GigaOM » Siemens

The internet of things: a market landscape

Jon Collins — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:55:20 +0000

What can we expect the IoT landscape to look like, and how will its impact be felt? And is the attention being given by governments, manufacturers, and industry players merited, or is this just a fad? In this paper we look at the trends leading the growth of the internet of things, its components, and its characteristics. We examine the scale of the different opportunities and early examples of use cases. Finally, we look at potential inhibitors to adoption and potential challenges, notably around security, privacy, and system failure.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Why Siemens has had a hard time selling its solar tech

Ucilia Wang — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:07:48 +0000

Solar has been a tough business for both well-funded startups or corporate giants with long histories in the energy business. Siemens proves that case now that it’s failed to find a buyer for its solar technology, which has been losing its appeal in some parts of the world.

The German company couldn’t get rid of the concentrating solar thermal business it bought from an Israeli firm, Solel, for $418 million in 2009, Bloomberg reported Monday. Siemens’ solar business has been bleeding money — at least $1 billion since 2011. It’s planning a layoff that will affect about 280 people.

The company first announced its plan to ditch the solar business last October, when it conceded that mounting losses and lackluster market demand weren’t going to disappear soon enough. Siemens’ exit also means the company won’t likely invest in solar startups like it used to.

Siemens has done well with its wind energy equipment business and is among a group of engineering giants, such as GE and ABB, that have bet big on renewable energy. GE was planning to build a 400MW solar panel factory in Colorado before nixing the plan in 2012.

Solar technology companies worldwide have struggled mightily, and dozens of them have gone out of business or gotten scooped up cheaply. The solar market has experienced an oversupply of solar panels for nearly three years. That has not only depressed prices but also sparked trade disputes in which Chinese solar panel makers have been selling their products at below fair market prices in the United States and Europe.

The market for concentrating solar thermal technology isn’t faring much better, either. That kind of technology, which was what Siemens bought from Solel, uses giant curved mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a heat-transferring fluid to generate steam. The steam then goes to drive a turbine generator to produce electricity. This type of technology is suitable for large solar power plants and works best in regions with intense sunlight and few cloudy days. The plummeting prices of solar panels in recent years has made it difficult for solar thermal technology to compete for utility contracts.

Most of the power purchase agreements awarded by California’s three big utilities, for example, use solar panels instead. BrightSource Energy, a concentrating solar thermal startup in Oakland, announced a change in their business plan earlier this month when it said it would no longer focus on being a power plant developer. Instead, it will supply its technology and engineering expertise and seek more business deals internationally.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

European power giant E.ON partners with Ericsson on grid big data

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:23:49 +0000

European power giant E.ON is building out a smarter grid across its various networks, including rolling out smart meters, and on Wednesday announced a new big data partnership with grid gear and software provider Ericsson. E.ON says it will increase its data delivery by 3000 percent, and Ericsson will provide software and services to manage that data.

The deal is focused around 600,000 smart meters in Sweden. But E.ON is one of the largest power and utility companies in the world and operates in 30 countries with 26 million customers, so clearly its a relationship with a lot of potential.

Ericsson competes with GE, Siemens, ABB and others to sell software, services and hardware to utilities and power companies. Increasingly utilities and power companies are interested in buying more data analytics tools as their networks are becoming IT networks that need to monitor, digest, and analyze data to run more efficiently. As global electricity grids add more clean energy (solar panels and wind turbines), and energy storage (battery farms), better data analytics and predictions tools will also be needed to keep the grid stable.

Some of the power gear vendors are turning to the big data startup leaders for partnerships around the latest analytics. For example, earlier this week Siemens announced that it’s working with data warehouse veteran Teradata.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Siemens and Teradata team up over grid big data

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:14:06 +0000

Power giant Siemens and data warehouse veteran Teradata have joined hands to sell big data tools to utilities, including a system that can combine data from both smart meters and grid operational data. As GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser wrote recently in his report on energy data, when smart meters are fully deployed they could generate 1,000 petabytes of data a year, about five times the amount of data on AT&T’s network.

Teradata sells software that can pull together disparate data from different sources and make it available to be analyzed. The company already works with utilities Southern California Edison and Oklahoma Gas and Electric. Utilities can use Teradata’s software tools to analyze data around things like blackouts, power supply and demand, weather conditions, and energy efficiency programs to help them manage the grid better.

Siemens is one of the largest power grid technology suppliers in the world, and in recent years has been bulking up its grid software assets. That move has included acquiring venture capital-backed eMeter, which manages smart meter data, as well as partnering with some of the leading grid software companies.

The union between the big data player and the power grid gorilla shows how the power grid is slowly adopting the network technologies of the internet and other IT-based networks. With grid assets like smart meters and substations increasingly becoming connected, the power grid could be one of the largest “internet of things” type networks in the world.

And to manage those connected things, utilities will need to embrace the most cutting edge data analytics tools.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Building energy management systems: overview and forecast

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:46:16 +0000

Although there has been a focus on energy efficiency in commercial buildings for some years, the BEMS market can still be considered nascent. The landscape of new entrants, new technologies, and new methodologies is expanding rapidly, and even well-established market leaders are finding new ways to present and market their businesses.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

How energy data will impact the smart grid

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:40:19 +0000

The deployment of smart meters combined with the growth of cloud computing infrastructure has created opportunities to build business models around the volume of emerging energy data. Those who use data to solve customer problems and leverage decades of software development and advances in big data will attract investment dollars.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

The growth and promise of the LED market

Ucilia Wang — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:18:38 +0000

LED production has grown tremendously, accompanied by a significant fall in prices that will further propel the sale of this energy-efficient digital-lighting technology. But challenges remain on the road to widespread adoption. Figuring out ways to use power efficiently for lighting will be crucial for a future when the world’s population will likely be much larger.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

How to keep innovation alive in the smart grid

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:19:45 +0000

The harsh reality of the smart grid sector is that making an actual sale of networking technology, analytics tools or devices to utilities — not a pilot trial — is hard and takes a really long time. Companies that are lucky enough to test out their tech with utilities in trials aren’t guaranteed to get a commercial deal, despite the time and money invested.

That’s one of the reasons why some smart grid startups struggle and are sold off for smaller amounts than they or their investors had originally hoped, are forced to dramatically downsize, or eventually fold. There’s a chasm between when a startup launches and raises venture funding, and when a company reaches velocity with utility sales. That Valley of Death can take years of long utility sales cycles to cross, and many startups don’t make it through.

But as the smart grid industry matures, there’s players that have emerged on the other side of the Valley of Death that can help out the younger startups looking to develop innovation in the ecosystem. It’s one of the ways that real innovation can actually survive in a sector that is so conservative and slow moving.

Silver Spring Networks is one of these players. This week at Distributech, the massive power grid conference in San Diego, Silver Spring announced that it’s reselling startup AutoGrid System’s software, which helps utilities quickly deploy energy efficiency programs for its customers. To utilities that may not be familiar or comfortable with the two-year-old venture-backed startup, Silver Spring’s partnership gives AutoGrid some more weight.

Silver Spring, which itself was VC-backed and founded in 2002, works with a lot of startup and big company partners. It announced ten new partnerships at Distributech this week, and more than 30 of its partners are showing off tech at the conference this week.

For Silver Spring, working with the latest innovative startups is a good way to keep on the cutting edge and also see what is out there to either learn from or even acquire. Of course, this is a common practice in the internet ecosystem, where companies like Google, Facebook or Cisco, routinely keep an eye on the hot new VC-backed players. But the smart grid industry isn’t as mature and progressive, so this can be a relatively rare phenomenon.

The more traditional power grid firms are more commonly doing this now, too. Siemens, ABB, and GE all have various startup-focused initiatives. The older IT companies — like a Cisco or an Oracle — that are looking to get into the utility sector, naturally do this as well, as they’re used to doing it with their core IT divisions.

But more of these large key players are needed to take a more active role in shepherding and acquiring the most promising startups. It’ll be needed to keep innovation alive in the smart grid over the next few years.

If there aren’t success stories for these startups, they’ll be decidedly less innovation coming into the space. 2012 was a year that saw a smaller amount of venture capital deals for smart grid companies. According to a report from Mercom, there were 40 smart grid startup investment deals in 2012, compared to 50 deals in 2011. The overall funding by dollar amount was higher in 2012 than 2011, but that was skewed by a large fund raise from Alarm.com, which is more of a home automation and security company than a smart grid startup. There were only 66 investors that put money into smart grid startups in 2012, down from 92 investors in 2011.

If innovation doesn’t come from the younger startups, it’ll have to come from within the big power companies. But we all know how well most huge companies innovate.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Dusit.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Energy giants back BuildingIQ and its machine learning, energy data software

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 18:19:57 +0000

All those large commercial buildings you walk by every day — or maybe work in — have big ol’ heating and air conditioning units that are often times controlled by what’s called a building management system. While it might not be very sexy, the business of making those management systems more efficient, has emerged as a hot sector in recent years. One of the leading startups in that space, called BuildingIQ, has raised a new round of $9 million in funding from the investing arms of energy giants like Schneider Electric, Alstom, and Siemens.

BuildingIQ, founded in 2009 with research from Australia’s national research group, optimizes building management systems with a predictive engine using real time data, such as the information from weather services and the power grid. The company also has machine learning algorithms that tweak the system to make the buildings efficient but without making them uncomfortable for tenants. Think of it like the Nest learning thermostat but for commercial buildings.

BuildingIQ’s system can also work with utilities’ demand response programs, or when a utility asks building managers to turn down their energy use at peak times of day (picture a scorching mid-Summer afternoon in Texas). It has partnered with Nevada Energy on a demand response program. BuildingIQ says it can deliver 20-to-30 percent reductions in energy use from the HVAC system.

Check out this video of BuildingIQ CEO Michael Zimmerman explaining how the system works

And me interviewing Zimmerman:

The full round came from Aster Capital — which is a group with funding from Schneider Electric, Alstom and Solvay — Siemens Financial Services (SFS VC) and Paladin Capital.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Google invests $200M in Texas wind farm, backed a Hoover Dam worth of clean power

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:53:46 +0000

Google has now invested over $1 billion into about 2 GW — or the capacity of the Hoover Dam — worth of clean power projects. The latest investment, which the search giant announced on Wednesday, is a $200 million equity stake in a large wind farm in Texas.

The 161 MW wind farm, called the Spinning Spur Wind Project, has a capacity to power about 60,000 U.S homes, and is located in Oldham County, Texas. The project is being built by EDF Renewable Energy, uses turbines from Siemens, and utility SPS has contracted to buy the power.

Google has made 10 investments into clean power projects since 2010, including a wind farm in Iowa back in November (see photo below).

Google has a few reasons why it wants to invest in clean power. First it wants to use more clean power for its data centers, and plans to have about a third of the power for its data centers come directly from clean power.

In addition, Google says the equity investments in clean power offer a good return for a company with a large balance sheet. Google says “we believe that corporations can be an important new source of capital for the renewable energy sector.” In the 11th hour on New Year’s day, the fiscal cliff deal passed and included very important wind tax credits that make wind power project investment economical in the U.S.

Here’s a round up of Google’s clean power investments that I’ve published before and am republishing here:

Iowa wind farm: Google recently put $75 million into a wind farm called Rippey Wind Farm, located in Greene County. The power will be bought by Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO).
SolarCity rooftop solar fund. Google has created a $280 million fund with home solar installer SolarCity. This is Google’s largest investment in clean power to date, and its first in home rooftop solar.
Solar panel projects in Sacramento Calif: Google put $94 million into four solar panel projects, which are being built by Recurrent Energy close to Sacramento, Calif. This was Google’s first investment in utility-scale grid-connected solar panel projects.
Buying wind power from a utility directly to power a data center in Oklahoma: For the first time in September 2012, Google said it would buy clean energy from a utility to directly power one of its data centers in Oklahoma.
Clean Power Finance. Google invested $75 million into a solar fund for startup Clean Power Finance. Clean Power Finance will use the money to support solar rooftop projects by third party installers.
The world’s largest wind farm — in Oregon. Google is investing $100 million in the world’s largest wind farm, the 845 MW Shepherds Flat project under construction in Oregon.
North Dakota wind farm. Google is investing $38.8 million into 169.5 MW worth of wind projects developed by NextEra Energy Resources in North Dakota.
East Coast wind farm backbone. Google has invested part of the fund for an East Coast transmission line that is meant to link offshore wind farms, and which recently got an approved rate of return for the project at 12.59 percent.
Wind power from Iowa wind farm. Google’s first deal for its subsidiary Google Energy — which can buy and sell power on the wholesale electricity markets — plans to buy wind power from 114 MW of wind energy via a wind farm in Iowa owned by NextEra Energy Resources.
Wind power from Oklahoma wind farm. Google’s second deal via its subsidiary Google Energy is to buy 100 MW of power from a wind farm that’s under construction in Oklahoma by NextEra Energy Resources.
BrightSource’s solar thermal project. Google invested $168 million into a solar thermal project being built by startup BrightSource Energy in California’s Mojave Desert.
German solar project. Google is investing €3.5 million ($5 million USD) into a solar photovoltaic farm in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, which is near Berlin.
Greentech startups (these are small investments). Google (through a combo of Google Ventures and Google.org) has invested in at least nine “greentech” startups, including battery maker ActaCell, electric vehicle maker Aptera, efficient car maker Next Autoworks, geothermal company Alta Rock, neighbor-to-neighbor car sharing company RelayRides, weather insurance company WeatherBill, smart grid company Silver Spring Networks, biofuel maker Cool Planet Biofuels, and efficient power gear conversion tech startup Transphorm.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.