This week’s Smart Infrastructure roundup features how traditional energy suppliers can cope with increasing demand for renewable energy, smart water meters that may help alleviate droughts in San Francisco, CA, and an amplifier to optimize the Internet of Things.

Traditional energy suppliers must embrace IoT

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According to reports, Europe is now largely relying on renewable sources for its energy needs, with Germany in the lead.  Germany has recently set a record by generating 74 percent of energy from renewable sources.  This is good news for those in the renewable energy business, but what about the traditional energy suppliers?  How is this shift in demand affecting them and how can they keep up with emerging trends?

The value of Europe’s top 20 utilities has been halved as the region pushes to replace the use of fossil-fuelled plants with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

“The situation in the energy sector is miserable, in Germany and in the whole of Europe,” Peter Terium, chief executive of RWE, Germany’s second-largest utility by market value, said at an industry conference last month. “We’re all caught in the worst structural crisis in the history of energy supply.”

The future of these traditional utilities provider may look grim, but if they bend to the will of their governments and focus on Information Communication Technology as well as making use of smart infrastructures, there is still a way for them to recover.

Utilities have two options for how they can best adapt to this shift in energy demand. First, an energy provider can act as an aggregator of smaller, decentralized plants such as wind and solar farms, turning these green sources into something that the grid can recognize, becoming what is called a “virtual plant.”  By becoming a data facility, it can provide information that would help in the proper distribution of energy for better efficiency as well as maintaining the balance.

The second option is by communicating with smart meters and smart appliances to better manage energy consumption.  This can be accomplished by offloading the energy demand to renewable energy sources during peak hours or the time of day when rates are higher.

Utilities need to realize that they need to shift their focus from being just energy services to one that delivers greater flexibility and speed in responding to unforeseen developments, better coordination with other energy services, and act as an information gateway.

Smart water meters help alleviate droughts

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The state of California is faced with three consecutive years of drought and this year, things are far worse.  Residents of California have been asked to voluntarily cut down on their water consumption by at least 10 percent.  Because of the drought, wildfire danger is high, and there is a possibility that the government will resort to water rationing so there will still be water when the summer reaches its peak.

The problem with this scenario is that, even if the people in the community wants to cut back on their water consumption, they have no idea as to how they can assess whether they are consuming more or less while still maintaining daily routines.

To deal with this problem and not resort to water rationing, the city of San Francisco quietly rolled out the ability to track water consumption online.  This is part of the $56 million program which installed smart meters in almost 180,000 homes and businesses.  By being able to see water consumption in real time and see their water bills on demand, consumers will gain insight as to whether they are actually conserving water or not.  Additionally, smart meters can also help in the detection of water leaks which means households can act on these leaks faster, wasting less water.

At the moment, only 10 percent of California is equipped with these smart meters, but it is believed that because of the drought, more agencies will embrace the use of such technology.

ANADIGICS’ new power amplifier to boost IoT

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ANADIGICS, Inc., a company that designs and manufactures innovative radio frequency solutions for the growing cellular, WiFi, and infrastructure markets, introduced a new power amplifier optimized for WiFi infrastructure and multimedia applications such as access points, routers, media gateways, set-top boxes, and smart TVs.

The AWL5910 power amplifier supports the 802.11a/n/ac standards as well as delivers an industry-leading combination of linearity, efficiency and gain, while minimizing the need for external component requirements.

Manufacturers will benefit from this amplifier as it reduces the time-to-market and cost of material as they develop more WiFi-enabled products with higher throughput, greater range, and consumes less power.

photo credit: Windwärts Energie via photopin cc