It's true, my Denmark trip is less than a month away, and I'm learning new lessons about the power of serendipity.
I picked the DIS program as my study-abroad for a number of reasons; the choice of classes, positive reviews of the program, etc. However, since committing to the program, two pieces of news have come out that I'm extremely excited about.
1) The UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Copenhagen in December. Sure, it'll be happening while I'm trying to write my final papers and whatnot, but it will be a great change of pace to see environmental issues become local news.
2) Greenland is taking steps towards independence from Denmark. There are definite environmental and economic issues involved, and it will be great to talk to Danes about this.
Neither of these things were public knowledge (at least among the average American college student) when I chose this program, but now that they're happening, I feel like I got lucky. It's like Denmark is actively working to help me with my Peace Studies research!
Less than four weeks to go!
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you probably thought Greenland was thriving with plant life.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Sweet Caroline (BAH BAH BAH...)
On Saturday I attended the big July 4th celebration on the Boston esplanade. The main act was Neil Diamond, who was cheesy as ever. Plus, the Boston Pops and a few other musical acts were part of the show, and the fireworks were set to music as well. It was a pretty fun time.
There was one particular song in the lineup that reminded me of a number of conversations I've had during the school year about American identity. For the time-constricted, the song more or less says that America is about lemonade stands, high school proms, and driving around in a Chevy. You may be surprised to find out that I don't feel particularly represented by that version of America. Another verse mentions helping out the neighbors, and I couldn't help but think, "...as long as they grew up in the same white, rural area as I did."
Admittedly, I knew what I was getting into when I went to a 4th of July fireworks show. I wasn't expecting anything more out of the show. For example, when Neil Diamond failed to point out that women in the Congo died for his audio equipment, I wasn't particularly surprised or disappointed. Like I said, I knew what I was getting into. And yet, I couldn't help but notice the cultural, social and environmental issues at play.
We blew up 2500 points of fireworks on the 4th, and that's just one show in one city. Looking just to the right of the flashing lights, one could see a huge, slow-moving cloud of thick smoke. Thankfully, we weren't downwind of it, but some folks were, and that can't be healthy. Plus the material costs. Tons of metal and plastic wasted for, more or less, a big shiny thing. It's a very pretty shiny thing, but no amount of shiny things are worth that level of damage, in my opinion.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you probably also yell "BAH BAH BAH" and "so good! so good! so good!" during Sweet Caroline, but don't actually know any of the lyrics.
There was one particular song in the lineup that reminded me of a number of conversations I've had during the school year about American identity. For the time-constricted, the song more or less says that America is about lemonade stands, high school proms, and driving around in a Chevy. You may be surprised to find out that I don't feel particularly represented by that version of America. Another verse mentions helping out the neighbors, and I couldn't help but think, "...as long as they grew up in the same white, rural area as I did."
Admittedly, I knew what I was getting into when I went to a 4th of July fireworks show. I wasn't expecting anything more out of the show. For example, when Neil Diamond failed to point out that women in the Congo died for his audio equipment, I wasn't particularly surprised or disappointed. Like I said, I knew what I was getting into. And yet, I couldn't help but notice the cultural, social and environmental issues at play.
We blew up 2500 points of fireworks on the 4th, and that's just one show in one city. Looking just to the right of the flashing lights, one could see a huge, slow-moving cloud of thick smoke. Thankfully, we weren't downwind of it, but some folks were, and that can't be healthy. Plus the material costs. Tons of metal and plastic wasted for, more or less, a big shiny thing. It's a very pretty shiny thing, but no amount of shiny things are worth that level of damage, in my opinion.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you probably also yell "BAH BAH BAH" and "so good! so good! so good!" during Sweet Caroline, but don't actually know any of the lyrics.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Nobody puts coal in their stockings anymore...
So, we all know coal is bad, from an environmental standpoint. It contributes to global warming, and it kills fish. This so-called "clean coal" is more or less non-existent; you've all see the commercials. So why do we still use it?
Well, the obvious answer is "the oil companies are run by people who care more about money than the environment," and that would be true. But as it turns out, the story is more complicated than that.
As much as we don't like coal, it has one major advantage over renewable energy: it's consistent. If you burn one ton of coal, you're going to get the same number of megawatt-hours from it every time. With solar and wind, we're at the mercy of weather. If it's a cloudy day, a solar panel array could operate at 75% or 50% or 25% of its capacity, and we'd be left in the dark (literally). If we rely too heavily on wind power, what happens when it's just not a windy day in Kansas? Believe it or not, that actually happens sometimes.
The problem is that the supply of energy changes over time. Luckily, there are companies like EnerNOC, dealing in demand response. Offically, we call our service Demand Response, but it could be Supply Response as well. When a power plant goes down, we call an event, just like we would any other time (see earlier posts for an explanation of what EnerNOC does).
So, another reason I like EnerNOC? They're making a grid that relies more and more on unstable sources of energy like wind and solar a possibility. We couldn't just build solar panels and hope things work out, but by coupling solar/wind and demand response, we have a solution that's truly sustainable.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, I'm totally putting coal in your stocking this Christmas.
Well, the obvious answer is "the oil companies are run by people who care more about money than the environment," and that would be true. But as it turns out, the story is more complicated than that.
As much as we don't like coal, it has one major advantage over renewable energy: it's consistent. If you burn one ton of coal, you're going to get the same number of megawatt-hours from it every time. With solar and wind, we're at the mercy of weather. If it's a cloudy day, a solar panel array could operate at 75% or 50% or 25% of its capacity, and we'd be left in the dark (literally). If we rely too heavily on wind power, what happens when it's just not a windy day in Kansas? Believe it or not, that actually happens sometimes.
The problem is that the supply of energy changes over time. Luckily, there are companies like EnerNOC, dealing in demand response. Offically, we call our service Demand Response, but it could be Supply Response as well. When a power plant goes down, we call an event, just like we would any other time (see earlier posts for an explanation of what EnerNOC does).
So, another reason I like EnerNOC? They're making a grid that relies more and more on unstable sources of energy like wind and solar a possibility. We couldn't just build solar panels and hope things work out, but by coupling solar/wind and demand response, we have a solution that's truly sustainable.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, I'm totally putting coal in your stocking this Christmas.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Transmission Lines
Man, I don't know how people update these things every day. Welcome back to my blog, after two weeks of me having too much fun to pay attention.
I recently learned some things about transmission lines. Transmission lines, for the uninitiated, are high-voltage power lines used to transmit electricity across long distances. These are not the power lines that you would see out on the street in your neighborhood; those are called distribution lines. They're lower voltage (though still dangerous) and are used to distribute electricity to homes.
Transmission lines have everything to do with why we haven't stepped up renewable energy as much as we could. I came into this job thinking "so, if we just build a crapload of wind turbines and solar panels, all our problems will be solved, right?" Well, not really. It turns out that solar panels work best in the middle of the Southwest in the desert, miles and miles from large cities. And wind turbines work best in the great plains, miles and miles from large cities. But this power is truly needed in places like New York City, LA, Chicago, etc. So what do we do? We can't just build a power source, we have to connect it to the folks who need power.
The problem we face is that it's not worth it for the grid operator to build hundreds of miles of high-capacity transmission lines to pick up a few measly megawatts here or there. In order to make it worth their while, a grid operator needs to get a significant pile of power from this very, very costly investment. When small groups say "Hey, we built twelve turbines in the middle of South Dakota! Hook us up to the grid!" the grid operator laughs in their face, as well they should. And if the grid operator isn't going to hook up the turbines, it's not worth it to build them in the first place.
One possible solution to kick-start the process is for one very bank of wind turbines or solar panels to all be built at once. The grid operator will build out to the middle of nowhere, giving way for smaller setups to be built nearby.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you're probably the sort of person who thinks wind turbines are "totally lame."
I recently learned some things about transmission lines. Transmission lines, for the uninitiated, are high-voltage power lines used to transmit electricity across long distances. These are not the power lines that you would see out on the street in your neighborhood; those are called distribution lines. They're lower voltage (though still dangerous) and are used to distribute electricity to homes.
Transmission lines have everything to do with why we haven't stepped up renewable energy as much as we could. I came into this job thinking "so, if we just build a crapload of wind turbines and solar panels, all our problems will be solved, right?" Well, not really. It turns out that solar panels work best in the middle of the Southwest in the desert, miles and miles from large cities. And wind turbines work best in the great plains, miles and miles from large cities. But this power is truly needed in places like New York City, LA, Chicago, etc. So what do we do? We can't just build a power source, we have to connect it to the folks who need power.
The problem we face is that it's not worth it for the grid operator to build hundreds of miles of high-capacity transmission lines to pick up a few measly megawatts here or there. In order to make it worth their while, a grid operator needs to get a significant pile of power from this very, very costly investment. When small groups say "Hey, we built twelve turbines in the middle of South Dakota! Hook us up to the grid!" the grid operator laughs in their face, as well they should. And if the grid operator isn't going to hook up the turbines, it's not worth it to build them in the first place.
One possible solution to kick-start the process is for one very bank of wind turbines or solar panels to all be built at once. The grid operator will build out to the middle of nowhere, giving way for smaller setups to be built nearby.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you're probably the sort of person who thinks wind turbines are "totally lame."
Saturday, June 6, 2009
More Thoughts
It turns out, actually living life gets in the way of writing a blog sometimes. I can't update the blog from work (I'm supposed to be... y'know... working) and when I get home, I like hanging out with my brother, Michael (who I'm living with) and just relaxing. I have lots to say, but I've consistently lacked the willpower to put it into words. I imagine this will only get more difficult when I go to Denmark in the fall.
One of my favorite things about EnerNOC so far has been the lateral nature of the company. Everyone is an expert in their own area, and has the collective trust of the company in that area. It's cooperative. While everyone technically has a boss, requests from the boss don't necessarily mean more than requests from a member of another group. When anyone makes a request, you're expected to do what you can. There's none of this "you're not my boss" that you might find at another company.
This setup is also evidenced by the fact that interns are trusted and given real work to do. I've only done one typical office intern job (I went on a coffee run before our first big event). Everything else I've done has been critical to the overall performance of the team. I've been making changes to the system since day 1. In most cases, every correct change I make is one more business that can participate in our demand response program, and every mistake I make is one company that gets left out. I know what's at stake, and I take their trust seriously.
That said, it's really a fun place to work. First of all, the NOC looks like the future.
I mean, look at that. The first three rows in the NOC have these huge three-screen monitors. I want one so bad.
Then there's the giant wall screen up front. It has eight sections, each of which has some piece of information about event readiness and likelihood. There's usually a weather report (events are much more likely on hot days). There's also an event likelihood calculator (next to the weather). As you can tell from all the green, event likelihood was low across the board that day. Which probably explains how someone had time to wander around taking pictures :-)
By contrast, us interns are in our own room in the corner of the NOC (it's just to the left of where the picture ends). Last summer, it was affectionately dubbed "the ICU," or "Intern Containment Unit." We lack triple-monitors, but we do get our own little space, which has been fun. We're all in our early-to-mid 20's, and we've got at least office-level friendship going. Everyone I work with is good-natured and dedicated, which isn't surprising given the nature of the company.
That's all I can think of to share. I'm toeing the line between giving lots of detail at the risk of boring/confusing everyone, and giving little detail at the risk of leaving you all wondering what the heck it is I'm actually talking about. The best way I can make this blog interesting, I think, is to answer your questions. Otherwise, I'm just going to ramble, and that seems like a waste. So ask me something about EnerNOC, or about demand response, or anything else. I'll try to answer in a somewhat entertaining way.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you're probably an overzealous lawyer.
One of my favorite things about EnerNOC so far has been the lateral nature of the company. Everyone is an expert in their own area, and has the collective trust of the company in that area. It's cooperative. While everyone technically has a boss, requests from the boss don't necessarily mean more than requests from a member of another group. When anyone makes a request, you're expected to do what you can. There's none of this "you're not my boss" that you might find at another company.
This setup is also evidenced by the fact that interns are trusted and given real work to do. I've only done one typical office intern job (I went on a coffee run before our first big event). Everything else I've done has been critical to the overall performance of the team. I've been making changes to the system since day 1. In most cases, every correct change I make is one more business that can participate in our demand response program, and every mistake I make is one company that gets left out. I know what's at stake, and I take their trust seriously.
That said, it's really a fun place to work. First of all, the NOC looks like the future.I mean, look at that. The first three rows in the NOC have these huge three-screen monitors. I want one so bad.
Then there's the giant wall screen up front. It has eight sections, each of which has some piece of information about event readiness and likelihood. There's usually a weather report (events are much more likely on hot days). There's also an event likelihood calculator (next to the weather). As you can tell from all the green, event likelihood was low across the board that day. Which probably explains how someone had time to wander around taking pictures :-)
By contrast, us interns are in our own room in the corner of the NOC (it's just to the left of where the picture ends). Last summer, it was affectionately dubbed "the ICU," or "Intern Containment Unit." We lack triple-monitors, but we do get our own little space, which has been fun. We're all in our early-to-mid 20's, and we've got at least office-level friendship going. Everyone I work with is good-natured and dedicated, which isn't surprising given the nature of the company.
That's all I can think of to share. I'm toeing the line between giving lots of detail at the risk of boring/confusing everyone, and giving little detail at the risk of leaving you all wondering what the heck it is I'm actually talking about. The best way I can make this blog interesting, I think, is to answer your questions. Otherwise, I'm just going to ramble, and that seems like a waste. So ask me something about EnerNOC, or about demand response, or anything else. I'll try to answer in a somewhat entertaining way.
The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you're probably an overzealous lawyer.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
First Weekend
This past Sunday I attended two graduation ceremonies. First, my brother's fiance (soon to be my sister-in-law!) got her Ph.D. from Brown. When that was over, I walked across campus to see one of my close friends at the undergraduate ceremony, where his girlfriend was getting a B.A.. The weekend was essentially one big celebration. Congratulations again to all my Goucher friends. You're educated!
Work has continued to be a process of learning different protocols and acronyms. Much like at Goucher, there are acronyms for everything, and much like a freshman, I don't know them yet. But I'm learning.
My Peace Practice classmates might be interested to know that there's a lot of talk of "negawatts" here at EnerNOC, which is a term coined by Amory Lovins. Basically, negawatts are what I was talking about in the last post. It's a negative watt. Producing an extra watt of electricity is all well and good, but if you can reduce the NEED by one watt, you've created the same benefit without the harm to the environment or the power grid. That's a "negawatt."
That's about all I've got for now. On an unrelated note, I'm adding the following disclaimer to all my posts, since I work for the company I'm talking about:
The views expressed here are my own and not the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc).
To some people it's obvious, to lawyers, not so much. Point is, everything in this blog represents the opinion of me, the author, and not necessarily anyone else. Because I am a free-thinking individual. This is not an official blog sponsored by the company, this is just some kid sharing what he's learned over the course of his internship, and should be viewed as such. It should be noted that the legal disclaimer also applies to my opinions on legal disclaimers (I think they're silly, but I don't represent the company in saying that).
Work has continued to be a process of learning different protocols and acronyms. Much like at Goucher, there are acronyms for everything, and much like a freshman, I don't know them yet. But I'm learning.
My Peace Practice classmates might be interested to know that there's a lot of talk of "negawatts" here at EnerNOC, which is a term coined by Amory Lovins. Basically, negawatts are what I was talking about in the last post. It's a negative watt. Producing an extra watt of electricity is all well and good, but if you can reduce the NEED by one watt, you've created the same benefit without the harm to the environment or the power grid. That's a "negawatt."
That's about all I've got for now. On an unrelated note, I'm adding the following disclaimer to all my posts, since I work for the company I'm talking about:
The views expressed here are my own and not the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc).
To some people it's obvious, to lawyers, not so much. Point is, everything in this blog represents the opinion of me, the author, and not necessarily anyone else. Because I am a free-thinking individual. This is not an official blog sponsored by the company, this is just some kid sharing what he's learned over the course of his internship, and should be viewed as such. It should be noted that the legal disclaimer also applies to my opinions on legal disclaimers (I think they're silly, but I don't represent the company in saying that).
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thoughts From Day 2
So, I've had two days of work, and it's gone well so far. I'm fighting some sniffles I think I got from my dad last weekend, but it's not too bad. Otherwise, Boston's been good to me so far.
As promised, here's what EnerNOC does, in three short, exciting paragraphs:
Let's say the power company for a given region has 20 power plants. 10 of those will be on at all times, providing the baseline energy that area will use for most of the year. The other 10 are backup, or "peak" plants. During the summer when it's really hot out and everyone turns on their air conditioners, all of a sudden we need more power. That's when these peak plants turn on. But these peak plants are less efficient, and the power companies lose money turning these things on, plus they're bad for the environment.
EnerNOC comes along and says, "okay, it costs you $1m to turn on peak plant #3, and it provides you with an additional SUPPLY of 50 megawatts (mW) of power. What if you could pay EnerNOC just $500,000, and we reduce DEMAND for electricity by 50mW?" To the power company, they're the same thing, but EnerNOC does it cheaper. The power companies win because they don't have to build new peak power plants, and they can fire up existing ones less often. They also reduce their impact on the environment.
So how does EnerNOC actually reduce demand? Well, they spend that $500,000 we just talked about. They take a cut (to pay their employees, including scruffy interns like myself) and use the rest to pay big stores, office buildings, factories, etc. to reduce their burden on the power grid. The specifics depend on the location: an office building might turn off every other lighting fixture and lower the setting on their heating or cooling unit. A supermarket might switch to backup generators. The demand response solution is different for each place of business. Then, when EnerNOC sends out the call that a demand response event will be happening, the company is all set to go. The customer flips a switch, they reduce their power usage for the duration, then turn it back on at the end of the event. The customer saves money on their energy bill, and in addition to that, gets a check from EnerNOC for participating.
In summary, an event goes something like this:
So how does Eli fit into all this? That's totally what you were going to ask, right? Well, right now, we're not in the thick of event season, but it's going to start in about a week, and we need to be ready. During an event, if a site isn't turning off its lights like they're supposed to, we need to be able to call them, figure out what the problem is ASAP, and coach them so they can carry out their end of the bargain. My job is to make sure different spreadsheets, software and databases are up-to-date and ready to go before next week so we can waste as little time as possible searching for missing pieces. Events only last a few hours, so everyone needs to be at 100% efficiency. We can sleep later. During an event, it's all about coffee.
Sounds like finals week, right?
Much love to my soon-to-graduate friends at Goucher. I'll miss you all next year; good luck with your summer plans.
As promised, here's what EnerNOC does, in three short, exciting paragraphs:
Let's say the power company for a given region has 20 power plants. 10 of those will be on at all times, providing the baseline energy that area will use for most of the year. The other 10 are backup, or "peak" plants. During the summer when it's really hot out and everyone turns on their air conditioners, all of a sudden we need more power. That's when these peak plants turn on. But these peak plants are less efficient, and the power companies lose money turning these things on, plus they're bad for the environment.
EnerNOC comes along and says, "okay, it costs you $1m to turn on peak plant #3, and it provides you with an additional SUPPLY of 50 megawatts (mW) of power. What if you could pay EnerNOC just $500,000, and we reduce DEMAND for electricity by 50mW?" To the power company, they're the same thing, but EnerNOC does it cheaper. The power companies win because they don't have to build new peak power plants, and they can fire up existing ones less often. They also reduce their impact on the environment.
So how does EnerNOC actually reduce demand? Well, they spend that $500,000 we just talked about. They take a cut (to pay their employees, including scruffy interns like myself) and use the rest to pay big stores, office buildings, factories, etc. to reduce their burden on the power grid. The specifics depend on the location: an office building might turn off every other lighting fixture and lower the setting on their heating or cooling unit. A supermarket might switch to backup generators. The demand response solution is different for each place of business. Then, when EnerNOC sends out the call that a demand response event will be happening, the company is all set to go. The customer flips a switch, they reduce their power usage for the duration, then turn it back on at the end of the event. The customer saves money on their energy bill, and in addition to that, gets a check from EnerNOC for participating.
In summary, an event goes something like this:
- A power grid operator calls EnerNOC and says "today from 2:00 to 5:00PM, we need you to cut 100mW"
- EnerNOC contacts all its customers connected to that power company and says "Hey, we're having a curtailment event from 2 to 5."
- At 2, companies initiate their plans (turning off lights, etc.). Supermarket A might be responsible for 1mW, office building B might do .7mW, factory C might do 4mW. In the end, it all adds up to 100mW.
- at 2:01, EnerNOC starts making calls to businesses that have not reduced power usage to find out what's going on. These calls continue throughout the event.
- The event ends, and lights go back to normal. The Data Analytics Group compiles all the data and (dur dur dur) analyzes it. They send around a report that says which businesses performed well, which businesses underperformed, if we met our goals or not, etc.
- We make changes to our procedure and get ready for the next event.
- Power companies: They pay EnerNOC less than it would cost them to fire up peak plants, and thus save money
- The "customer" businesses: They're literally getting paid to turn off lights. How awesome is that?
- The environment: Peak plants are bad, keeping them off is good
- Me: I get employed!
So how does Eli fit into all this? That's totally what you were going to ask, right? Well, right now, we're not in the thick of event season, but it's going to start in about a week, and we need to be ready. During an event, if a site isn't turning off its lights like they're supposed to, we need to be able to call them, figure out what the problem is ASAP, and coach them so they can carry out their end of the bargain. My job is to make sure different spreadsheets, software and databases are up-to-date and ready to go before next week so we can waste as little time as possible searching for missing pieces. Events only last a few hours, so everyone needs to be at 100% efficiency. We can sleep later. During an event, it's all about coffee.
Sounds like finals week, right?
Much love to my soon-to-graduate friends at Goucher. I'll miss you all next year; good luck with your summer plans.
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