GigaOM » Adam Lesser

Kleiner Perkins backs energy comparison startup Choose Energy

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:36:11 +0000

While venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins appears to be retrenching its cleantech investments, the firm also continues to make small investments in young startups focused on the cleanweb, or IT-based cleantech. On Tuesday a Plano, Texas-based startup called Choose Energy announced that it has raised a $4 million Series A investment from Kleiner Perkins and Stephens Capital Partners.

Eight-year-old Choose Energy has developed a service that offers consumers and businesses in deregulated markets options for retail electricity and gas plans. The site is active in Texas, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois, and the company says it will eventually work for the 19 deregulated energy states and 22 deregulated gas states.

While deregulated energy markets have proved to be controversial in some states in the past, as GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser has written, further deregulation could also support business models in areas like smart grid analytics and clean power. It’s been more than a decade since the California electricity crisis and the Enron disaster.

Choose Energy says it is also building tools for retail energy providers to acquire customers based on techniques from telecom, travel, media and other web-heavy industries. The tools used by the cell phone companies to entice new customers to their network are much more sophisticated than what standard retail energy providers are using today. The startup says it has helped 100,000 consumers switch energy suppliers.

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This week in cleantech: the share economy, efficient data centers & grid batteries

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:33:08 +0000

We’ve got a thriving section in our GigaOM Pro, premium research subscription service, based just on cleantech, green data centers, next-gen energy technologies and the like. Here’s some great new content we’ve got in the cleantech section of GigaOM Pro this week:

Cleantech investor Vinod Khosla made news last summer when he told a meeting at the Energy Storage Association that the smart grid was more “smart hype than smart grid.” Importantly for that audience, he noted that all of the fundamental efforts of the smart grid geared at the demand side—smart meters, demand response, real time pricing, smart electronics—would become irrelevant and unnecessary if energy storage got price competitive. They’re starting to . . . Read the rest of GigaOM Pro cleantech analyst Adam Lesser’s take on The Future of Battery Storage on the Grid (subscription required).
Owning physical items — cars, apartments, office space — has both lost some of its luster and will be increasingly inefficient for a global market. It is shifts like these, combined with catalysts like mobile technology, that are driving a greater interest in the share economy, which can broadly be defined as a marketplace where business models are built around consumers choosing access rather than ownership. Check out our report on the Opportunities and Risks in the Share Economy (subscription required).
Around the world, data centers consume around 1.5 percent of total electricity demand, a figure that is expected to increase significantly. Greenpeace predicts power consumption will grow 19 percent by 2013 to 31 gigawatts. To cut power and, with it, costs, tech titans like Google, Apple, and Facebook are aggressively pursuing strategies to cut electricity use by greening their data centers. Read our report on The Economics of Clean Data Center Innovation (subscription required).

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Today in cleantech: Apple’s sustainability

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:05:47 +0000

Apple seems to be increasingly willing to respond to negative publicity surrounding its sustainability practices, points out GigaOM Pro cleantech analyst Adam Lesser. First Apple responded publicly to Greenpeace’s criticism of its power sourcing at its North Carolina data center and more recently Apple quickly reversed its decision on the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) registry.

Why? Adam says it could be a hedge against the extremely small possibility that one day it might have a competitor (Google) with better green credentials and a product in the same ballpark of quality. But for now, the company will put design first and throw in some sustainability, particularly when there are benefits to the consumer. To check out the rest of this article read it here.

And here’s some other awesome research and reports you missed on GigaOM Pro (subscription required), our premium research service:

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End times near for U.S. support of cleantech

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:28:02 +0000

About two years ago Dan Reicher, Google’s then director of climate change and energy initiatives said: “we’re staring at the biggest cliff we’ve ever faced in renewables when the stimulus runs out in 18 months.” Now it looks like the end times are near for U.S. support for cleantech, at least according to a report out from the Breakthrough Institute, the Brookings Institution and the World Resources Institute.

The report says that after a rise in cleantech support and clean power installations between 2006 and 2011, tens of billions of dollars will suddenly come to a screeching halt and tax breaks for clean power are also in danger of expiring. As the New York Times noted: “there will be a estimated 75 percent decline in federal clean technology spending by 2014 from a peak of $44.3 billion in 2009.”

The drop in U.S. support is particularly unfortunate as various clean power technologies are still more expensive than fossil fuel-based power, but some are on the brink of grid parity, like solar, with its drop in solar cell prices.

Of course, the fossil fuel industry received decades and billions of support over the years. GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser looks into a report from Roger Bezdek, a 30-year energy consultant, and found that $837 billion (in 2010 dollars) in incentives were expended over the past 60 years with oil, coal and natural gas getting 70 percent of that, or $594 billion. Oil alone was the big winner with $369 billion by itself while renewable energy, defined primarily as solar and wind, has received $74 billion, about what nuclear has received.

Image courtesy of Mike Lehen.

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Electric car charging: Let’s not make this more complicated

Adam Lesser — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:35:44 +0000

This article originally appeared on GigaOM Pro (subscription required)

Despite tepid sales of electric cars, NRG Energy’s electric vehicle charging network project eVgo is rolling out chargers in public places like malls in Houston and Dallas. The company is getting in early, snapping up agreements to place its chargers at key points of visibility, good security and high traffic. NRG is betting that if it builds it, they will come, and with direct current fast chargers that can charge an electric vehicle in as little as 15 minutes, what’s not to like?

Members only

The proprietary subscription pricing model is what’s not to like. EVgo is selling access to the charging stations on a cellphone model where for a 3-year contract at $89 a month, customers get free installation of a home charger as well as access to all of the public chargers with electricity included at eVgo network stations (for $49 a month, you just get the home charger).

The problem with this charging network is that using it is proprietary. You can’t even access an eVgo charging station if you don’t have a subscription. And if you do have a subscription, you are extremely reliant on there being an eVgo charger where you need it. Because after plonking down your $89 a month, who wants to pay more money when you find yourself in a location where you need a charge and the only charger available isn’t an eVgo charger.

The issue of proprietary charging networks isn’t unique to eVgo and it represents a future customer experience problem for the electric vehicle industry. While other charging networks like Ecotality’s Blink and Coulomb’s ChargePoint may not employ strict subscription models, they penalize customers for not carrying company specific RFID cards that switch on their network chargers. Imagine needing the gas card of every gas station you go to get the best deal or the best service.

If you don’t have their company specific RFID cards, Ecotality’s Blink Network allows payments with “Blink codes” that can be obtained from a mobile device at double the price of using a Blink member card. And Coulomb’s ChargePoint requires drivers to call a number and provide their credit card over the phone if they don’t have a ChargePoint card (you can use contactless credit cards, which few people have, to pay at the station). The inconvenience aside, consider having to call a service late at night in a dimly lit parking lot and provide one’s credit card number in order to charge one’s car. Talk about the kind of user experience that would have Steve Jobs rolling in his grave.

A coming problem for the automakers

I spoke with the founder of EV Charging Pros, John Kalb, who has worked with numerous retail and commercial establishments throughout Northern California on public charger installations. “The charging networks believe the RFID cards allow them to control the customer experience but it’s not creating a customer experience that allows the market to grow,” he said. Right now the automakers have early adopters and enthusiasts for customers who don’t necessarily mind carrying different EV charging cards, but as Kalb noted to me in a previous conversation, what happens when you’re Nissan and you want to sell 400,000 electric vehicles.

What’s on the horizon is the potential for automakers to be in conflict with charging network operators in a way that they never were with gas station owners. The charging operators want proprietary systems because they want to optimize their relationship with their customer so that they can allow interesting payment schemes like letting mall owners offer discounted charging to people who frequent the mall. But this vision comes at the expense of the wider market need, which is about making it as easy as possible for EV drivers to access a charge.

Defenders of the current system point out that early adopters don’t mind the charging systems being deployed, and I

NRG Energy's eVgo Network at a Best Buy

suspect that eVgo’s all you can charge plans have a great appeal for car owners who want to pay one fee for all their energy use. But electric vehicles won’t exist in 5 years if the auto industry can’t move beyond early adopters and offer a convenient charging network. Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf sales have been disappointing, and EVs are getting caught up in the current politicization of cleantech, which led GM CEO Dan Ackerson to note in The New York Times last week that GM “did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag.”

The interesting thing about electric vehicle charging is that it actually has the potential to make everyone’s life more convenient. We’re accustomed to having to take a trip to the gas station to fill up, but what if we could charge our cars while shopping or being at work. Any retail, government or commercial entity with some parking real estate can offer charging. It’s a lot cheaper to install an electric car charger than to put in a gasoline pumping station, and if level 3 direct current charging specs are ever resolved, charging one’s car will be a 20 minute affair.

It’s already slow going with EV adoption. Let’s not make this any more complicated.

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Today in Green IT: Solar & smart thermostats in 2012

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:10:18 +0000

The Green IT section of our GigaOM Pro research service (subscription required) has been cranking out a lot of rock solid research and long form reports in 2012. While we’ll bring you all the breaking news and columns on this site, go check out GigaOM Pro for more indepth articles and market research.

This week we debut our first indepth solar report from Ucilia Wang: After Solyndra, Finding Opportunity in the Shifting Solar Industry. The 30-page report analyzes the current state and future concerns of the solar industry, with a particular focus on the photovoltaic industry and the U.S. market. From the silicon companies to inverter manufacturers to government and venture money, here’s what to expect as the industry marches toward its uncertain future.

For all those that have been following the Honeywell, Nest lawsuit today, go check out my report on the Battle for the Smart Thermostat in 2012. I outline who the players are and what you can expect from the big companies, startups and utilities.

If battery innovation is your thing, I also wrote a research report on The Opportunities for the Future of Batteries. These are the technical advances and innovations you can expect from scientists and entrepreneurs in 2012, and how this will effect mobile, the grid and vehicles.

And finally, what our Green IT analyst Adam Lesser has been reading about and writing about this week:

On the Nest, Honeywell lawsuit: Let’s hope that connected home energy management products like the Nest don’t face the barrage of patent lawsuits that have come to characterize mobile. After all, Samsung, Apple, and Google all have a lot more money than startups like Nest to fight lawsuits.

Peeling the cloud’s green onion: Does going to the cloud make a company greener? This perspective, from a VP at CA Technologies, points out that the more money his computing consolidation project saved, the more resources he saved. George Watt dubs it “collateral greenage.”

Element Power raises $183M in equity capital: Element Power, which develops renewable energy projects in solar and wind, has closed on $183 million in new financing.

Solar startups set new power records: Between Semprius and Alta Devices, the race is on to create solar panels that crack 20 percent efficient conversion of solar to electricity. Right now, most commercial panels are in the low teens.

California hits wind energy milestone: About 5 percent of power from wind: California hits 5 percent wind energy for its mix.

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Today in Green IT: The case for SSDs in data centers

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:08:34 +0000

Analysts at IDC projected last week that the dollar per gigabyte price barrier for solid state drives (SSDs) should fall by the second half of this year, points out Adam Lesser, GigaOM Pro Green IT analyst in his weekly column (subscription required). That’s great news for consumers eager to see flash memory bring down the weight and increase the performance of laptops. But what does it mean for cloud computing and data centers, where many want to bring down energy usage while speeding up web serving?

Adam says:

SSDs have no moving parts and don’t get hot, which means they are quieter and don’t require much cooling. They also use less space, which impacts how much data center real estate is needed. The Storage Networking Industries Association (SNIA) estimates that 13 percent of the total power consumption in a data center comes from storage. While not a massive amount, it is enough to impact Google or LinkedIn’s bottom line, and if the performance characteristics of SSDs show a marked difference in consumers’ experiences, going green and creating a place for SSDs in the data center will become an increasing consideration.

To read the rest of his column check out GigaOM Pro.

Adam also published an extensive fourth quarter report for cleantech this week (subscription required), including the latest details on solar, electric cars, the state of subsidies and the smart grid.

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Today in Green IT: Greener data center real estate

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:48:46 +0000

Emerson Power has a great infographic detailing the state of the data center, points out Adam Lesser, GigaOM Pro’s Green IT analyst. The over 500,000 data centers worldwide take up almost 300 million square feet of real estate, and an average server today has 45 times more compute capacity than one configured in 2001.

With these dramatic growth rates, it makes one wonder what 2021 will look like, and at what point our insatiable desire for more data, be it video, or search results or CRM databases, will make it even more critical to make data centers sustainable.

Other stories that Adam is reading and thinking about this week include:

Renewable power trumps fossil fuels for first time: Renewable energy ($187 billion) got more new investment than fossil fuels ($157 billion) for the first time.
Ford trots out electric focus, promises its hybrids will trump Toyota, GM: Ford is preparing to get into the hybrid and EV game with its all electric Focus and its C-Max Hybrid and C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid. The Energi Plug-In will go about 20-30 miles on a charge and can go another 500 miles on the tank of gas. Ford is seeing sales increase in the compact car market.
Wind, biodiesel subsidies promoted: Concern over expiration of the dollar a gallon subsidy for biofuels is mounting as the industry could get hit, along with the wind power industry.
Zipcar upping stake in Spanish car-sharing firm: Zipcar’s European expansion began in the U.K., but now it has its eyes on Spain.

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The future of smart meters is data, not hardware

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:01:25 +0000

It is becoming abundantly apparent that, while there is still focus on install rates of physical smart meters, what will matter in the future is how well the data from these smart meters can be secured by utilities and how well utilities can use that data to manage demand response, address outages and balance load, says Adam Lesser, GigaOM Pro Green IT analyst in his weekly column. Beyond these initial steps, however, lies the holy grail of smart meter data, says Adam: the possibility that it can be used to drive changes in customer behavior.

To read the rest of his weekly update check out GigaOM Pro.

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Today in Green IT: Waiting for the electric car market

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:54:16 +0000

Despite heavy exuberance for the adoption of electric cars, forecasts have been relatively conservative, points out Adam Lesser, GigaOM Pro’s Green IT analyst in his weekly column (subscription required). Analysts expect global annual sales to be around a million in 2015 for plug-in hybrid electrics and EVs combined, compared to the global auto market, which is in the neighborhood of 70 million vehicles today.

In the back of everyone’s minds is the hope that more EVs will be like the Prius, a car that sells in excess of 400,000 units per year and makes up a significant part of global auto sales leader Toyota’s overall business, which was 8.42 million vehicles in 2010. The barriers to EV adoption are widely known but center around a few major issues, including range anxiety, charging time and initial cost. The Prius had none of these problems.

To read his entire column check out GigaOM Pro. Here’s what else Adam is reading about and thinking about this week:

The idea of using solar power for off the grid electricity isn’t new. But the Econet Home Power Station, being developed for the African market, tells us a lot about the integration of cellular networks, payments, and the electrical grid in the developing world.
Global industry CO2 output rising even in weak economy: study. Despite the economic slowdown in 2008-2009, carbon emissions surged ahead 6 percent in 2010.
India shortlists bidders for national solar project. A 350-megawatt round of solar projects in India has led to the government shortlisting a group of companies for the national solar project. Bids as low as 15 cents a kilowatt came in. India envisions 20 gigawatts of solar installed by 2022.

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