SMART 2020 Report: Smart Grids Can Cut CO2 Emissions by 15 Percent
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 10. 9.08
Photo via takomabibelot
The main focus of smart meters and the smart grid is streamlining energy use. It is a more efficient way to help homes and businesses reduce their use, and for utilities to track and charge customers for their real time utility use. But there is another vital reason why smart metering and smart grid technology is so important.
CO2 emissions could be reduced by 15% globally if the world adopts the technology.
A new report published by The Climate Group entitled “SMART 2020: enabling the low carbon economy in the information age” goes into detail about how implementing this rapidly growing technology could help cut a significant portion of emissions, and even further, save global businesses a whopping $685 billion annually. States like California, Texas, Idaho and Colorado are catching on, but is the rest of the world?
Increasing efficiency in how energy is transmitted and utilized is a big part of the solution for conservation and eliminating shortages.
From SmartMeters.com:
Supporting analysis within the study was conducted by the McKinsey & Company international consultant firm and demonstrated that while the ICT sector’s carbon footprint is expected to double to 4 percent of all CO2 emissions by the year 2020, the unique ability of the ICT industry to manage and maximize energy efficiency within the ICT sector and elsewhere could reduce the global output by 15 percent during that same time period. This amount would be equal to 7.8 billion tons of CO2 – or the entire output of China or the United States.
The four main ways where ICT technology will have the biggest impact on cutting carbon is smart grids, smart building, smart logistics, and smart industrial motor systems. In other words, we have to get smart in four of the most major areas of our lives.
The UK caught on some time ago, and with reports like this coming out, it's only a matter of time before it spreads across Europe, across in up-and-coming countries like India, and on to the rest of the world.
This technology, thankfully, is well underway and will hopefully not be significantly impacted by our lousy economy since the technology, and energy efficiency, is in the view of the mainstream. If the thinkers behind smart tech keep up their blistering pace, we will hopefully see the massive reduction in emissions predicted by this report.
Via Smart Meters
More on Smart Grids:
Texas Utility Spends $690 Million on Smart Meters
Agilewaves Shows Off User-Friendly Home Energy Monitoring System at WCG 2008 Showhouse
Smart Power Meters and Real-Time Pricing Leads to Saved Energy and Money
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The report claims 2 Gigaton equivalent for smart grids, which is about 4.4%. The 15% number is for _all_ information technology, including such things as using computers to design better building envelopes. Please correct the headline and the second paragraph.
Thanks
On the other hand, I think that the report misses a key opportunity: Smart grids will be essential for integrating more renewables into the grid. We shouldn't give the smart grid all the credit for that, but we are going to need the smart grid to get there.
Thanks for a pointer to a good report.
To the comment above/below: The concept of smart grid is also not necessarily about the “smart meter”. Having better transmission lines and more control over the existing power grid and how energy moves is the largest benefit. The idea is, with smarter technology – one would be able to detect energy deficiency and move current dynamically to where it’s needed without needing to fire up an additional coal plant, or up the production. Not to mention much more. The article does a good job at providing a brief summary, and provides additional resources for one to expand upon.