Urban Ecoist

“Smart Grid” is quickly becoming a buzzword among politicians, environmentalists, and utility companies. But what exactly is a Smart Grid and how it is going to save the planet?

The “smart grid” is not a single thing, but rather a whole host of technologies that can be used to create or upgrade an electric grid using digital devices to keep track of usage and monitor peak usage as well as controlling the usage within a home or building to ensure that high-energy devices are switching on during off-peak times when possible. A smart grid may include monitors within buildings that allow users to better manage their energy usage. Smart grids will also become necessary to allow individual sources of energy, like home solar panels or geothermal systems, to upload to and feed the grid. And electric cars that you plug in at home? Yeah, those will need smart grid technology to work.

It’s not like a Smart Grid will solve all of our problems, but it may help us use energy more efficiently, and that is something that is becoming extremely important as the world’s thirst for cheap power grows. Even a small percentage of efficiency in a major city’s electrical grid means big savings in terms of carbon emissions. The US’s electricity grid was first developed and built in the early part of the 20th century, so yeah, that’s not outdated or anything.

Leave it to the Dutch to take the lead in converting the first major city to full smart grid technology. The city of Amsterdam may provide us with a useful case study on how a large city can install and benefit from a smart grid. Amsterdam is currently restructuring its energy infrastructure to be “smart” and hopes to have it all done in the next few years.

All told, the municipality, energy outfits, and private companies are expected to invest more than $1 billion over the next three years. That figure includes a $383 million investment by local electricity network operator Alliander in so-called “smart grid” technology that uses network sensors and improved domestic energy monitoring to trim electricity use. Also part of the plan: up to $255 million to be spent by local housing cooperatives on boosting household energy efficiency, and $383 million from companies including Phillips (PHG) and Dutch utility Nuon to be invested in other energy-efficient technology.

“In the next year and a half, we expect to be the leading smart city in Europe,” says Ger Baron, senior project manager at the Amsterdam Innovation Motor, a public-private joint venture that is overseeing the project. “We’re in the right place at the right time.”

The focus on cutting cities’ emissions could have a major impact on the battle against global warming. As of 2006, more people now live in urban areas than in the countryside, and the sprawl surrounding megacities such as Mumbai and Saõ Paolo is only likely to increase. Consultancy Accenture (ACN) reckons cities produce almost two-thirds of total global carbon dioxide emissions through a combination of car fumes, household energy use, and industrial manufacturing. In the coming years, policy shifts from the U.S. and elsewhere will put even more pressure on controlling carbon output.

“Until now, there’s been an underemphasis on what cities can do to cut emissions,” says Mark Spelman, Accenture’s global head of strategy. –Business Week

Global technology companies like IBM and Cisco are also getting in on Amsterdam’s plans to change the way the city uses energy. And Dutch banks are going to provide small loans to homeowners to purchase and install green improvements around the house, with the intention that the costs saved from energy efficiency will pay for the cost of the loans.

The Business Week article also mentions that Xcel Energy is working in the city of Boulder, Colorado to connect 60,000 homes to a smart grid.

Considering that in most cases, smart grids are being pushed by energy companies and that is a positive move. Whether it is just to make more money or not, moving forward in innovation is what this world needs, rather than trying to squeeze more money from the planet’s dwindling resources.

Smart Grid, electricity, energy, Amsterdam, technology, efficiency, homes, usage, solar panel, geothermal, electric car, IBM, Cisco, Xcel Energy, Boulder, Colorado

Ok, so normally, I am not one to count on celebrities to either a) do something or anything important enough for me to care about or b) tell me how to think about things that I may already care about. However, as this is a site with a focus on all things sustainable, I have made an exception in Mr. Brad Pitt’s and Make It Right NOLA’s case.

So, in my first installment of “green” celebrity news…I bring you…Brad Pitt.

Enough about making grandchildren envious already, and nice shiny suit there, Brad. Oh, and you forgot that top button, too. Ok, I got that out of me…

Visiting D.C. within just a few weeks of his frequent co-star, George Clooney’s visit, Pitt’s star power was kept as secret as humanly possible in the cesspool of Washingtonian politics. But according to the AP story about the visiting “dignitary”, “The Power of Pitt drained entire congressional offices of their female employees and quite a few male aides as well, all of whom could be picked out by the way they suddenly appeared in the Senate’s doorways and halls, nonchalantly cupping cell phones and cameras at their sides and hanging around waiting news crews.”

Pitt was in Washington (Angie is also shooting a movie there, so he was in town already) to talk with the people in power about affordable, sustainable housing. If you didn’t know, Pitt is the starpower behind an effort in New Orleans called Make It Right NOLA (click on that link to read more about Make It Right). MIRNOLA is working to design and build green housing in the Lower Ninth Ward, an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina and an area home to a predominantly low-income minority population.

While on the Hill, Brad Pitt met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about “nationalizing” Make It Right’s ideas and designs for more American cities that have been afflicted by disasters, both natural and man-made (hello, Detroit, Michigan).

Brad Pitt, NOLA, New Orleans, Make It Right, Capitol Hill, Washington DC, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Lower Ninth Ward, affordable housing, sustainable housing, George Clooney, green building, green design, low income

A “green” or “living” roof is nothing new, really; Europe has been a big fan for some time now. However, the US is just starting to catch on to the idea, and again it floors me that something that is this good of an idea didn’t catch on years ago. Kinda like solar panels on the White House…

The idea is simple. Instead of traditional roofing materials, layers of materials including “soil” (it’s really more of an aggregate like in hydroponic growing methods) are installed complete with plantlife. Instead of a hard surface, rainwater falls onto the soils and the plants. The natural roof filters water naturally and slowly, rather than just rush the water off through the storm drains into the sewer system. Some green roofs go all out and actually use the space to grow crops or create a natural habitat for wildlife.

The Fairmount Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver, BC, Canada has a roof-top garden that produces about $30,000 worth of produce and herbs yearly.

The “green roof” trend is growing outside of Europe. Japan requires that 20% of all new roofs on larger buildings be “planted.” The self-proclaimed “greenest city in America”, Chicago, Illinois is encouraging green roofs on new buildings and on retrofitted roofs with tax credits.

Fors's Rouge River Plant is covered with sedum.

There are some downsides in green roofs, mostly by way of costs and the feasibility of retrofitting older buildings that were not designed to carry the extra weight of the plant-roofs. But costs can be mitigated by way of the savings that green roofs bring in terms of cooling costs. Hard-surface roofs can get mighty hot in the summer, and that heat is transferred inside to an extent. A green roof will stay around the ambient temperature, even in the middle of August.

Those cooling tendencies of green roofs also help out the area around the building, and by extension, if all roofs were green or partially green at least, the surrounding community will benefit. That is why Tokyo is pushing green roofs so hard. Tokyo’s average temperature has outpaced global warming increases by 5.

green roofs, natural roofs, eco-roofs, plant roofs, planted roofs, roof construction, sustainable roofs, green building, sustainable building, US, Tokyo, Europe, Chicago, Illinois, heating, cooling, costs, global warming, temperature