Tallhamn said in the blog post that the company failed to draw a lead investor “willing to commit enough capital to fill out the round with follow on investors.” His insights are an indicator of the struggles for the entire energy management sector, including potential competitors that Tallhamn used in a slide from the Cleantech Open including Ecofactor, EnergyHub, AlertMe, and Control4.

The investment community’s perspective on this space had become significantly more critical since we got started, and probably for good reasons. A lot of capital has been destroyed in Series A-Z rounds of funding by our competitors, and most investors made it clear that they’d want to see massive traction before committing capital. They were taking a “wait and see” approach.

The business of helping consumers reduce and manage energy consumption in homes and across appliances and devices is such a small market right now, there can’t be too many players going after basically non-existent revenue. OPower, which provides data analytics and software for utilities for energy bills, is one of the few companies in energy management that I know of that is doing well.

Many of the revenues right now depend on scoring utility deals, which can take months and years to implement. Though, there has also been recent attention from the telcos and consumer electronics companies in the energy management space. But as we’ve mentioned pure play energy management gadgets probably won’t be that interesting to consumers — the gadgets will have to do something else, too, like manage your media or run a home security system. Tallhamn said in his blog post: “On a micro level, the average household’s energy costs are so small ($4k on average across electricity and fuel) that any direct to consumer product aiming to reduce them needs to deliver something beyond just savings.”

Hug was taking a free approach, and looking to mine energy information, with Scoble calling Hug the “Mint of your energy bill.” The company had launched a downloadable energy management application for computers that compiled how many minutes your computer slept and basically called your attention to how much energy you were saving. That app was only a “trojan horse” into a plan to grab a greater piece of the energy management sector, and the company’s idea was to start building a user base before the smart energy devices hit the market, “so that we’d be in a great position for becoming the leading supplier of analytics and control software once they had arrived,” writes Tallhamn.

But alas, you can’t build a product without funding. Tallhamn writes:

Knowing when to push through and when to call it quits is probably one of the hardest things for an entrepreneur, and while I’ll never know for sure, I feel quite confident that this was the right decision for everyone involved.

For more research related to smart grid check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Z-Wave: Gaining Ground on ZigBee for Home Energy Networking?
• Is the Opt-Out Model the Future of Home Energy Management
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps

As I lay out in my weekly update at GigaOm Pro (subscription required), 2011 could give some long-running green IT assertions a chance to prove themselves. Sheer power capacity restraints — not enough substations per data center — are forcing data centers to constrain energy consumption. That could make 2011 the year for lower-power challengers to Intel’s x86 architecture’s server dominance.

Atom-based servers from SeaMicro and the ARM-based systems from Marvell and startup Smoothstone offer low power use in exchange for slower performance, and Nvidia’s upcoming ARM-based server CPU for integration with its GPUs, could provide a new low-power, high-performance alternative. How quickly these offerings find their way into servers and data centers may help indicate what value the market places on energy efficiency.

Then there’s cloud computing, which could be more energy-efficient as a byproduct of its overall promise to better-manage IT assets. Microsoft says switching to the cloud can shave 30 to 90 percent of the carbon footprint from large to small enterprise computing environments. But when the power used to transport data to and from the cloud becomes large enough, cloud computing can be a net energy loser. I’d be interested in seeing the math behind cloud computing efficiency across more use cases — data-intensive video streaming or storage retrieval, versus simple web hosting and office support type situations. That would give the industry more visibility into just how green their cloud computing plans really are.

Finally, while green data centers are all the rage, office computing environments aren’t investing as much to energy-manage their networked IT environments — even when the technology can pay itself off in less than a year’s time, as startup Verdiem claims, or cut power bills by 20 percent, as Fujitsu promises. More advanced technology, such as from French startup AVOB’s promise to ramp down processor speed and voltage, promises even deeper savings and faster payback. Will corporate IT pick up on the offer?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• How to Make Cloud Computing Greener
• Pushing Processors Past Moore’s Law
• Thing Converged Infrastructure Means Lock In? Think Again.

Image courtesy of Ramsesoriginal via Creative Commons license.

As Swoboda explained it to me, Intematix has developed an LED product that layers phosphor onto a material that separates it from the blue LED energy source, so LEDs made with ChromaLit have their blue light and white light separated. In most traditional LEDs, blue chips are actually coated with the phosphor compound. The result of ChromaLit, according to Intematix, is that LED makers can have more flexibility with lighting quality, and color, and can make LEDs that are both more efficient and have a lower cost.

“Rarely do LED makers talk about improvements in the phosphor performance,” says Swoboda. They’ve only focused on the chip performance, which is why he thinks the product will be so interesting to the LED manufacturers.

Well, that’s the pitch anyway. Eleven-year-old Intematix will be selling ChromaLit to LED makers, but didn’t announce any major customers at launch time. The proof in how revolutionary the product is will lie in how many LED maker customers Intematix signs up.

Intematix was formed over a decade ago to work on something called “combinatorial synthesis, which is a process of doing accelerated materials discovery and development,” explained Swoboda to me. But, yeah, as you can expect, that’s a rather broad process, and revenues are in successful niche applications. It wasn’t until 2005 that Intematix focused on phosphors and solid-state lighting.

Over the decade, the company has raised several rounds of VC financing, though Swoboda declined to name how much, from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Crosslink Capital. Swoboda tells me that Intematix is also looking to raise a “pre-IPO” or mezzanine round in the first quarter of 2011, which could help the company’s potential IPO at a later date.

For more research on LED lighting check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Opportunities in LED Solid-State Lighting
• Top 10 Greentech Companies of 2010
• 7 Things That Spell Growing Pains for Greentech in 2011

The wind industry had close to $4.8 billion in transaction value in 2010, which included private fund-raising deals, initial public offerings, and mergers and acquisitions. Solar generated a transaction value of $3.2 billion, and energy efficiency, which includes smart grid and LED lighting companies, followed with $2.5 billion.

The transaction values run parallel to the cleantech investing numbers for 2010, which found that solar startups continued to draw the most money in venture capital investment last year, while energy-efficiency startups garnered the largest number of deals, according to the Cleantech Group. However, given utility-scale wind is a more matured market, there are fewer investments in next wind technology startups.

A bulk of the transaction value that went to wind was for building energy generation projects, the report noted. An analysis by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) showed that wind energy companies had grabbed the most money from a Treasury Department program that was set up in 2009 to subsidize renewable energy generation construction. As of November of last year, money that went to wind companies accounted for 85 percent of what the government had given out (solar took 8 percent).

In terms of the number of deals, the energy efficiency sector took the top spot, garnering 104 deals (fundraising rounds and M&A) last year, the Peachtree report said. Solar ranked second with 99 deals, followed by wind with 35 deals.

The report surmised that the strong interest in energy efficiency companies and projects will continue partly because they require less money and give quicker returns than more capital-intensive businesses such as solar and biofuel. Apparently, psychology also played a role, the report said, noting that many so-called energy-efficiency technologies are formerly called information technology and many investors came from the IT world.

Overall, $14.7 billion flowed into 371 fund-raising deals and mergers and acquisitions across all greentech sectors in 2010, and that reflected a 55-percent jump from 2009. Fund-raising deals, including equity investments in companies or projects, totaled $10.1 billion, a 65-percent hike from 2009. Mergers and acquisitions accounted for $4.6 billion in 2010, a 37 percent increase from the previous year.

So who are the losers? Bioenergy firms such as makers of biofuels to power cars. About $1.4 billion flowed into that sector, a 27-percent decline from 2009. Investors showed a strong interest in biofuel a few years back, when gasoline prices jumped dramatically and lawmakers began to approve policies and funds to jumpstart this new industry.

It has become painfully clear since then that figuring out how to make fuels from plants is trickier and takes more time and money than many had anticipated. Many companies have pushed back the time they will start mass-producing biofuels, prompting the government to dramatically scale back its expectation of gradually replacing fossil fuel with more renewable sources.

The energy storage sector, meanwhile, saw a 40-percent drop in deal values. But the report said the number is skewed by A123 Systems’ $378 million IPO in 2009, therefore, the storage business actually had a good year in 2010. Other fields that received less money included ocean and tidal power, carbon capture and sequestration, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

Related Content From GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Top 10 Greentech Companies of 2010
• 7 Things That Spell Growing Pains for Greentech in 2011
• Green IT 2011: China Marches Towards Greentech Dominance

Photo courtesy of Christopher Chappelear

By buying the Plano, Texas-based Lineage from its current owner, the private equity firm The Gores Group, GE will get a hold of data center power equipment customers including Verizon and HP, as well as a revenue stream that stood at $450 million in fiscal year 2010. It will also gain an in-house provider of inside-the-building gear for its growing data center business and related power grid businesses, which stretch from power generation to energy distribution grids.

GE has been making investments lately in data center-focused technologies; power conversion devices being just one area. GE has invested multiple rounds into wireless energy sensor startup SynapSense, and has been offering engineering and management services for more energy-efficient data center construction and retrofit projects for years now.

Lineage’s roots in AC-to-DC power conversion could give it a boost in a growing trend amongst data center designers: going to all-DC power systems. JPMorgan, Sprint, Boeing, Bank of America and SAP have built all-DC data centers, and GE has partnered with DC data center equipment maker Validus DC Systems.

In the meantime, rivals in the power grid space such as Schneider Electric and ABB have been making their own moves into the data center realm. Data centers used about 1.5 percent of the power generated in the U.S. in 2006, but that share was expected to double by 2012 to add up to $7.4 billion in annual power bills, according to a 2007 EPA report.

That could drive a fourfold increase in the green data center market to some $41.4 billion by 2015, Pike Research estimates. Growth has been driven both by telecom-focused growth in smartphones and other mobile devices, as well as through innovations in the traditional IT sector such as cloud computing.

Gores Group bought Lineage from conglomerate Tyco for $100 million three years ago, and Tyco acquired it from Lucent as part of a $2.5 billion deal in 2000. GE’s acqusition should close in the first quarter of 2011, GE told Bloomberg.

For more research on green data centers check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• The Real Reason Google Is Buying Wind Power
• Green Data Center Design Strategies
• Will Software or Sensors Will in Data Center Efficiency

Image courtesy of The Planet via Creative Commons license.

Yeah, it’s not exactly what I expected from the almost two-decade-old firm which has, until now, built a business around its 8,000 weather tracking stations. But Earth Networks has already partnered with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and has launched the first green house gas observation station in the network at Scripps.

There are a handful of these types of green house gas emissions observation stations in the world today, and the first was deployed by Scripps at the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii in 1958. (Check out this excellent article in the New York Times last month on the Mauna Loa tracking station). But Earth Networks says these observation stations aren’t networked together and don’t provide a global picture of emissions in enough detail and in real time.

The Earth Network will track both carbon and methane emissions and many of the observation stations will be built on tall towers and high up locations. The data that comes out of the sensor network will be used to provide detailed reports and will also be integrated into the WeatherBug app, so companies, governments, municipalities and consumers can check out the data. You can also observe some of it live online.

Earth Networks is initially working with Picarro, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based startup that sells $50,000 greenhouse gas-detecting sensor boxes. The analyzers are about the size of a desktop PC, and they work by firing laser beams into the air to determine concentrations of green house gases, and then measure the changes in wavelength signals. While the technology has existed in labs for decades, Picarro has stuffed all this measuring capability into a portable, 58-pound box of sensors that requires little maintenance.

The global sensor network will be an important tool for fighting climate change, but how commercially successful the operation will be, I’m not sure. No doubt if the U.S. ever passes carbon legislation, and if the U.N.’s green house gas negotiations make progress in the next few years, more governments and companies will want to pay Earth Networks to access its green house gas data.

Earth Networks did manage to build up weather-based services around its weather tracking stations, and the same type of products and applications will be needed for green house gas emissions data. In recent years, as AWS, Earth Networks started to sell its weather data to smart grid companies and utilities. The barrier to entry for Earth Network’s competitors is the $25 million worth of observation stations, but the intelligence of the network will come from the algorithms that sort through the emissions data.

To learn more about tools and companies that are hard at work crunching this type of so-called “big data,” come check out our Big Data conference in New York on March 23. I’ll be there.

Related GigaOM Pro content:

• New Opportunities in the Smart Grid
• Report: IT and Networking Issues for the Electric Vehicle Market
• Home Energy Management: Consumer Attitudes and Preferences

Most of these solar battery cases are really meant for topping off the iPhone battery, and shouldn’t be relied on as a primary power source. Even if you leave most of these devices in the sun for hours, they’ll only give you a small bit of talk time. But still, extending your battery with clean power, is kind of cool and also a convenient conversation starter when you’re trying to pick up that hippy chick (dude) at Whole Foods.

1. Frostfire’s Mooncharge. Design firm Frostfire has created an iPhone 4 case called the “Mooncharge” that has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery at the base with a small solar panel embedded on it that can extend the battery life of the iPhone. Twenty minutes of direct sunlight shining on the case will buy you an extra 50 minutes on standby mode, or 5 minutes of chatting. Cost: $60.

2. Volt Solar Charger. Chinese developer Xiamen Solar Electronics (XSE), has created the Volt Solar Charger which, like the Mooncharge, also connects an extra battery to the iPhone, along with solar panels, to extend the battery life. GoSolarUSA will be selling the Volt Solar Charger in the U.S. Cost: Not available.

3. Novothink’s Surge. Another battery/case/panel combo. The Surge uses a 1320 mAh battery, and two hours of direct sunlight can deliver 30 minutes of talk time on a 3G network (60 minutes of talk time on a 2G network). Cost: $80.

4. Icetech’s Solar Wallet. A modified version of these cases is iceTECH’s i3000 solar charger series. It uses a wallet design, with the solar panel on the outside, and the 1350 mAh lithium-ion battery inside. The wallet can charge the phone fully in direct sunlight in about three hours. Cost: $50.

5. Solio’s Solar Charger. The Solio brand is one of the most well-known when it comes to tapping sunlight for cell phones. The Solio classic charger has three panels that open up like a fan, and deliver power to a 1650 mAh battery. When the battery is fully charged, which takes nine hours, it gives you 10 hours of talk time. Solio also has two other models with different designs. Cost: $100 (classic).

6. Soulra Solar Dock. Made for the outdoor music enthusiast, the Soulra Solar Dock is an outdoor music docking station, powered by solar, for your iPhone. The solar panels power the dock and the device. Pool party! Eton makes the device. Cost: $175.

7. Bonus Round, Some Day Apple? Speculation about Apple adding some kind of solar power feature to its iDevices has popped up periodically over the past several years. In 2008, Apple reportedly filed a patent application that indicated the company was looking at ways to embed solar panels behind the LCD screens of mobile gadgets like iPods, iPhones and laptops.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• How Mobile Networks Can Cut Carbon
• Why Google Android’s Electric Vehicle Deal with GM Matters
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps

Fuel makes up a massive percentage of airlines’ operating costs, and burning it in the air accounts for the vast majority of the airline industry’s estimated 2 percent of global carbon emissions. But making slight adjustments to the way airplanes come into landings at airports can shave between 5 to 15 percent off of the fuel burned in a typical flight. Spread across the airline industry, that adds up to a lot of saved fuel.

Old-school air traffic control systems require planes to track widely separated flight patterns, and descend to a certain altitude and then stay there, in a step-wise fashion. But Southwest’s new Required Navigation Performance (RNP) flight procedures allows planes to track tighter flight paths and glide continuously downward toward landing can save a surprising amount of fuel, it turns out (check out this animation for more detail).

Naverus, a startup that developed technology behind RNP flight procedures, was acquired by General Electric in November 2009, and GE Aviation has been testing the new technology in the U.S. since August. GE is one of the partners in Southwest’s new RNP flights at 11 U.S. airports, along with Boeing — which has outfitted 345 of its 737-700s with the technology to fly RNP patterns — and Honeywell.

The Federal Aviation Administration wants to roll RNP out to all the country’s airports and airlines over the coming years as part of its Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) program. That could cost around $6 billion to $7 billion in upgrades for the federal government and airlines and airports to support the new flight procedures — but it’s a needed next step for the nation’s air traffic control system to manage ever-increasing volumes of passenger and cargo flights, as well as save fuel and money.

Naverus has also tested its technology in Australia, Canada, Peru and China as well, and GE Aviation is testing it in the European AIRE (Atlantic-Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions) project.

For more research on green transportation check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Car Data As the Next Platform for Innovation
  
• Report: IT Opportunities in Electric Vehicle Management
• Why Microsoft’s Electric Vehicle Deal With Ford Matters

Image courtesy of TXphotoblog via Creative Commons license.

The move is important because Verizon’s smart home pilot — and commercial product that will come out later in 2011 — is one of the first moves from a major U.S. telco to offer energy management services, and could kick off the nascent energy management industry. To date, despite a lot of attempts by startups in the market, the home energy management space hasn’t yet taken off.

Z-Wave is a proprietary wireless technology that uses chips basically made by one vendor: Sigma Designs, which acquired Z-Wave chipmaker Zensys in 2008. The Z-Wave Alliance does have prominent members, including ADT, Black & Decker, Danfoss, Leviton and Ingersoll Rand, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have proprietary roots. In contrast the wireless standard ZigBee has tens of millions of chips and modules being made by multiple vendors for dozens of device partners.

But to date ZigBee has been a technology embraced by the power industry and utilities, instead of consumer electronics makers. Z-Wave has the lead in overall home automation products on the market, with about 250, compared to ZigBee’s 100 certified devices (these numbers are from December).

The smart home product from Verizon will include a connected thermostat, smart plugs, appliance modules, windows and door sensors, and a service gateway, all enabled by Z-Wave. The connected camera, which can be used for security applications, will use WiFi. Using this connected gear, consumers will be able to monitor and manage both their home energy consumption, and security services.

Verizon is working with 4Home, the home automation company that was recently acquired by Motorola, for its smart home trail. 4Home has long been a member of the Z-Wave alliance.

Verizon’s principle architect for its Home Monitoring and Control services, John Valdez, and Jack Eastman, Verizon product manager, told me in an interview last week that Verizon is initially focused on Z-Wave for its smart energy home service because the wireless technology is “more readily available,” than working with the utility-embraced home wireless standard ZigBee.

There are more consumer-focused and commercially available products based around Z-Wave, said the Verizon execs. But that doesn’t mean that Verizon won’t be including other wireless technologies including ZigBee in the future: “We are more than happy to integrate anything into it.”

The progress of Z-Wave in the smart energy home, is apparent in other deals, too, which we pointed out in this article for GigaOM Pro, subscription required. For example, Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo said in October it planned a Z-Wave-based home energy management offering, featuring “smart tap” power sensing devices and home routers from Sumitomo.

Smart meter makers — which have turned to ZigBee in droves — also aren’t exactly rushing to open systems to connect with home device makers, points out the Verizon execs. In fact in Verizon’s energy product it includes something it calls a “smart meter,” but not one of the ZigBee-based standard ones. Instead the Verizon energy product includes a circuit clamp, which records energy usage and connects to an interface via Z-Wave.

The Verizon execs said that they will be working closely with Sigma and the Z-Wave Alliance to push for a more open approach.

• Z-Wave: Gaining Ground on ZigBee for Home Energy Networking?
• Is the Opt-Out Model the Future of Home Energy Management
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps

Image courtesy of Ytechblogs via Creative Commons license.

Over at GigaOm Pro (subscription required), I’ve compiled a list of companies that are both leaders and up-and-comers in the solar power, smart grid, biofuel, green vehicle and energy efficiency sectors, as well as one utility and one international energy conglomerate. These companies help illustrate the role that the old-school energy industries are going to play in the greentech evolution.

While broader economic issues will play the critical role in determining the course that greentech industries take across sectors and countries next year, several companies should serve as a pretty good gauge for their industries as a whole. For solar we have our low price leader, First Solar, and potential solar thermal IPO candidate BrightSource Energy. In the smart grid sector, there’s another rumored IPO hopeful, Silver Spring Networks, and would-be rival Grid Net. And in the home energy management sphere chameleon-like company People Power helps us keep up with the twists and turns of that overcrowded market.

Electric vehicle charging, meanwhile, brings up Better Place, and also leads us to NRG Energy, a power generation giant taking innovative steps into for-profit car charging as well as solar and wind power production and marketing. And with venture financing playing an increasingly important role in the greentech industry, General Electric is worth keeping an eye on in the next year.

To read more about what these companies hold in store for the coming months, read my full post.

We’re curious to hear which companies you think don’t belong on the list, and which ones you feel should be added — and happy new year.

Image courtesy of flickr user Kim Scarborough.

Related Content From GigaOM Pro (subscription required)

• Top 10 Greentech Companies of 2010
• 7 Things That Spell Growing Pains for Greentech in 2011
• Green IT 2011: China Marches Towards Greentech Dominance

For NRG and Reliant, that means showing off a demo of a smart energy home complete with smart appliances, dashboards, meters, an electric vehicle (Nissan’s LEAF) and variable energy pricing. While this year’s CES wasn’t the first for Few — he formerly hailed from Motorola — it was a milestone for the energy company. Here’s my edited excerpt of an interview with Few:

Earth2Tech: Is this the first show for Reliant and NRG?

Few: It is. This is the first time that we’ve been here. We really consider the opportunity to be here … as a pivotal point for us and our industry, because we now have, for the first time, the ability to take advantage of the digitization of the grid.

We now have the capability to deliver real solutions to our customer base. Quite frankly even if we had a desire in the past to do this, there was just no way to do it, and now we can. So being here at CES is an important step in demonstrating what we’re trying to do for our customers.

E2T: Tell me more about the tipping point for this technology? What’s different this year?

Few: For us, we’ve become the new entrant into the opportunity. If you look back historically, I think the people who have participated in the smart home market have, by and large, been manufacturers of entertainment products, whether that’s TVs or even gaming. People like Microsoft and others trying to bring together home automation and entertainment. Then you have security companies that have tried to bring this together.

Now you have someone like us as an energy provider that has the opportunity to deliver a set of consumer services that leverages smart meters, and smart appliances from manufacturers such as Wolf, GE and others. So it’s a new integration opportunity for consumers in their homes, and as an energy provider, it creates an opportunity for us to participate.

The other thing that you’ve got that’s driving this and serving as a tipping point, is the proliferation of smart phones. People are becoming a lot more comfortable with using applications on their smart phones, and people are getting comfortable with technology. That’s people along the whole spectrum, and with the iPad and Kindle for example. You have people today that might be older people, 60 plus years old, that are now using iPad and Kindles. There’s a comfort level now that’s across the population.

E2T: Have you seen any other power companies or utilities there?

Few: We haven’t seen any, though I can’t say for sure. But for us, we consider ourselves different. We are in the energy sector, but we see ourselves as a consumer services company. We have a different view of our market .

E2T: Tell me about the demo?

Few: We’ve literally created a home. Imagine taking a house and cutting it in half. Then we’re showing how consumers can take advantage of solutions. We’re demonstrating turning on a washer/dryer, and you can see the consumption go up, and then we show real-time pricing. So it shows how you could make a decision to not run [the] washer/dryer when it’s more expensive, but also giving the consumer control too if they want to override that.

We’re demoing taking consumer consumption and forecasting a customer bill for a month out, based on the real-time use of energy. We’re also demonstrating remote control features, and we’re illustrating that by showing the consumer leaving the home and their plans change, and then they can remotely control the home fully using automation and connectivity. So it’s a full 360-degree view in and out of home, integrated with electric vehicles and a home charger solution.

E2T: Is Reliant working with a lot of third parties? Can can you talk about which companies and the process of working with these companies?

To work with third parties, we’ve become active in standards bodies groups. Were on the Zigbee board; we’re part of the NIST process, etc. It’s important for us, [with] our large customer base, and not being a traditional tech company, that we work on standards that we can devote to a consistent set of solutions.

We’re working with companies like Control4, [which] has a home automation product today. We don’t intend to be a manufacturer of solutions. We’re working with GE on smart appliances. From an energy perspective, we have an opportunity to provide our knowledge. We’ve made a smart home in Houston, where we test technologies in our environment, so before we sell to our customer base, and choose partners to work with, we make sure we can fully integrate things.

E2T: The Verizon folks are showing off their smart home demo at CES. Do you see a service provider as a partner for you guys?

Few: I do. We can work with a broad spectrum of partners. In the smart home, wireless and cellular plays a huge part. Verizon has a cable/FIOS offering, and people feel comfortable receiving information over a TV screen. We’ve worked with them in terms of broadband infrastructure in the house for Zigbee-enabled devices, but also other devices that may not go down Zigbee path but are connected through Internet Protocol. Companies like Verizon are also excellent at putting applications and broadband devices in homes (set-top boxes, etc.), and those can become meaningful partners.

E2T: Do you see the Verizon launch as a meaningful tipping point for smart energy homes?

Few: I do, because it’s the more the merrier. They are doing two important things: education, and engagement. These are going to be the things that get people to adopt our solutions. This is very much an experience-driven market.

We sell a product on the energy side where everyone needs it, and everyone has it. You don’t want to touch it; that’s not a good thing. But this is [the] first time people get to touch “energy.” We think that’s very exciting.

E2T: Do you think this could happen in a regulated market?

Few: I do. But here’s the thing: If you break it into pieces … I think if you look at the EV space, there’s a potential opportunity for that ecosystem to emerge in regulated markets — that is, if regulators decide not to rate-base the infrastructure, which I think would be a mistake.

Reliant isn’t waiting for PUCs; we’re doing these things to create solutions for customers. I think parts of this can happen in a regulated market, but I think what’s happening in Texas is yet another great example as to why markets should deregulate, because consumers should have a choice for whatever they buy and companies need to innovate.

For more research on home energy management, check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• New Opportunities in the Smart Grid
• Is the Opt-Out Model the Future of Home Energy Management
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps

Image courtesy of Vladeb.

A few observable truths from here on the ground:

1. Moore’s law is definitely in effect
2. There are many more men here than women (no surprise, I guess)
3. Everyone and their brother wants a tablet
4. Some big tech companies are moving in the right direction by phasing out the use of key toxic chemicals and increasing the energy efficiency of some of their products
5. Other big tech companies are lagging behind on sustainability and energy efficiency

To highlight the greenest gadgets on store shelves in 2011, we’ve put together a product survey titled, “Towards Greener Electronics” which we released at CES this morning. As we’ve noticed in the past few Guide to Greener Electronics versions, we’re seeing the greatest amount of progress in the reduction of toxic chemicals and the least amount of progress, in comparison, in responsible take-back programs. (You know, like your parents taught you: if you make a mess, you clean it up.)

The Winners

The highest scoring product is the Asus VW-247H-HF computer monitor. This is the best scoring product of any of our three survey editions. In fact, Asus won two categories: notebooks and monitors. We also singled out Apple’s Macbook Pro and Philips’ Econova Television for praise, despite these companies not submitting these two products to us.

The category winners are:

• Desktops: HP Compaq 6005 Pro Ultra-slim (6.06 points)
• Notebooks: Asus UL30A (5.59 points)
• Netbooks: Acer TM8172 (5.08 points)
• Monitors: Asus VW 247H-HF (7.50 points)
• Mobile Phones: Samsung GT-S7550(Blue Earth) (7.03 points)
• Televisions: Sharp LC-52SE1 (6.46 points)
• Smartphones: Sony Ericsson Aspen (M1i) (6.21 points)

* the full survey is available at www.greenpeace.org/electronics

** a new timeline showing five years of kick-butt, greener electronics campaigning is here.

A little history on the survey: In June 2010, Greenpeace invited 21 leading electronics companies to participate in its third Green Electronics Survey. The companies were asked to submit their greenest products from across six categories. Eighteen companies rose to the challenge, sharing their most-prized, environmentally-friendly products. “Toward Green Electronics” ranks these products and assesses the progress made over the past year by consumer electronic companies on their public commitments to green their products and reduce their impact on the environment.

For the past six years, Greenpeace has been campaigning for electronics companies to reduce their use of toxic chemicals and improve take-back and responsible recycling programs. Why? At every stage of a product’s lifecycle, from material extraction, through production and consumer use and ultimate disposal, electronic products can impact human health and the environment.

While there’s still plenty of room for improvement — most importantly in the areas of planned obsolescence and the health and safety of electronics workers — in many regards, campaigners and the electronics industry are no longer diametrically opposed on the most important environmental issues. It’s now the speed of change that we discuss, and Greenpeace will continue to push in both corporate boardrooms and global capitals for an end to e-waste pollution.

If you’re at CES and want to reach out, find us on Twitter @coolitchallenge.

Daniel Kessler is a Senior Press Officer for Greenpeace, the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future. Daniel blogs at www.greenpeace.org and lives and works in the Bay Area.

Those two options seem to about cover the range of responses, both positive and negative, to LG’s launch of its Thinq line at the CES 2011 show in Las Vegas. The new offering promises washer-dryers, ovens, refrigerators and robotic vacuum cleaners that can be monitored and controlled via smartphones or tablet PC’s — perhaps LG’s upcoming Android tablet? — as well as smart meters and other smart-grid connected devices.

This isn’t LG’s first foray into networked, intelligent devices. Does anyone remember LG’s $10,000 DIOS Internet refrigerator? Don’t feel bad if you don’t, it was discontinued.

To avoid the fate of the DIOS Internet fridge and other too-early attempts at bringing intelligent white goods to homeowners, LG will have to avoid the over-pricing and under-performance issues that have dogged smart appliances in the past.

The range of features LG is claiming for its Thinq line will be familiar to students of the smart appliance promises of competitors such as General Electric, Whirlpool, Panasonic, Electrolux, Bosch and others. Among them, LG’s refrigerators and dryers offer door-ajar warnings and cycle shifting to take advantage of low nighttime power prices and its ovens can be pre-set to cook at different temperatures depending on electric power rates and commute times. All of the appliances can be monitored and managed via mobile devices and PCs — a fun and useful feature, but also one which is being followed by a number of its energy-smart home competitors as well.

All new Thinq appliances will also track energy use, and will be linked via Wi-Fi to a network that can sync those energy use tallies to power pricing information, LG promises. But when it comes to linking energy use to energy costs, LG will either require customers to manually input their price information — something most customers aren’t likely to do — or rely on smart meters and a “switched on” smart grid to derive energy prices.

Relying on the smart grid of today to deliver price information will be a problem, however. Very few smart meter deployments are delivering energy prices at present, and barriers to real-time pricing via smart meters remain quite daunting for utilities.

There are other ways to connect utilities and customers — take Verizon’s smart home and energy management project announced last month, for example. But even the fastest connections to the home aren’t worth much if utilities aren’t giving homeowners different prices to take advantage of. Such time-of-use prices that change throughout the day — or spike upwards when utilities need to reduce peak loads to avoid blackouts — are still quite rare for residential customers. Canada’s Ontario province and Arizona utilities Salt River Project and Arizona Public service are among the only regions now providing them in North America.

LG’s vision of using Wi-Fi to connect its devices may also conflict with the fact that most smart meters deployed today are using ZigBee as the preferred way to network home devices — although many industry observers believe energy-smart homes of the future may rely on a mix of both networking technologies.

Just how LG plans to bring Thinq appliances to market — and how much more they will cost compared to less intelligent models — wasn’t made clear in its CES launch materials. LG has been reported to be testing its smart appliance capabilities in South Korea’s Jeju Island smart grid pilot project, along with fellow Korean appliance maker Samsung, a test-first, sell-later tack that’s being pursued by many other white goods manufacturers.

Given that many of the most promising features of smart appliances will rely on a more complete rollout of smart grid systems and new ways of pricing power to homeowners, being more vague is probably a good idea for now.

Pike Research predicts that the smart appliance global market will only reach $2.2 billion in sales by 2013 and $6.3 billion by 2015, compared to a 2009 global appliance market of some $230 billion. Whirlpool has said it plans to produce 1 million smart clothes dryers by the end of 2011, which would be a quarter of Whirlpool’s expected dryer production. By 2019, smart appliances could make up nearly one in ten appliances sold and command a worldwide market of $26.1 billion, Pike predicts.

For more research on home energy management, check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• New Opportunities in the Smart Grid
• Is the Opt-Out Model the Future of Home Energy Management
• The Developer’s Guide to Home Energy Management Apps

Image courtesy of LG.

1. Home Energy Management. Verizon will be demonstrating its new connected home service, complete with energy management, which the telco is piloting in New Jersey starting this month. Verizon will be using a product from startup 4Home, which was recently acquired by telecom gear provider Motorola. Users will be able to tap into the new service to control and manage home devices remotely including thermostats, lights, security cameras, and locks. Will consumers respond to the energy management piece when it goes commercial? We’ll see later this year.

A company called GreenWave Reality, which was launched in June 2010 by former Cisco execs, is also touting a home energy management product that includes smart plugs, a management interface and an LED. Control4, EnergyHub, iControl, will also be at the show. In addition, CES has a panel planned around this topic.

2. The Connected Car. For the third time, Ford CEO Alan Mulally will present a CES keynote; he speaks early afternoon. It’s no coincidence that Ford also released a note Monday describing how its Ford connected Sync platform is being used in 3 million Ford cars to date, after being introduced three years ago. Ford reportedly will also show off its Ford Focus 2012 electric car.

Beyond Ford, CES has put together a panel on the connected EV – A Computer on Wheels: Meet the Electric Car – and has an entire zone dedicated to EVs called the Electric Vehicle TechZone. BYD America (the U.S. division of the Chinese giant BYD), Hyundai Motor), Audi, Ford and OnStar (GM’s connected car service) will have booths at the show.

3. More Energy-Efficient Gadgets. As Greenpeace notes in a post for us, consumer electronics makers are making some progress on making gadgets more energy-efficient. At the same time, they’re ignoring tracking the embodied energy spent while developing the product — but that’s another story. Startups, like Green Plug, seem to come out of the wood work every year for CES, showing off smarter consumption technology. I’m hoping Belkin will generate some buzz around its Conserve smart office (and home office) power gadget line. CES is also hosting a panel on reducing energy from consumer electronics.

4. Energy Storage. We can’t run our gadgets or the power grid without energy storage and batteries. Universal Power says it will show off a solar-powered portable generator called the Ecotricity ECO1800. Contour Energy systems, the Caltech spinout, will also be in attendance.

5. Wireless Power. Wireless power technology has perpetually been over hyped and under delivered. That isn’t stopping industry groups from continuing to talk about it. The Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group formed to create standards and includes Texas Instruments, Nokia, Philips, Samsung and Duracell, will be demonstrating a variety of new technologies, though many are pre-commercial.

Demonstrations include: Energizer’s  Inductive Charger and accessories for the iPhone, designed by ConvenientPower Group; the Fulton Innovation Transmitter; Leggett & Platt Helios Wireless Chargers and center console; and Texas Instruments’ bqTESLA Evaluation Kit for developing wireless power products.

6. General Smart Grid. There’s a noticeable jump in companies talking about the smart grid at CES this year. CES and Clasma Events have organized a full series of sessions with speakers like NIST’s George Arnold and Reliant Energy’s Jason Few. Cisco and power company NRG Energy will also have booths at the show.

7. Gadget Recycling. CES has teamed up with Earth911, its recycling partner for the show, and CES once again will have the Sustainable Planet TechZone. Startup Gazelle will be at CES, touting its gadget, cell phone and laptop reseller and recycling web site.

8. How Green is the Show Itself? CES says it has cut its print production over the past five years by nearly 50 percent. The show organizers also point out that CES attendees have an average of 12 meetings, which they say cuts down on airplane travel emissions (consolidating trips into one). At the same time, the researchers at Interactive Media Strategies point out that “Tthe only real green alternative is a virtual event on your computer, not a traditional in-person event in a convention center,“ and “Ssaying anything else is “the epitome of spin.”

For more research on cleantech financing check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Cleantech Financing  Trends 2010 & Beyond
• Smart Algorithms: The Future of the Energy Industry
• Renewable Energy Charging Up Electrical Transmission Tech

Image courtesy of Betsyweber.

Every each at CES, we notice the slow but steady move toward more sustainable products. This year we will be using our time in Las Vegas to release the 3rd edition of the Greenpeace Product Survey. Just like our last two editions we have once again ranked the greenest desktop computers, notebooks, netbooks, computer monitors, mobile phones, smartphones and televisions available on store shelves in the first quarter of 2011.

All week, we’ll be sharing our thoughts in this space on the state of the sector, what we’re seeing at CES through our green lens, and hoping to connect with readers of Earth2Tech on your demands and ideas for the consumer electronics sector. You can also reach us directly at greenpeace.ces.2011@gmail.com.

Greenpeace’s Work Toward Greener Electronics

Greenpeace began our Green Electronics campaign with two simple demands: clean up the hazardous waste stream by eliminating toxic chemicals in electronics and take back and recycle obsolete products.

By cleaning up all electronic product lines through the elimination of the most toxic chemicals, a manufacturer can guarantee its products are not exposing workers, its own customers, and the environment to hazardous substances. Both PVC and brominated flame retardants  (BFRs), found in many electronics, have been linked to devastating health effects, and the millions of tons of e-waste dumped every year are often burnt in open pit fires to obtain scrap metal.

Due to the highly competitive nature of this industry, we knew that the most effective approach would be to rank the companies against each other on these two important issues. We created The Guide to Greener Electronics, which launched in August 2006 and quickly became the most effective tool in the campaign. As the world’s dependence on electronic devices has increased over the years and climate change became more pressing, we added energy use to our ranking in 2008

Progress Seen and Felt

The 16th edition of our Guide was published in October 2010, and we’re seeing many of the types of transformative change we hoped for when we began our campaign. Apple, Nokia and Sony Ericsson began to phase out the most toxic substances from their products, and eager to not lose face, other companies began to follow their lead (sometimes with a bit of encouragement).

Many regular CES exhibitors, including Acer, Indian companies Wipro and HCL, Hewlett Packard and Philips, are now offering smart phones, computers, monitors and televisions, free of the most toxic chemicals, such as BFRs and PVC,

We are seeing similar gains in product energy efficiency, companies taking financial responsibility for the life cycle of their products, and offering more opportunities for convenient and free take-back of their products in most regions of the world. This is especially crucial in areas outside of the EU that do not yet have e-waste laws to prevent the exportation of obsolete electronics to underdeveloped nations with little to no infrastructure to handle their safe recycling.

While there is still plenty of room for improvement, the electronics industry has steadily made progress in creating more sustainable products, a new reality that we will dive deeper in to this week at CES. Hope you can join us for the ride.

You can reach Greenpeace at CES directly at greenpeace.ces.2011@gmail.com.

Image courtesy of Greenpeace.

I based the prediction back then on interviews with several startups selling into this market, as well as the broadband players themselves. Well, turns out that I was right…but about a year too early.

Now as we kick off 2011, the broadband-enabled smart energy home has finally made some real headway, which I describe in this post for GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Milestones indicating that the telco smart energy home is becoming a reality include:

• Verizon’s January launch of its long-discussed smart home and energy management pilot in New Jersey.
• AT&T recent acquisition of Xanboo, a decade-old firm that was one of the original home automation players and enables home owners to monitor security, energy consumption, and digital media across devices.
• Telco gear provider Motorola’s recent announcement of its intent to buy up home automation and energy monitoring startup 4Home via its communications subsidiary Motorola Mobility.

Earlier this year Consert, a startup with a home energy product that connects via cellular networks, jumped onto my radar when it announced that it raised $17.7 million from Verizon Ventures (the VC arm of Verizon), phone chip company Qualcomm, utility Constellation Energy and GE Energy Financial Services. And in late 2009 home automation and energy management iControl raised $45 million in funding from cable company Comcast, Intel Capital (VC arm of the chip giant), networking heavyweight Cisco, General Electric and security firm ADT, along with traditional VCs Kleiner Perkins and Charles River Ventures.

Yes, all of these moves are still experimental, but the service providers are clearly on the path of weaving energy management into their overall smart home offerings. Now we’ll see in 2011 if consumers will buy the services.

Read more about why all of these moves are important and what the future of the smart energy home will look like in my latest article for GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Image courtesy of awoodvine.