electricity usage, let consumers know which gadgets or appliances are using power, and communicate with so-called smart appliances so that dishwashers or dryers can run during times of the day when electricity is cheaper. All this is part of the smart grid and smart home you’ve probably heard about. [click to continue…]

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Green dawn

January 21, 2009

Perhaps it was my imagination, but there seemed to be a spring in the step of the Americans at the World Future Energy Summit here in Abu Dhabi.

“Today, I’m pleased to say that we have new president,” said Dan Arvizu, the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

He noted that his new boss, Steve Chu, the energy secretary, is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and he projected a bigger-than-life photo of Barack Obama onto the screen during his presentation to the international audience here.

Arvizu described, with undisguised pleasure, the economic stimulus bill before Congress, which includes $150 billion in investments in renewable and alternative energy, including $11 billion to upgrade the electricity grid.

“We are going to build a new economy based on green and renewable energy,” Arvizu said. “We need transformational change. We must seize the moment.”

Steve Fludder, the new head of ecomagination for GE, also praised the new Obama administration for its “refreshing views” and said that a key goal of the ecomagination effort at GE is to “decouple” economic growth from rising greenhouse gas emissions. GE intends to invest about $1.5 billion a year in renewable energy, energy efficiency, so-called clean coal and water purification research.

This week, GE announced that it will locate an “ecomagination technology center” in Masdar City, the new zero-carbon, zero-waste city being constructed in Abu Dhabi.

“We are seeing a tipping point around the world” when it comes to clean energy, Fludder said. “I can tell you with absolute certainty, as a technology coming, that green is profitable.”

As for the Obama administration, and its plans for an economic stimulus package, new energy policy and carbon regulation, Fludder said: “We see nothing but positive impact.”

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