KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segments: Patrick Mazza

this is diane horan your host on the sustainability segment of mind over matters and katie x the seattle ninety point three fm and online k e x feat i know archie our guest this morning is patrick nasa research director for climate solutions a nonprofit whose mission is to accelerate practical unprofitable solutions to global warming patrick is co author with guide nancy of stormy weather hundred and one solutions to global climate change and has written numerous papers on emerging clean energy systems including powering up the smart grid and the new harvest biofuels and wind power for a revitalization patrick maz is here today to tell us about the new energy nexus which involves the convergence of smart power grids green intelligent buildings and plug in electric vehicles welcome patrick nice to have you that you would you like to begin by saying a few words about climate solutions sure we're actually probably one of the ritual what i like to call a bottom up climate groups in united states we've been working on forwarding climate friendly policies at the state local level since the late

nineties new on right now what we're very much moving into is once we get the policies in place what is it bigger look like on the ground so the policies are only tools to transform our cities our economy's or transportation systems are buildings and so that's what this project is about this but we're actually calling new energy solutions now what is the overall concept of the new energy solutions well a couple of key ideas the first is that there's really accelerating trends in three areas you mentioned smart roads green intelligent buildings plug in vehicles that are really really moving toward our whole different shape of the energy system over the next few years a second idea is that these are growing go in kind of saw a load manner so there's connections that need to be made

between these three large sectors and the third idea is that the natural place to do that is said he's so so there's a concept tied to this a pioneer cities cities that really make themselves leaders in advancing the new energy economy by really promoting the court made a deployment of smart power grids green intelligent buildings and plug in vehicles of course power as much as possible or by renewable energy life in the conditions are favorable for the energy solutions at this time bullets look at the different pieces of star with the biggest piece of the rice and mideast peace until right now is the fact of the obama stimulus plan the green energy stimulus puts about seventy seven billion dollars on the table for various pieces of green energy for plug ins for green buildings for energy efficiency for renewables are smart grid so

we really have a whole buzz in the air right now with a really is some serious money on the table to do some foundational investments in the background is the whole trend that's been taking place over the i would say the last ten years you know you look at the different categories in the building sector green has become an economical proposition as well as an environmental proposition and buildings are also increasingly getting smart as well also stole the systems are of the buildings are being tied together by smart systems that actually make buildings way more efficient and so this has been an accelerating trend of the last thirteen years you look at smart grids the application of basically digital computing technology to the power grid to make it really a two way power network where you can plug in all kinds of new energy devices including plug in vehicles solar panels and what you've seen over the last ten years excel rating the last five years a move from more theoretical to actual on the ground applications

so places cities are beginning to convert wholesale to smart grid technology soldiers boulder colorado are or austin texas a miami florida recently announced then that the other area plug in vehicles you know we've been going through the last ten years what we gonna do after gasoline what are we gonna do after petroleum hydrogen fuel cells will work didn't really work out that well too expensive biofuels good for a piece of that bubble and as limited as we know so what it really was pointed to his electricity a return to one of the original vehicle options a hundred years ago is now because of improvements in battery technology becoming feasible so in the next several years at least a dozen manufacturers are going to be putting out either pure battery electric vehicles are or plug in hybrid vehicles are basically like your prius only they have applauded features well so you see all those trends in those three big systems and when i talk about those systems you know that's where

most of the greenhouse gases and society get made buildings vehicles electrical power you know those are three systems and you look at the three big resources coming up renewables william has become a well known story wind power is narrow nearly the cheapest form of energy solar power still expensive but you look at trends and solar and solar looks to be reaching grid parity in large parts of the us and the world in the next decade in the decade twenty ten was so by twenty twenty solar power could well be the cheapest power source then also just efficiency is a general re source all three of those systems were talking about that the grant building's vehicles are going to become way more efficient because of new technology because a smarter systems so if the agency becomes a second large resource and gold general capacity to manage demand that the thing that week you know we don't realize that much about we don't think much of it won't turn on the power switching on and the power comes the supply cases the man

well what if what if your own systems were smart enough to realize hey i'm demanding power to keep our time a day or the system so many singles that bought the power right now is greener so i won't use it now our wash my clothes now it's green or rather than later on one of the wind is not up and then another nature peace coming energy storage you know it and the batteries in vehicles or salsa going to need batteries throughout the granite and in fact a very interesting piece is that once we get a large plot in fleet going there's going to be an aftermarket for the batteries that are going to come a time when they're no longer strong enough to run the vehicles but the make perfectly good energy storage resources say your home so a good companion for your solar panel suggests a circle around three big systems the grant building's vehicles powered by basically three new energy resources renewables efficiency slash demand management and storage so that's the new energy system that's

coming together is coming yet or because of the accelerating trends in technology plus the drive for low carbon energy because now we realize we're in deep do with the climate the drive for petroleum replacement because you know you look right now just looks like or maybe coming out a little bit of a global recession already over seventy dollars a barrel oil you get a little more a little heat in the global economy nine year hundred selling right quote new energy solutions new energy just come in and i am going and we're speaking with patrick nasa research director for climate solutions or topic is a new energy solutions project which involves the convergence of smart power grid screen intelligent buildings and plug in electric vehicles and you're tainted the sustainability segment of mind over matters and t e x p ninety point three fm and on the web a k x p an orgy which you like to talk

about the new energy solutions project in its goals yeah what we're doing at climate solutions is first we're bringing out this concept i mean it's just the idea that we are seeing a new energy system are emerging so partly it's it's just what i'm doing right now helping to educate people about what's really going on in the great promise of them were moving to really really motivate the point on the ground and that's through through our pioneer city's effort which really is going oh staging some of our sessions for civic leaders were really literally going out to going out to cities and towns and gathering together the civic leadership including people in the city government business leaders and educating them showing them number one how all these trends are happening and number two the area port role cities and

local governments play in helping to make all of this come together above or do you know if the systems are eventually going to spread across the landscape but the greatest art in places where there's population density where there's a marketplace and so that is cities and where there's a neat as well so cities can play incredibly powerful rolls by any number of ways you know one is just improving building codes were moving that direction in seattle to really mandate the more efficient building code for retrofits of older buildings in new buildings cities are going to be playing really vital roles as we come up with the plug in system because every one of those plug in stations is going to have to be somehow permit it and a clumsy bureaucratic process it's been taught and then cities and utilities and working together on a power grid stuff i mean that's pretty important to so what we want to do is it's not just city leadership go but we're really trying to do is assemble

leadership and local areas that include the city leadership utility leadership business leader show to come up with a court made a plan to bring all these things together on the ground at the same time and of course right now this is being super charged by the stimulus where were way far ahead of where we thought we'd be because but instead of the stress being eroded border there's a real chance basically investment capital group public investment capital so that's what we're doing one of the specific areas which is really exciting which we've been helping along and feed our ideas into is a caution of puget sound area governments and utilities call pizza a new energy solutions which includes the county governments a city governments and the utilities coming together to work on ways to coordinate stimulus dollar asks and to really create a whole systems idea that even though it is when you look at the federal budget there's different pots of money for

energy efficiency in buildings for plug ins for renewables for smart grid that region's local regions and cities and metropolitan areas get smart about how we asked for the money and how we invest it we can really start to create in a systematic way this new system think about a physically i mean think about going down cheer park and ride in at your park and ride years now electrified transportation section so you can leave your current charge it up during the day and also the park and ride might also have solar panels which saw in the northwest is not competitive with electrical power though other places it will be sooner and not so much in the northwest but compared to gasoline actually solar electricity looks competitive so imagine a park ride as some solar panels as well imagine there's a goal smart grid system attached and into the park and ride maybe those solar panels there's times a day when

there's not of course a lot of men energy is feeling out into the community and those buildings are all really efficient you know also imagine it that sometimes a day maybe there's really high powered a man's maybe there's a lot of vehicles there and there's stress on the local grand organ great is sending signals out old buildings in the area say hey i need some juice year old dishwasher gets this single adult can you hold off on watching those dishes until later so this whole system works together pieces talk to each other and optimize it so that is where we can get to and that's the investments we can make together to this place charging station solar panels smart meters smart some stations fiber optic communications within the power grid not to mention just those initial investments and plug in vehicle publicly insurers so there's all kinds of stuff ms all kinds of subsidies can do in cornish with utilities and that of course marketing of basalt to constituents to people and that's going to be really crucial i mean

it you know we need to engage the general public there's going to be a whole new models of energy efficiency service delivery were real really are going to go through and not just to a catch as catch can but we know through neighborhoods and systematically solicit people to retrofit their buildings were gonna we're going to market plug in vehicles were going to market a lot more solar to people so this is the system we say how to stay focused on the pacific northwest so sure that this point your worst or the pacific northwest focused group power and in the the ideal work we're doing is is a really broad scope to the practical on the ground work is northwest and how receptive have governments here again here again so far pretty receptive so for a pretty receptive opening the the ideal job building whole old energy system instead of just pieces has been broadly adopted by puget sound energy solutions

there's a number of cities that are looking at bringing us in to talk about how they can implement these ideas so it's been pretty receptive sober let's focus on a little bit more on the smart grid which is an important part of your whole system here is a mind isn't exactly but as marguerite is and how it works is you are the technology currently stands contrast with today's reopening today as good as basically a centrally controlled system about five thousand big power plants that pump out power to sue us power system that basically pump out power one way sure routes needed the power chase is the demand if there's somebody turns a voice which anywhere the power better be there and it has to be made coordinated inexact synchronicity or else you're blackouts or brownout serves the power grid today the power grid of tomorrow the smart grid has

controlled distributed throughout the system so instead of the grid operators having to control the whole thing there are smart systems that are self control and throughout so you know that for example of that is to day when there's a power outage or a line goes down typically the whole power in the area goes down and the grid operator asked send out a truck to figure out where to go down and no more take me to fix it a smart system will be more like an internet router were also you know would automatically detective faults and so we're going to re route power and there might still be a black eye opener will be a lot less so lots more automatic systems lots more automated self manage our system you're still at the control rooms you'll still other big power plants but there's more to be out in the grand and the other piece of it is that it's going to be a lot more distributed in terms of all those energy resources i talk about so instead of five thousand large plants

a number of large plans were millions literally millions of small power plants that are hooked in exchanging power with the gray so you're building solar during the day that building solar and there's probably going to be at least the northwest day what we don't know is in the northwest here's our long sunny cool summer days are just about the ideal solar power production mr winter that's a problem so that your system is going to be able to take all that surplus generation from the solar and shifted around and the system is going to be able to talk to plug in vehicles and say hey you know now is the time that as canary smarts in the vehicle so they might be plugged in but they won't necessarily be charging whole time they're plugging in there's going be communication between the smart grid in a smartcard to say hey you know we just got a weird ramp up out in the columbia gorgeous would be an ideal time for you to charge up car car goes yeah yeah i like that my owner likes green

power he's told me that that's basically what you're going to see answered the smart grid just to summarize it about distributed control throughout the system distribute intelligence and distribute resources and it's moved from being a one way power out from the big plant to the small to multiple direction power coming from every direction and also demanded justin in every direction so as we were talking about if there's a day when things the group agrees and shelling of singles and everything so i'm stressed right now can you help me and and smartest of all over the place you're going to come in and say yeah i can i can turn this off like a cyclist am so smart group smart you are listening to the sustainability segment of mind over matters on k x p seattle ninety point we have them and on the web add k e x the doubt or ji i'm bryan horn and my guest is patrick muscle research director for climate solutions our topic is the new energy solutions project which involves the convergence of smart power grid

screen intelligent buildings and plug in electric vehicles would you talk about some of the specific models are pilot projects to improve power grids that are going on in various parts of the country or show broad problem was much more quiet city xo energy has gone through and installed smart basically smart meters for the city which provide two way communications capabilities you know right now the meter the old meters a onetime read in and so there's really very little information coming back to the utility except they know there's a certain amount of power being demanded so smart meter some stations that have a lot more control capability or some stations right note those are those big things you see with older with all the power equipment in them you know right now a lot of them just are kind of sept operate within within a certain boundary i mean that there are not smart they have a certain limited

set of operations they can do and if things go out of whack well they shut down and you get a power failure so so boulder is gone through and on that austin energy is a real leader austin is working on a smarmy years as well or they're working on a local technology grid with local technology firms are bumps on a micro grant in the city which is like a small smart grid work where they'll be installing solar throughout the grodin noon on it will be a two way kind of system is called pecan street project southern california edison is doing a lot of interesting stuff they're creating a distributed solar utility they're basically going out and sign leases above power users with big groups like big boxes and stuff to put solar panels on the roof utility owns a solar panels at sea utilities power and i will be fed into the grid but it's the power plan is within the grid and it's all a distributed and of course that will be managed by very smart systems that can you know they can say what is the power coming

in and work i stream it to him and thus and such so i mean there's other places i would say there's interesting stuff going on in the bay area they've got a requirement for co we saw her new communities and so that's going to require some interesting smart grid solution so those are some of the really prominent ones out there seattle city light is looking at some smart grid stove to come to power actually is interesting that sorority how fiber optic throughout the system so they're set up down into common to really really move quickly in the smart grid and are planning a major stimulus ask first margaret installations so those are some of the most prominent other parts of the world are farther along no i mean no you know denmark singapore japan are farther a warning to denmark might be them all you know they now have a thoroughly distributed power grid were you look at the whole map of the danish power

grid you know you see if you die what's the big power plants the new map as dots all over the place they got wind turbines they've got combined heat and power plants powered by hay and so they're running this whole thing on a very smart basically a computer model it doesn't even measure the power output of all the different generators adjust does a predictive algorithm to basically say what's going on in the present it has very smart smart computer mall they've got the whole grid modeled i hope i'm explaining this and in a way that comes across the people who are our geeks in a power grid geeks but i think it's just amazing the fact you can you can build a model within a computer of what's going on outside in the real world and run the system according to that marwan el work permits is just amazing so that sisters margaret so just very briefly what do you see as the barriers preventing ordination of them our grande green

buildings and is the nature of the sectors you know the thought you know you look at vehicles sinking about vehicles and utility key's think auto companies and power utilities they haven't had a lot to do with each other the other than normal commuting big power users now that the euro come user are having to come in and sit down with the utilities and talk about protocols and in standards and analysis can work together so there's two big sectors that they're now getting married that have been grown very separately firfer a century knew if the bowling sector at softening the bowling sectors is how we segment it with him all kinds of different groups in there you get into all the classic problems with delivering energy efficiency where the owner of the building here you have an owner a renter if the owner of the building puts in a lot of money for energy efficiency and reduces the renters power bills lonely owner isn't exactly benefiting to see raises the rhetoric compensate some other way so we need to

create new systems among all the different silos in the building sector and i would say you know they're just generally going to be just some some regulatory clarity on different pieces of it and he is a great example there's the idea of using batteries in plug in vehicles not just run the callers but to feedback energy into the grid at times when the cars are plugged in an answer plus great idea but then though oregon he's come and say marty problems were for that it used to it reduces the battery life so you have all these different really do want the complexities when you get down to these really large complex sectors in industries that really need to be worked out there need to be tables created in those are happening but you know we're trying to make it more systematic ways that there really is a new energy system emerging

in that that they should be asking me are there local leaders to become active participants to make their cities and communities and the pioneers for deporting really advanced efficient buildings that there's power grids and plug in vehicles all powered by renewable energy and talk to your leaders say this is what i want to show some excitement in some support that probably the most important thing people can do will thanks so much for being here patrick who we had just been speaking with patrick now cell research director for climate solutions for more information check on the web at daddy daddy daddy about new energy nexus dot org again that's not the daddy daddy about new energy nexus died or a g the sustainability segment of mind over matter is program you just heard will be on the streaming archives section of k x these website at atx piano or achieve for the next fourteen days in addition selected sustainability separate interviews are available as podcasts go to k e x feed an orgy cook on

podcasting and go down to mind over matter sustainability segment i'm diane warren thanks for listening and be sure to turn into the sustainability segment again next week on many points we have an uncanny x p battle it