“We’ve reached a point in our engineering projects where we’re facing new challenges related to our solar receiver design,” Google wrote in its blog. “At this point, other institutions seem better positioned than Google to take this work to the next level.”

However, all is not loss. True to its originally philosophy of trying to stimulate the renewable energy market, Google will make all that it has learned through the Initiative, namely research into technologies for solar power towers – a system that focuses a field of mirrors on a solar receiver on top of tower, which then captures that heat and turns it into electricity, available to the rest of the industry.

Here’s a video of the Heliostat project

<iframe width=”450″ height=”259″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/C_oRDBda73U” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here’s what Google has learned and is sharing in its own words:

• Smarter controls: In the past, the focus has been on making strong heliostat structures. We learned that using lower cost materials and smarter software controls can generate better performance at a lower cost. This ends up lowering the overall cost of the concentrating solar power system.
• The Brayton engine: Concentrating solar power plants traditionally use significant quantities of water for cooling. This poses a challenge to scaling these technologies, especially in the desert. Our research shows that using a “Brayton engine” — a jet engine that uses solar energy to heat air and does not require spray cooling with water — significantly reduces water use and may reduce operating costs as well.
• A systems approach: We took a system level approach to designing concentrating solar systems. By focusing on the cost and quality of the system as a whole, we tried to make cutbacks on some components, while compensating elsewhere to maintain performance. We believe this approach could reduce the cost of electricity generated by concentrating solar systems, rather than attempting to optimize each individual component, which can drive up overall costs.

Basically, home owners will be able to put up a solar power system costing up to US$30,000, at little or no upfront cost. Google will retain ownership of the solar power system, and will charge the homeowner a monthly fee, which the project say will be less or equalled to what they are paying today to their utility.

The business model is not only based on the monthly return, but also includes state and federal government subsidies for renewable energy production.

The project probably makes a lot of sense for high-priced energy regions, such as California, but the economics will be challenge for regions with lower energy costs, and less government subsidies.

According to Google, it recorded a total of 1,457,982 metric tons of CO2 equivalent for the year 2010. This includes 11,126 metric tons of CO2e for direct emissions (Scope 1) from cars, company shuttles, onsite fuel consumption at its offices, 1,226,350 metric tons of CO2e of emissions from purchased electricity (Scope 2), and 207,065 metric tons of CO2e from other indirect emissions (Scope 3) such as business travel, commuting, manufacturing its servers, building its data centres, and consumption by leased premises. The overall figure also includes 13,441 metric tons of CO2e from a new category – Biogenic emissions, from landfill gas combustions.

Overall, that equals about 1.46 kg of CO2e per user (employee) on an annual basis, Google said. Google adds that without its energy efficiency measures at its data centres, its footprint would have been “about twice as big.”

In addition to the overview of its carbon footprint, Google also gave further details of the energy profile and performance of specific areas of operations.

For example, it says that its data centres now use only 50% of the energy of most other data centres. This, Google says, saves it “millions of dollars in energy costs and cuts our impact on the environment.”

And the savings don’t stop there because Google also buys carbon offsets, in addition to buying and generating renewable energy (30% of Google’s energy in the year 2010 are from renewable sources), so any amount of energy saved, and carbon avoided, also means it needs to buy less carbon offsets to achieve its carbon neutral status.

Another interesting figure from Google is what percentage of global electricity its data centres consume. Based on a study by Standford consulting professor Jonathan Koomey, who estimates the global data centre energy consumption at between 1.1% to 1.5% of the global electricity consumption, Google says that its figures equal only about 1% of the Koomey figure. So 1% of 1.3% (as the average of the Koomey estimate) puts Google’s data centre electricity consumption at 0.01% of the global total, the company said.

CO2 and web searches

Now for the fun part. As part of its carbon disclosure, Google also revealed a very interesting fact – that each 100 web query uses up about 20 grams of CO2. That, according to Google, equals about the same energy as operating a 30W laptop for an hour, keeping a 60W light bulb on for 28 minutes, or the energy needed to produce 1.5 tablespoons of orange juice.

With that figure however, we can now estimated how much CO2 we all use for web searches on a daily, or annual basis.

My calculations as follows:

- 100 searches = 20 g CO2

- Google searches in June 2011 (comScore) = 11.1bn

- 11.1/30 days = 370m Google searches/day

- 370m/100 x 20g = 74 million grams, or 74 metric tons

- 74 metric tons x 365 = 27,010 metric tons a year from Google searches.

So there you have it. The world generates about 74 metric tons of CO2 per day conducting Google searches. On an annual basis, that’s 27,010 metric tons, or roughly one fifth of the CO2 from Google’s purchased electricity.

Applied the same formula to comScore’s total number of web searches in June 2011, and the result is 112 metrics of CO2 per day, or some 40,880 metric tons of CO2 every year.

So what does 40,880 metric tons of CO2 mean?

According to the EPA, that equals the same emissions from about 7,000 passenger cars in a year, about 4 million gallons of gas, and about the same amount of CO2 needed to generate electricity to power 4,500 homes in the US for a year.

Obviously, the figure doesn’t include the energy used by the PCs and increasingly mobile devices that are doing the searching. While coming up with a realistic CO2 profile of the Web is nearly impossible at this point, at least we know have a pretty good idea of the energy profile of one of the more popular components.

Lastly, Google also revealed the CO2 profile of YouTube – 1 minute = 0.1 g, or 3 kg over 3 days. Anyone want to calculate how much CO2 we all use watching videos?

Mitsubishi iMiEV electric vehicle

The project, dubbed “V2X,” will be rolled out in a trial deployment at the parking facility of Mitsubishi Motors’ Nagoya plant by March 2012, and will use the batteries of electric vehicles as storage for energy generated by a set of solar panels on the roof, according to this report by Utility Products citing Electric Daily News.

The system is designed to take the energy generated by the solar panel and then store them in the batteries of the vehicles. While I’m not absolutely sure on the technical details, but the system seems to work by ensuring that none of the power generated by the solar panels are wasted by storing it inside the vehicles. The installation includes built in units that draw power from the vehicles as the grid requires power, including converting it to alternating current for general use.

I’m assuming that the system will have control mechanisms in place so it doesn’t drain the vehicles completely – so employees can get home, and that the vehicles will come into the facility with sufficient [empty] storage capacity to make a difference.

Still, it is an interesting concept. After all, electric vehicles do have the potential to transport energy from one place to another. For example, all parking lots can have solar powered roofs, which will charge the vehicles during the day. Once fully charged, the vehicles can then be configured to pipe some of that power the home in the evening when the use gets home. That would enable every home with an electric vehicle to benefit from renewable energy to some extent – now that would be pretty cool.

Green Charge Networks’ new GreenStation product is an energy storage and management device that is designed to be deployed in public and commercial facilities such as grocery stores and your neighbourhood 7-Elevens. What it does is store energy from the electricity grid during low consumption hours and then feeding it back for use by the facilities, or back into the grid during peak demand.

The benefit of GreenStation is that it allows the facility to avoid high power prices during peak hours, as well as giving them the ability to offer additional services such as electric vehicle charging, the company said.

“While the majority of energy management companies force changes in energy usage patterns, for example by regulating store temperature remotely, GreenStation™ uses the natural highs and lows in energy usage patterns of any facility to its own benefit,” said Ron Prosser, president and CEO of Green Charge Networks. “By providing demand response on previously dispersed, fixed and difficult-to-manage loads, GreenStation™ avoids demand charges that can range between $12 and $20 per kW of power. This significantly reduces the monthly electric bill.”

Additionally, GreenStation™ also avoids last-mile electric grid infrastructure upgrade costs. As such, electric utilities benefit by maximizing efficiency in existing infrastructure assets and deferment of large capital expenditures. “Utilities around the country are starting to experience the effect of growing EV adoption,” explains Vic Shao, CTO of Green Charge Networks. “Often, the increase in electrical load is necessitating upgrades ranging from the electrical panels to the transformer itself. Infrastructure upgrades involving utility transformers could easily exceed $20,000 for one location. With GreenStation™, not only are these kinds of upgrades unnecessary, but EV charging becomes reality while saving money throughout the system.”

Another benefit is the fact that power generated by renewable energy such as solar and wind can also be maximised with the GreenStations, which can store all the energy generated and deliver back for consumption when the sources become unavailable – at night, or when there’s no wind.

Additionally, the company has introduced a mobile version of the GreenStation, which can be used to support event-based energy spikes, such as during a ball game or concert at a stadium.

Green Charge Networks designed GreenStation™ with the technical support of Con Edison of New York under a smart grid demonstration project funded by the Department of Energy.

via Green Charge Networks Launches GreenStation(TM) at Plug-In 2011.

According to a report in the China Daily, the State Grid Corp of China now has an addressable market of 300 million potential smart meter users, worth some 50 billion yuan, or roughly US$7.7 billion. In comparison, a recent research report by Pike Research projects a total of 250 million smart meters deployed worldwide by 2015.

Fei Yuhang, a member of the National Standardisation Committee for Electrical Meters and an engineer at Chinese smart meter chip maker, Shanghai Belling Co., says that vast potential market is a huge opportunity for the smart meter manufacturing industry in China.

More importantly, the report revealed that State Grid Corp has already deployed 45 million smart meters, or some 26% of its user base, and is expected to have smart meters to all of its users by 2014.

Fei added that Chinese manufacturers now have an edge over their overseas counterparts because they can produce smart meters for between US$160 to US$300 dollars each, a price point that is hard to match for foreign firms. However, he added that smart meters by foreign companies often offered more advanced features because they collect more information of the user’s consumption.

via: State Grid’s meter market valued at $7.7b.

According to a report from Seeking Alpha, data centres will be exempt from the power conservations restrictions, that will be applied across corporations operating in the country. The policy puts data centres in the same category as critical infrastructure like railways and hospitals, which are also exempt from the power conservation efforts following the earthquake and tsunami that shut down one of the country’s core generators – the Fukushima Nuclear plant.

Despite the news, all three Japanese telcos are making provisions to migrate at least some of their infrastructure overseas. KDDI has partners with HKCOLO to set up a new data centre in Hong Kong. Softbank has joined up with Korea Telecom to set up a data centre in South Korea, citing specifically the availability and cost of power as a reason for the move. Meanwhile, NTT Communications announced last week that it will be opening up another data centre in Malaysia called Cyberjava 3. All three operators cite the stability of the environment in those markets, as well as the availability of power as key reasons for the sites of their new facilities.

In Japan, corporations are now adopting some innovative measures to cope with the energy shortage. According to Seeking Alpha, car companies like Nissan Motors are shifting operating days to the weekends and shutting down on Thursday and Friday to help utilities cope with peak demand.

via: Japan’s Data Centers Excluded From Power Conservation Measures – Seeking Alpha.

While the roll out of smart metres have unified security requirements across the industry, the development of smart grids is so far fragmented, said the study, carried out by consultants, KEMA, and commissioned for the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

According to the report, Distributed Network Operators in the country are currently responsible for deploying its own smart grids, hence making it difficult to have a coordinated effort to combat threats such as cyber attacks.

“Each DNO (will be) responsible for deploying its own smart grid solutions, including communications infrastructure, to its own specifications,” KEMA wrote in the study. “Therefore there is a greater challenge to the coordination of smart grid cyber security efforts.”

The report suggests that cyber security of smart grids be now be made part of a national risk assessment process, and that DNO’s put any cyber security issues under the control of senior management.

via eWeek: UK Smart Grid Security ‘Too Fragmented’: Study | eWEEK Europe UK.

According to IBM, the Total Operations Center is an addition to Korea’s Jeju Smart Grid Test-Bed project, the world’s largest smart grid community established for smart grid research and testing. As part of the project development, KEPCO has leveraged the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Common Infrastructure Model (IEC CIM), a comprehensive and integrated management model that can be utilized by energy and utility companies worldwide during smart grid transformations.

“Operating the smart grid involves implementing a flexible management strategy that takes into consideration the various application standards, development speeds and requirements of that particular region,” said Park Jong-man, Deputy General Manager at the integrated control center of KEPCO’s Jeju Demonstration Complex. “This collaboration with IBM allows KEPCO to create a model based on international standards, such as CIM that can be used to infuse intelligence into any smart grid infrastructure.”

IBM provided consulting services and software to develop an integrated energy management system for the Total Operations Center. As part of the collaboration, IBM helped design guidelines for IEC CIM, creating an open standard for information exchange and management across the demonstration complex. This international information standards model is the most commonly used management model by energy and utilities organizations worldwide.

The Total Operations Center will integrate Rational Software Architect (RSA), an offering within the IBM Solution Architecture for Energy and Utilities (SAFE) framework, to create a service-oriented architecture for the Jeju Test-Bed. In using this solution, KEPCO can implement a standards-based system that incorporates existing applications, data services and hardware from participating members of the project. This will help build a flexible test-bed that enables data management and reporting for all of the systems and processes being tested.

Since joining the GIUNC in February, 2011, KEPCO has been working alongside other Coalition members to further the adoption of smarter energy grids around the world. The Jeju Smart Grid Demonstration Test-Bed project builds upon the Korean Government’s Smart Grid Strategy which focuses on greater energy security, sustained economic growth, and reduced environmental impact, by bringing together smart technologies across the areas of generation, power grid, electrical service, buildings and transportation.

Through the Total Operations Center, KEPCO will continue developing international energy service models such as dynamic pricing. Additionally, the 160 Korean companies and 11 consortia members of the KEPCO demonstration project can now leverage verified message and international standards guidelines and apply their results using this secure infrastructure.

IBM is helping to lead Korea’s smart grid transformation, contributing to the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy’s smart grid roadmap, and assisting in developing the strategic plan for the Jeju Demonstration Complex, alongside KEPCO and KEPCO-KDN. Additionally, IBM developed jointly with POSCO ICT, the country’s first integrated management system (EMS, energy management system) for renewable energy. IBM Korea is also a board member of the Korea Smart Grid Association.

Press release: IBM Continues to Advance Smart Grid Developments in Korea

According to the voice of Russia report, the project to link the Russian island of Sakhalin to Hokkaido was unveiled by Russian Deputy Energy Minister at a conference in Moscow this week.

The project is estimated to cost US$6.5 billion and take two years to build, the report said.

As a result of the shutdown of the Fukushima plant, Japan is facing a massive energy shortage with the government now mandating a 20% reduction in corporate power consumption starting next month. That has prompted at least one data centre operator to look overseas for power, and to a certain extent, a less natural disaster-prone location to host critical infrastructure.

Last month, Softbank teamed up with KT to build a new data centre in South Korea to host cloud services for Japanese companies. Softbank says that in addition to providing a more stable environment for IT infrastructure, it also takes advantage of cheaper power in Korea.

via: Japan offered plentiful Russian electricity: Voice of Russia.