While the focus of smart grids is most often upon electricity, similar concepts have been discussed for water. The following two reports place an emphasis upon water. First, as noted in this piece below from GreenTechMedia, some companies are starting to help build a smart grid for water:
“…HydroPoint is hoping to change that and, in the process, help jumpstart a demand response/smart grid market in a similar way that companies like EnerNoc, Comverge and Silver Spring Networks helped turn smart grid from an obscure outpost in greentech into a growing industry. Others in the industry include PureSense and Accuwater. Silver Spring and other smart meter companies will likely move into the space as well…”
The second looks at IBM’s Smart Water Management intiative:
“…IBM is already staking claims in the smart grid industry to better manage electricity. Now it’s doing the same for water, with a broad offering that will include developing sensor and intelligence networks for water utilities, smart water meters and a new technology for water filtration.And managing those increasingly scarce – and valuable – resources could represent a $20 billion information technology business opportunity, according to Sharon Nunes, vice president of IBM’s “Big Green Innovations” team.
“What we’re proposing is to make the water grid smart,” Nunes said in a Thursday interview. It’s an echo of IBM’s efforts in smart grid projects meant to bring enhanced communications and controls to the currently “dumb” electricity distribution and transmission grids around the world.
There’s a closer connection between water and energy than some may think, Nunes noted. About one-fifth of all the electricity used in California goes toward pumping and treating water, for example, and electricity generation plants use huge amounts of water for cooling.
The interconnection hasn’t been lost on Congress, where a bill that would require federal agencies to consider water impacts when making decisions on energy policy is being proposed.
And IBM sees a role for information technology in the water world that’s analogous to its role in smart grid projects, Nunes said.
That includes sensor networks that can track water flow and quality, water meters that can give utilities and customers up-to-date information on water use and price, and complex “predictive” modeling to let water managers plan for the future.
Much of the preliminary work has been done in Ireland, where IBM has opened a “Centre of Excellence for Water Management” and is completing the first phase of a project in Galway Bay dubbed “SmartBay.”
The project includes sensor-equipped buoys and underwater fiber-optic cables that collect information on currents and water contamination and send it to monitoring systems ashore. It also includes a system for fishermen to call in the location of drifting object that present a navigation threat, combined with a predictive model that projects where those objects will be over a 24-hour period based on weather and tidal conditions.
That gives IBM a real-world test of its ability to collect information and present it in an “easily understandable format, for scientists and fishermen” alike, she said.
The next real-world application could come in Malta, where IBM is working with the Mediterranean island’s electricity and water utilities to install “smart meters” that can track and communicate usage and pricing information across the entire nation.
“More and more there’s becoming a need for more frequent monitoring of water systems, and actually looking at the quality of water,” Nunes said. IBM is working with an unnamed water sensor company to bring that kind of monitoring to its Malta project, she said.
IBM is also launching a water consulting business aimed at finding ways to reduce water use. A pilot project at IBM’s Burlington, Vt. semiconductor facility managed to cut water use by nearly 30 percent and save the company about $3 million a year at a cost “a lot less than that,” she said. (IBM isn’t divulging how much money it’s sinking into its new water efforts….”
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