A modest proposal

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One of the best things about addressing 60,000 readers, as I do every day, is that people talk back.

Among the bracing zingers I receive are nuggets I'd otherwise have to prospect for. And, having been a uranium prospector in the Rockies for a time, I've seen the light on obtaining nuggets via e-mail.

Mike Ebert wrote in yesterday and we chatted. Ebert is a principal research associate in the Center for Infrastructure Protection at George Mason University, Arlington, Va. He read my piece [3] on smart meters and home area networks (HANs) and shared a couple points on smart grid implications for the commercial building sector.

(My colleague, Warren Causey, had mentioned Ebert's take on cost recovery and consumer uptake of smart grid technology in a column [4] a few weeks ago. At the risk of turning Ebert into a celebrity, I offer his take on potential smart grid impacts on commercial buildings and the implications for jobs -- certainly a topic du jour for the president's State of the Union address.)

The commercial building sector is the leading electricity consumer among a triumvirate of users: commercial, residential and industrial, according to Ebert, who cites U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Information Administration (EIA) data.

In Ebert's view, smart grid applications to the commercial area network (CAN) hold great promise because they would have the highest impact, could be relatively swiftly enacted and would provide jobs and career tracks for building engineers. Compared to the nation's 125 million existing homes, all of which will need smart meters and HANs and intelligent appliances, the commercial building sector nationally has a handful of major players (i.e., corporate landlords) with strong economic incentives to implement smart technology that saves them money. The electricity needed to operate a commercial building, on average, is about 40 percent of total operations costs, according to Ebert.

(In fact, EIA data shows 125 million residential electricity consumers in the United States, 17 million commercial users and about 775,000 industrial users.) 

Shaving that percent back a few points over a few years will generate massive savings, he contended. Ebert suggested that regulatory and privacy issues inherent in making homes smart could be more easily finessed in the commercial building sector.

There's a hitch that Ebert thinks can be overcome. We're short on "KSAs" for this work -- knowledge, skills and abilities.

"In larger facilities, the engineering staff has the fundamentals on building operations," Ebert told me. "They can be quickly trained to deploy smart grid elements within their facilities, which isn't true in the residential space."

"GIS (geospatial information systems) increasingly is the prism through which utilities view massive amounts of data in tracking energy use and system assets," Ebert continued. "GIS can also be used by commercial building engineers, but many of them are without GIS proficiency."

So, what's the plan?

Turns out Ebert and George Mason University are connected to many players in the smart grid space and these partnerships are working to get a solution off the ground. The idea is to have certain universities designated as "centers of excellence" and partner with others, from K-12 education, community colleges and training institutes to make all this go. 

Like a good team player, Ebert spread the credit for other participants who've worked at realizing this idea. The individuals are too numerous to mention, but the organizations include the GridWise Alliance, the IEEE - PES (Power and Energy Society), Howard University, the National Association of Power Engineers Educational Foundation, Portland State University and other "collaborators and co-conspirators," as Ebert put it.

The means for getting this done, and swiftly?

Can you spell s-t-i-m-u-l-u-s? George Mason University and some of its partners, individually and in partners (so I gather) have applied for stimulus funds, the latest round of which are scheduled to be awarded by the DOE in the near future. (There's $100 million available for "education, training and workforce development.")  

"I see this as a growing employment need -- professional development for this generation and a career track for future engineers -- and if you meet that need, you can really make a dent in patterns of energy consumption," Ebert concluded. "To do this [smart grid] right, we have to have a good workforce. With our educational proposal, this could be done in a streamlined timeline, and that's an element missing from the current discussion of stimulus money."

Pie in the sky? Or are these folks onto something? Readers, let me know your thoughts.

Phil Carson
Editor-in-chief
Intelligent Utility Daily
pcarson@energycentral.com [5]
303-228-4757