Revue de presse IoT / Data / Energie du 02/04/2017Bonjour,

Voici la revue de presse IoT/data/energie du 2 avril 2017.

Cette semaine moins d’articles, mais de très intéressantes analyses sur le futur desentreprises de distribution d’électricité. Un futur a composer avec plus de renouvelables,de micro voire nano-grids, et des technologies qui vont dans le sens de ladésintermédiation. Avec en trame de fond (et en dernier article) l’importance du mix IOT xdata x intelligence artificielle.

C’est long mais ça vaut le coup, alors bonne lecture !

1. How Blockchain Tech Will Create a Distributed Future for the Energy Sector2. Nanogrids, Microgrids, and Big Data: The Future of the Power Grid3. Innovative Technologies Driving the Energy Revolution4. Blockchain 2.0 dans l'énergie vue par France Stratégie5. How Will Artificial Intelligence Improve the Internet of Things?

How Blockchain Tech Will Create aDistributed Future for the Energy SectorSource URL: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/how-blockchain-tech-will-create-distributed-future-energy-sector/Mar 27, 20171:45 PM EST by Michael Scott

April 2016 saw a flurry of media attention around thefirst ever blockchain-managedenergy transaction in Brooklyn, NY.In this groundbreaking milestone, the owner of a roofsolar panel sold a few kilowatt-hours of excess energy to a neighbor utilizing an Ethereumblockchain smart contract. Fueling this development via the Brooklyn microgrid was thestartup company LO3 Energy.

Today power and utility companies all over the world are now exploring various ways toimplement blockchain technology. Doing so could upend existing models of how energyand utility markets function. Applied on a broader scale, it could be the spark thattransforms these legacy industries.

So what sort of problems is blockchain technology expected to address in this space?For starters, the technology is seen as a means of overcoming some of the entry barriersthat restrict the delivery of electricity to more customers. Here the blockchaininfrastructure could foster a more open and transparent mechanism for codifyingtransactions in the energy realm involving both generation and consumption.

Second, blockchain technology can provide companies in these industries with a moreefficient way to record and process data, potentially leading to a more synchronizedglobal distribution of energy. Customers would also be afforded a more streamlined andaccurate experience in terms of managing their bills and access to the activity takingplace on their accounts.

Third, the archaic and costly function of meter reading could effectively be eliminatedwhile at the same time boosting the accuracy of bills.

Finally, blockchain integration can provide a more effective system for assessing energysources and determining how that affects the pricing passed on to the consumer. Bettertechnology tools provide more accurate energy utilization and service data, ultimatelyleading to better outcomes for the end customer.

The broader implications of this would include increased industry competition leading tolower prices, streamlined energy distribution, reduced energy waste and betterrelationships between utility companies and their customers.

For a deeper perspective on blockchain technology’s emerging impact on the power,utilities and energy markets, Bitcoin Magazine turned to Thierry Mortier, Global Leader ofTechnology and Innovation for Power and Utilities at Ernst & Young (EY).

Mortier says that the power sector is in the midst of shifting from a centralized model to amore distributed model. He believes that in the future new digital peer-to-peer platformswill emerge to eliminate the middleman and seamlessly connect energy producers directlywith the end power user.

“Blockchain technology will help facilitate this process by allowing transactions to berecorded between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. It can alsobe programmed to trigger transactions automatically. The technology promises toradically speed up transactions and cut costs by establishing trust and the transfer ofvalue without the involvement of traditional intermediaries.”

Mortier goes on to note that, aside from some early demonstrations, the applicability of anenergy blockchain is still largely theoretical. He points to how blockchain enthusiasts aredrawn in by the growing complex web of transactions, the need to balance thegeographical mismatch between supply and demand, and significant security and trustconcerns given the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices.

Says Mortier: “Over 200 blockchain use cases have been identified already. Most pilotsare still in early stages across the energy value chain, primarily in the area of peer-to-peerenergy trading. EY is working with companies in the power and utilities sector to developuse cases and prototypes.”

In addition to the aforementioned April 2016 development, where residents in Brooklyn,New York, successfully traded renewable energy using a smart contract on the publicEthereum blockchain platform, he says that in Australia, several pilots are under way,allowing residents in Perth and South Western Australia to buy, sell or swap excess solarenergy with anyone connected to the Western Power network.

Furthermore, he says that Germany, with Berlin as the global hub of the technology, has astrong presence, as does the U.K., building on the early investment of the financial

services sector in the technology. “Blockchain maturity seems to be driven by companyambition rather than any national advantage at this stage,” says Mortier.

He is especially excited about the emergence of pre-programmed “smart contracts” thatcan trigger transactions automatically.

“These smart contracts, for example, can be set to allow prosumers to feed surplusenergy into the grid through a blockchain-enabled meter. The flow of electricity isautomatically coded into the blockchain, and algorithms match buyers and sellers in realtime based on preferences. Smart contracts then execute when electricity is delivered,triggering payment from buyer to seller. Removing financial transactions and theexecution of contractual commitments from central control brings a whole new level ofdecentralization and transparency that the industry has never had before.”

Mortier also touts the rapidly growing prominence of energy trading, an area he saysappears to be moving toward a commercial solution more quickly than many of theothers.

In conclusion, Mortier says that there has been significant interest in tracking and tracingresource types (green gas, for example) and in the peer-to-peer, prosumer-led trading.But, outside of Bitcoin applications, he laments that there is a lack of proven use cases,with difficulties involving security, scalability and frequency of transactions as factors thatneed to be overcome.

“In three to five years’ time, it is quite possible that blockchain [technology] will radicallychange the way parts of the power industry operate. To get there, blockchain [technology]must overcome competition from existing solutions and prove its attractiveness to users.Only if its applications have tangible, monetary or timely advantages will blockchain[technology] be able convince enough participants to ditch their legacy systems for thisnew platform.”

Nanogrids, Microgrids, and Big Data: TheFuture of the Power GridSource URL: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/nanogrids-microgrids-and-big-data-the-future-of-the-power-grid

Distributed generation and automated transactions willchange how we produce and consume electricityDeveloping technology is like driving a race car:You push the machinery as fast as it’llgo, and if you can avoid a crash, a prize awaits you at the finish line. For engineers, thereward is sometimes monetary, but more often it’s the satisfaction of seeing the worldbecome a better place.

Thanks to many such engineers driving many such race cars, a lot of progress is about tohappen in an unexpected spot: the electricity sector. The power grid’s interlocking

technological, economic, and regulatory underpinnings were established about a centuryago and have undergone only minimal disruption in the decades since. But now theindustry is facing massive change.

Most observers are only vaguely aware of the magnitude of this overhaul, perhapsbecause it’s a hard story to tell. It doesn’t translate well to a set of tweets. Many peoplehave come to think of the electric-utility business in much the same way they think of theirtaxes—boring, tedious, and somehow, always costing more money.

What’s happening in this industry stems from technology improvements, economicforces, and evolving public priorities. As the changes dig away at the very foundation ofthe electricity sector, the results are likely to be anything but boring. Yet they may wellcost you more money.

For about a century, affordable electrification has been based on economies of scale, withlarge generating plants producing hundreds or thousands of megawatts of power, whichis sent to distant users through a transmission and distribution grid. Today, manydevelopments are complicating that simple model.

At the top of the list is the availability of low-cost natural gas and solar power. Generatorsbased on these resources can be built much closer to customers. So we are now in theearly stages of an expansion of distributed generation, which is already lessening theneed for costly long-distance transmission. That, in turn, is making those new sourcescost competitive with giant legacy power plants.

Distributed generation has long been technically possible. What’s new now is that we arenearing a tipping point, beyond which, for many applications, distributed generation willbe the least costly way to provide electricity.

While it certainly helps, the declining cost of renewables and gas-fired electricity is not allthat’s spurring this change. To be competitive, the entire distributed system will have towork well as a whole. Quite a few technological advances are coming together to makethat possible: advanced control systems; more compact, smarter, and efficient electricalinverters; smart electricity meters and the burgeoning Internet of Things; and the ever-growing ability to extract actionable information from big data.

Global Total Installed Wind and Solar Capacity

Growth in wind and solar has been brisk. The two together represent roughly 10 percentof the world’s installed capacity but contribute only about 4 percent of production.

Amid this changing scene, a picture is beginning to emerge of what a typical electrical

grid may well look like in 10 or 20 years in most of the developed world. Yes, generationwill be much more decentralized, and renewables such as solar and wind will proliferate.But other aspects are also shifting. For example, the distribution network—the part of thegrid to which your home and business connect—will likely become more of a negotiatingplatform than a system that just carries electricity from place to place.

Getting to this more sophisticated grid won’t be easy. Nevertheless, it’s coming. What willit look like? Here is my best guess, based on my decades of experience as a governmentofficial charged with helping electric utilities get access to emerging technologies. It is thefuture I’m now working to help realize as an academic researcher.

The first thing to understand is that decentralization is going to be neither simple noruniversal. In some places, decentralization will prevail, with most customers generatingmuch of their own power, typically from solar photovoltaics. Others might use small-scalewind turbines. In regions where sunlight and wind are less plentiful, natural gas willprobably predominate. Intertwined among all of those, a continuously improving versionof the legacy grid will survive for decades to come.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in the first 11 months of2016, some 48.82 million megawatt-hours of distributed solar energy were produced inthe country, up 46 percent from the year before. That’s still a tiny proportion, though. In2016, about 1.4 percent of electricity in the United States came from the sun via solarpanels, including both utility-scale plants and distributed ones, according to the EIA. Butsolar is growing fast because of its increasingly favorable economics. For example, inChile’s most recent power auction, 120 MW of solar power was the lowest-cost option, atUS $29.10 per megawatt-hour.

Many analysts expect that grid-connected, distributed solar power will be fully costcompetitive with conventional forms of generation by the end of this decade. In themeantime, a dizzying array of government incentives, which vary from region to region(even within one country) are helping the technology to take off.

Ultimately, the lowest-cost form of generation will dominate. But figuring out what thelowest-cost option actually is will be tricky because it will depend on both local conditionsand local decisions.

For example, regulators are increasingly convinced that the burning of fossil fuels leads tosignificant societal costs, both from the direct exposure of those living near some powerplants to their noxious emissions and from greenhouse gas induced climate change.Historically, these costs were difficult to quantify. So they were typically borne not by theproducers or consumers of the electricity but by the victims—for example, farmers whosecrops were damaged.

There is growing public interest in understanding the true cost of pollution and possiblyshifting more of it to electricity producers and possibly consumers as well. Fortunately, wenow have the modeling and computational capabilities to begin to put a reasonable lowerlimit on those costs, which gives us a defensible way to reallocate them.

Although the best strategies for reallocating those costs are still being debated, thebenefits of distributed renewable generation are already very apparent—as is thefeasibility. Data collected during the Pecan Street Project, funded by the U.S. Departmentof Energy, indicates that a house in Austin, Texas, outfitted with solar panels typically

generates 4 or 5 kilowatts during the midday hours of a sunny day in summer, whichexceeds the amount of power the home typically uses during such a period.

Illustration: MCKIBILLOA typical smart home has an energy-management system that takes into account time ofday and other factors to minimize electricity costs. In a future microgrid, the individualenergy-management systems of a group of homes will communicate to maximizeefficiency, lower costs, and regulate demand.

Whether or not rooftop solar makes sense for a particular homeowner, however, dependson the initial cost, maintenance costs, subsidies, the cost of grid power, and the sellingprice of the excess electricity generated.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot initiative has as its goal making solar powercost competitive—without subsidies—by 2030. (A Chinese government agency has asimilar agenda.) Specifically, SunShot’s goal is to reduce the cost of distributed,residential solar power to 5 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour by 2030; it costs about 18 centstoday. Today, a 6-kW rooftop residential solar system in the United States typically costsbetween $15,000 and $20,000; the exact figure depends on where you live. According todata from the EIA, the average retail cost of electricity delivered by the grid in the UnitedStates is 12.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. So at 18 cents, rooftop-generated solar is not yet,on average, competitive with grid-delivered electricity. But many governments, forexample U.S. state governments, subsidize the purchase of solar-power systems to makethem competitive.

Meanwhile, many utilities are experimenting with alternative-ownership options. One iscommunity solar, in which individual consumers buy a small number of panels in arelatively large, utility-scale system. They then get monthly credits for the electricitygenerated without having panels on their roofs. Another experiment, being run by CPS

Energy, in San Antonio, uses rooftop solar, but CPS Energy owns the equipment and paysthe homeowner for the use of the roof.

One challenge with distributed solar is storage. Most solar-panel owners are using thegrid as the functional equivalent of storage: They sell excess power to the grid when theycan and buy back from the grid to compensate for shortfalls. This is usually the simplestand cheapest way to even out differences in production and consumption. Nevertheless,many people—most notably, Elon Musk—are betting the economics will soon favorbatteries. Musk’s electric-car company, Tesla, sells a battery for home use calledPowerwall 2, which costs $5,500 and offers 14 kWh of storage, enough to run an averagehome overnight. However, adding the costs of battery storage to a solar installation to gooff grid makes the costs of power significantly higher than those of ordinary electricityfrom the grid.

Comparing the options for expanding the use of solar power is not straightforward,however, because much depends on how the grid will evolve. For example, right now, thegrid could not handle a changeover to 100 percent solar (even in areas where it wouldmake sense, like the southwestern United States or the North African desert). The grid wehave today was designed around sources whose output generally varies little from day today. But the U.S. DOE, under its ENERGISE program, is striving to develop, by 2030, thecontrol, protection, and other technologies needed to enable an entirely solar-poweredgrid.

The grid will evolve in other ways, too, and quickly. One of the most important trends,already well under way, is the increasing use of microgrids. A microgrid is a group ofconnected power sources and loads. It can be as small as an individual house (oftendubbed a nanogrid) or as large as a military base or college campus. Microgrids canoperate indefinitely on their own and can quickly isolate themselves if a disturbancedestabilizes the larger grids to which they are normally connected.

This is an important feature during both natural and man-made disasters. Consider whathappened when Hurricane Ike hit the Houston-Galveston area of Texas in 2008: Blackoutswere widespread, but 95 percent of the outages were caused by damage to less than 5percent of the grid. The grid effectively distributed the effects of what was only modestequipment damage.

Illustration: MCKIBILLOA residential microgrid connects a group of homes that have their own power sources andenergy storage. The homes communicate with each other wirelessly and connect to themain grid at a distribution transformer. In an electrical disturbance, the microgrid canprotect itself by disconnecting from the main grid at that transformer.

This isolating capability of microgrids also promises enhanced cybersecurity. That’sbecause microgrids can help keep localized intrusions local, making the grid a much lessappealing target for hackers.

When disaster strikes, whatever its cause, microgrids can limit the consequences. If it isnot physically damaged, a microgrid can operate as long as it has access to a source ofpower, whether that’s natural gas, the sun, or wind.

In the long term, with the timing depending as much on economics and regulation astechnology, it is quite possible that the grid will evolve into a series of adjoiningmicrogrids. Utilities have proposed to build such microgrid “clusters” in, among otherplaces, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Taiwan, a tropical island where grids are prone to stormdamage. These adjoining microgrids would share power with one another and with thelegacy grid to minimize energy cost and to maximize availability.

In an era of adjoining microgrids that are privately owned and operated, what will becomeof the utility company? There are at least two possibilities. It might simply supply power tothe microgrids that need it, rather than doing that for individual customers. Or it mightmanage microgrids and their connections with one another and to the legacy grid. Acrossthe United States, the concept of a utility is already being reinvented in some places asmore competition is introduced. Microgrids are going to accelerate that trend.

The spread of distributed generation and the rise of microgrids will also be shaped by twoother factors: the expansion of the Internet of Things and the growing influence of bigdata.

The Internet of Things is a boon for distributed generation because it is giving rise to

industries that are mass-producing sensors, microcontrollers, software, and other gearthat will be easily and cheaply adaptable for use in future, data-driven grids andmicrogrids. How will these things be used? Imagine a residential solar-power system ofthe near future. It will have “customer equipment”—solar panels, a smart inverter, and astorage battery and systems to manage loads dynamically. From time to time, the poweroutput of that installation will be lower than usual, because of, say, a heavily overcast day.

But it would be easy to design a control system, based on readily available IoTcomponents, that could communicate with similar systems in surrounding houses. Thesesystems would work together, for example, to turn air conditioners on or off ahead of orbehind schedule, or alter their thermostats by half a degree, to accommodate intermittent,unexpected shortfalls in capacity. What would enable this plan to work is the fact thatmost modern homes are well insulated, so it takes time before the internal temperaturechanges enough to trigger the HVAC system. The reason why homes would be groupedtogether in this scheme is that it would make the task easier: In the group, somehomeowners would be willing to sacrifice a lot of comfort, some less. But the powerneeds of the group of houses would be relatively predictable and manageable, from theutility’s standpoint.

Most consumers do not want to make frequent and detailed decisions on energy use. Soimagine a device—let’s call it an energy thermostat—that permits you to set a range ofcomfortable temperatures, rather than entering a single one. The wider you set the range,the less you’ll pay for power. The grid or microgrid operator would use the range—yoursand everybody else’s—to dynamically match supply and demand on a minute-by-minutebasis. On a hot afternoon, with demand at its peak, the temperature in your home wouldbe at the top of the range.

A distribution substation connects the microgrid to the distribution network and thereforeto the main grid, through a set of transformers and disconnect switches.

Electric utilities will also begin making greater and much more effective use of big data.Utilities have been using data since the very beginning: When Thomas Edison opened thePearl Street power station, in New York City in 1882, it had indicator lights to show whenthe load had increased or decreased enough to warrant adjustments to the dynamoproducing the DC power. But that system clearly was not scalable. If a utility had toreadjust its generators every time a customer came online, the industry would have diedout long ago.

Having a large number of loads makes the aggregate demand predictable—andmanageable. This happy condition obviously depends on there being little correlation ofusage from house to house and business to business. But just suppose that at 3:00 p.m.on a hot summer day, everyone in a medium-size city turned off their air conditioners atthe very same second, waited 15 minutes, and then turned them all back on again atexactly the same time. That would almost certainly cause a massive blackout.

With big-data tools, it may no longer be necessary to depend on consumers’ actionsbeing only loosely similar. It should be possible to understand how to adjust productionand consumption to enhance system behavior. For example, with the energy-thermostatconcept outlined above, the system operator needs to have not only the appropriatecontrollers but also access to real-time data to determine the risk of system failure whenload-management actions are taken.

Utilities in many areas have embarked on this path using various customer incentives topermit, say, time-of-day pricing or some other form of load management by the utilityrather than by the consumer. But we are now taking just baby steps. Big-data tools willsoon let us take larger strides and may well one day let us run. It may be possible to usereal-time operational data to optimize the performance of large sections of the grid and topredict future performance.

Although my main goal is to describe a hopeful vision that many of us in the utilitybusiness have for the electric grid, I would be remiss if I did not point out some of thechallenges. These include financial ones, regulatory ones, and technical ones. And theycome in all shapes and sizes.

One of the most fundamental is slow growth. To pay for costly system upgrades, utilitiesin the past would have relied heavily on growth in demand, and therefore sales. Butimprovements in efficiency, which consumers seek (and rightly so), have slowed growth indemand to the extent that it is now increasing at a rate lower than that of the growth ingross domestic product. And the figures are sobering: In 2014, the U.S. DOE predictedthat in the period from 2012 to 2040, the demand for electricity will grow by only0.9 percent per year. So, utilities cannot expect to fund the required system changes inthe same ways as they have in the past, through growth.

Other shifts in the industry will only exacerbate these money woes. For example, in thepast utilities could count on key pieces of equipment lasting a long time. But smart gridsdepend on electronic components, such as smart meters, controlled by software, whichhave shorter lifetimes and require much more frequent upgrades.

The biggest unknown is how swiftly the regulatory process can adapt. If it can’t movequickly enough to keep up with the technology, expect agonizingly slow change. Andwhat if governments try to prop up outmoded technologies with subsidies? That coulddrag out the process further. On the other hand, some would argue that regulators shouldslow the rate of change. Though the arguments for that are worthy of political discussion,I’m certainly not in that camp.

Historically, regulations have been driven mainly by legal and economic considerationsrather than by technical ones. But now, with the pace of technology outrunning otherfactors, regulators in the United States and Europe are reacting to this new state of affairsin many different ways. My view is that the staffing of regulatory agencies will need tobecome more technically savvy if we are to navigate these turbulent waters whilecontinuing to provide electric power with the lowest cost and highest reliability.

I’m confident that in the end, we’ll have electrical grids that are less costly, moresustainable, and more user friendly than the ones that came before. The United States’National Academy of Engineering recently selected electrification as the top engineeringaccomplishment of the 20th century. But electrification now needs to be reengineered tomeet the needs and opportunities of the 21st century. This is our chance to show that weare as good as our forebears of two, three, or four generations ago at technology,regulation, public policy, finance, and the management of change in general. And to leaveto posterity a legacy as fine and enduring as the one that was left to us.

About the Author

Robert Hebner is the director of the Center for Electromechanics at the University ofTexas at Austin.

Innovative Technologies Driving theEnergy RevolutionSource URL: http://breakingenergy.com/2017/03/31/innovative-technologies-driving-energy-revolution-solar-power-measurement-efficiency/Two explosive growth markets are renewable energy (RE) and the Internet of Things (IoT)technologies and both play a crucial role in creating value. The emphasis on how softwareand analytics can drive energy savings along with renewable energy and energyconservation measures (ECM) will be examined. Companies, like Arkados, exist thatoperate in the solar (through its recently announced acquisition of SolBright RenewableEnergy), LED lighting, and IoT markets.

Market

The IoT market is demonstrating substantial growth. According to McKinsey, the IoTmarket should grow from $900 million in 2015 to $3.7 billion by 2020. One of the keydrivers of the IoT market is smart building applications where energy savings provides thereturn on investment (ROI). IoT applications play a leading role in renewable energies inincluding solar and wind.

Global investment spending in the solar PV markets was $161 billion in 2015, accordingto Bloomberg New Energy Finance. GTM Research and the Solar Energy IndustryAssociation (SEIA) indicated that the US solar industry grew 95% to 42.4 gigawatts (GW)in 2016. According to the SEIA, the US solar market installed 14.6 GW of solar PV in2016. In the global market, approximately 73 GW of solar was added in 2016.

However, when solar is measured against conventional energy sources such as naturalgas and coal, solar represents approximately 1% of the energy generation in the USaccording to DOE. Despite the successful growth of solar in the US market, there issubstantial upside for further growth. Fueling the solar market growth are falling PV panelcosts and the extension of tax credits. Solar PV panel costs are at grid parity in moststates. Solar power generation at a cost of approximately $0.13 per kWh is close to theUS national average rate at $0.115 per kWh.

Technology Positioning

Solar costs at grid parity should be great news for commercial and residentialapplications as well as for the utility industry itself. However, renewable energy haslimitations, and therefore, new technologies employing IoT devices and analytics canfurther enhance the market for solar and drive higher energy efficiency. Thesetechnologies apply to buildings and utility markets where tools and technology arerequired to better manage electric supply and demand. This image depicts how IoT canbe employed in various objects to enhance energy data.

One issue for renewable energies is that their ability to generate power is intermittent. Because renewable energy is intermittent, energy storage is a crucial component toenable the distributed grid where electric supply has to match demand. Energy storage isa critical component of the distributed grid architecture. The ability to store energy isimportant to improve RE value and to provide power when RE sources are not available.

The US grid was built to generate electricity from fuels such as natural gas, coal, hydroand nuclear and transmit electric to substation for distribution to customers. Utilitiesglobally are implementing micro and distributed generation grids meaning they areintroducing electric generation at end points in the network. Solar generates energy andwithout the ability to derive granular insight in energy supply and demand, energy can bewasted. This is one area of focus for IoT connected devices and analytical software.

In addition, Net Metering, a process that credits the owners of solar generation systemsfor power added to the grid, helps solar become more attractive for customers. Severalstates including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland,Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvaniahave implemented net metering.

Arkados, and other like companies, are employing IoT devices and software to enhancevalue of renewable energy and facility operations. These technologies include energy andenvironmental sensors that enable diagnostic feedback loops to compare energyefficiency to facility conditions and set points.

Part of the process is educational to demonstrate the feasibility and viability into anorganization. Some concepts are simple such as performance bench-marking to identifyaberrant conditions or major areas of concern. Key metrics include energy density in kWand kWh per square foot. Facility load factors and equipment load signature are alsohelpful is comparing procedural operating hours to measured operating hours byequipment.

Some of the approaches include fog analytics such as pushing intelligence to the edge ofthe network using IoT devices to capture granular detail and enable local processing andcontrol. The concept is to push context awareness to the sensors and collect data in theprocess. This process includes remote control on lighting and equipment. The realbenefits from IoT and analytics are huge including reducing costs, increasing energyefficiency, asset protection, and predictive maintenance.

Value

The value of energy savings must be within a two-year payback to gain acceptance bythe market. In other words, the RE and ECM investment ROI should be greater than 50%.

To achieve energy savings insight, generate data from an array of sensors at a granularlevel. Meaning continuous monitoring of sensor data that can be used to enhance energyperformance. Typical energy savings initiatives would include cutting back at peak kWdemand and duration and can be used to substantially reduce energy costs. Conditioningless outside air is effective in reducing HVAC costs. Modulating outside air intake usingdemand control ventilation employing CO2 sensors is an effective energy savingsmethod. Demand Control Ventilation has been able to demonstrate HVAC efficiencygains of 24%.

Automated measurement and verification (M&V) systems provide mechanism to deploydemand response. Some studies suggest demand response has the potential to reduceenergy costs by 40%. Monitoring based commissioning (MBCx) can save money simplyby measuring consumption to set point changes in and facility environmental conditions.The futuristic approach is to combine energy monitoring with sales and installation of LEDlighting and solar PV systems.

Conclusion

Energy savings and efficiency gains measure the value created through IoT and analytics.With the rise of both of these initiatives, consumers should be more aware of their energyconsumption in the near future as more of this technology is available to them. Softwaredeveloped by companies provides a means of enhancing the benefits of solar and LEDlighting by gaining insight into energy consumption in addition to enabling efficiencyoptimization using diagnostic feedback loops. Today, consumers should focus onleveraging software and IoT capabilities to drive sustainability and improve energyefficiency for solar and LED lighting initiatives.

Blockchain 2.0 dans l'énergie vue parFrance StratégieSource URL: https://www.energystream-wavestone.com/2017/03/blockchain-energie-france-strategie/Le jeudi 9 mars, nous avons eu l’opportunité d’assister à une table ronde organisée parFrance Stratégie autour de la blockchain, ses enjeux et les obstacles qu’elle rencontredans le secteur de l’énergie. Pierre Paperon (fondateur de l’Observatoire Blockchains desEnergies) était le principal intervenant de cette conférence.

Compte-rendu d’une matinée riche en enseignements.

Vers une blockchain 2.0

Initialement, la blockchain permet de sécuriser des transactions par le chiffrement desdonnées et de faciliter les échanges en supprimant les tiers de confiance entre demultiples utilisateurs. De ce fait, elle permet de faire des échanges directement de pair àpair (peer-to-peer) et donc de se passer de plus en plus d’intermédiaires durant lestransactions.

Cette blockchain 1.0 se développe aujourd’hui et ses champs d’action s’élargissent. A unniveau de maturité naissant, on parle alors de blockchain 2.0. Mais quelles sont sesfonctions concrètement ?

La blockchain 2.0 intègre les “smart contracts” ou “contrats à exécution automatique” quisont des clauses programmées pour exécuter des actions spécifiques. Le contrat estprédéfini à l’avance sous forme de code informatique par les deux parties. Lorsque lesconditions spécifiées dans le contrat sont remplies, la transaction est réaliséeautomatiquement par la blockchain sans intervention humaine. Il est important de noterque les smart contracts ne peuvent pas être modifiés a posteriori de leur implémentationsur la blockchain. Il est donc crucial de s’assurer que le contrat ne comporte pas de failleexploitable par un acteur malveillant. Ce genre de faille a notamment été exploitée lors duhack de The DAO[1].

Quels cas d’usage dans le secteur de l’énergie ?La disparition des tiers de confiance fait de la blockchain une technologie prometteuse enfaveur de la décentralisation de l’industrie de l’énergie. Cette décentralisation englobel’ensemble des acteurs actuels, en réinstaurant cependant une dynamique locale plusforte. Les usages de la blockchain sont particulièrement pertinents pour deux aspects dela gestion de l’énergie : la production et le stockage.

Revue des principaux use-cases envisagés de la blockchain dans le secteur de l’énergie :

Production d’énergie

L’achat d’électricité se fait généralement via un fournisseur qui agit comme instancecentrale de gestion de la production et de la consommation. Les échanges à une échelle

locale seraient facilités par l’utilisation d’une blockchain : les producteurs, rémunérés pardes jetons convertibles en crypto-monnaie ou en « crédits énergie » seraient directementen contact avec les consommateurs. Ce système est d’ores et déjà mis en place dans lequartier de Brooklyn à New York. L’optimisation de l’utilisation de batteries domestiquesest aussi envisagée.

De la même façon que pour l’électricité, des réseaux de gaz locaux pourraient voir le jourgrâce à la blockchain (apparition d’un crypto-m3).

Conversion énergétique

Lors d’un pic de production d’électricité (qui a pour effet de déstabiliser le réseau),l’énergie excédante peut être utilisée afin de chauffer de l’eau ou de produire du gaz(power-to-gaz).Ce surplus d’énergie pourrait être géré par une blockchain et un smartcontract : en cas de pic de production, une installation serait automatiquement redirigéevers un circuit de chauffage ou de production de gaz.

Gestion des déchets

L’utilisation de nano-méthaniseurs est également très prometteuse : ceux-ci se mettraientautomatiquement en marche en cas de forte demande en gaz. Ces nano-méthaniseurspourraient être installés chez des particuliers (10 kg de compost produisent 5 m3 deméthane). Un système de récompense pourrait également être mis en place à l’échelled’une commune : les citoyens participant au tri sélectif seraient récompensés par unecrypto-monnaie convertible en devise réelle ou en crédits énergie.

Si la blockchain a dans un premier temps attiré l’attention des acteurs du secteurfinancier, ses apports dans l’énergie sont aussi conséquents. Elle pourrait constituer unvéritable vecteur de développement de la décentralisation du marché énergétique etinstaurer un fonctionnement sans tiers de confiance qui privilégie les économies locales.Cela pourrait s’avérer particulièrement dangereux pour certains grands acteurs actuels(notamment les fournisseurs).

De nouveaux acteurs et une nouvelle chaîne de valeur

De nouveaux acteurs apparaîtront avec l’émergence de la blockchain. En effet, une miseen commun des ressources à travers un troc 2.0 est envisageable.

La question de la souveraineté de la blockchain est donc cruciale : le statut de l’opérateur(privé, public) et son rôle précis dans la gestion du registre partagé sont à définir. Il devranotamment s’assurer de l’adossement des crypto-monnaies à des monnaies réelles (cf.Tramonex Ltd au Royaume-Uni, qui adosse une quinzaine de crypto-monnaies au pound)et du bon fonctionnement de la blockchain.

Quid de la législation ?Outre la question des opérateurs, de nombreuses interrogations émergent en termes delégislation.

La première concerne l’encadrement juridique de la blockchain car à ce jour, aucune loi ninorme n’existent à son sujet. Il existe donc un vide juridique qui représente une menacedans la mesure où les limites – contraintes à son exploitation ne sont pas fixées. Pourpallier ce vide, l’évolution jurisprudentielle est capitale. De plus, de nombreux enjeuxmétiers apparaissent : qui doit s’assurer de la conformité de la blockchain d’un point devue juridique ? Le juriste deviendra-t-il développeur ou le développeur deviendra-t-iljuriste ? Enfin, il y a également un enjeu lié à la propriété industrielle. Il est important desouligner que nous assistons aujourd’hui à la montée du « patent trolling[3] », notammentaux Etats-Unis. Cela nous amène donc à nous poser la question suivante : devons-nousdéposer des brevets pour éviter d’être bloqués par la suite ou pour innover ?

La technologie blockchain à un niveau industriel n’étant pas encore assez mature, cesquatre grandes questions demeurent aujourd’hui sans réponse. Cependant, nous devonsnous y intéresser dès aujourd’hui afin de préparer le futur de la blockchain en France.

Conclusion

La blockchain est une technologie qui suscite de nombreux débats et sur laquelle les avisdivergent. Apporte-t-elle plus de souplesse dans les échanges ou plus de complexité ?Quel est son coût ? Est-elle si avantageuse pour tous les secteurs et cas d’usages ?

La blockchain est vouée à se répandre – notamment dans le secteur de l’énergie – et il y ade nombreuses opportunités pour la France car notre futur sera rempli d’objetsconnectés. Il est crucial pour la France de prendre le virage blockchain avant que d’autrespays ne se l’approprient. La Chine est en position de précurseur : elle héberge plus de50% de la puissance de calcul du bitcoin, envisage la création d’une crypto-monnaieadossée au yuan et a explicitement inscrit la blockchain dans son plan quinquennal. LesEtats-Unis, quant à eux, n’ont pas encore pris de mesures importantes. En revanche, laFrance semble prendre le virage : le 13 juillet 2016, la CRE a publié une ordonnance àpropos de l’autoconsommation qui se projette vers une réglementation pour lablockchain.

[1] Pour plus d’informations au sujet de The DAO, voir :http://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists/

[2] Le patent trolling est la pratique d’un groupement d’avocats déposant un grandnombre de brevets non exploités, en vue d’empêcher toute autre entreprise souhaitantutiliser une technologie en lien avec ce brevet et n’en disposant pas, de développer sasolution. Il existe donc une menace, notamment américaine, si l’on souhaite sedévelopper sur la blockchain sur le volet de la propriété industrielle.

How Will Artificial Intelligence Improvethe Internet of Things?Source URL: http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/iot/articles/430775-how-will-artificial-intelligence-improve-internet-things.htmBy Special Guest Megan Ray Nichols, Special Correspondent, Science Writer March 28,2017

From DVRs and smart fridges to smartphones and voice-activated technology, theInternet of Things (IoT) is quickly becoming part of our daily lives. These devices arecapable of collecting thousands of bytes of data every single day, and companies arehoarding that data in the hopes that predictive algorithms will be able to glean someinsight from them. How will artificial intelligence improve the Internet of Things?

The Introduction of AIArtificial intelligence has gotten a very bad reputation, courtesy of science-fiction novelsand movies. When most people think of AI, their mind conjures images of HAL 9000 from“2001: A Space Odyssey” or Skynet from the “Terminator” series. While a truly sentient AImight create a threat if not properly regulated, machine-learning algorithms are thefoundation of artificial intelligence.

The idea behind machine learningis to create computers that can learn without beingprogrammed. It’s already being used on small scales — your Netflix show

recommendations, for example, are a basic form of machine learning. The programanalyzes the shows and movies you watch and uses that data to provide you with newchoices.

Incorporating AI into IoTMachine learning is already taking its first steps into the world of IoT. Self-driving cars areone of the biggest IoT devices, and even cars that only offer partial autopilot capabilitieslike the Tesla rely heavily on machine learning. You can program a self-driving car so itknows the basic rules of the road and how to handle the most common obstacles it mightcome across. When you introduce other drivers into the mix, though, it is impossible toprogram for every possible variable.

That is why machine learning in IoT is vital. A Tesla, fresh off the production line, will haveall the information collected by all the other Teslas that are currently on the road. Any newvariable that is encountered can then be learned and shared with all connected cars,making the autopilot mode that much safer for all Tesla drivers.

IoT, AI and Big DataBig data is an industry buzzword that is applied to any large collection of data. It can beanything from medical data collected by doctors and hospitals to usage data from IoT-enabled devices and anything in between. A lot of that information is generally useless,but things like usage and purchase habits can be used by industry leaders to predictsales trends and other changes in the market before they happen.

The predictive algorithms that are currently being used are useful and allow computers tomake predictions, but they are limited by processing power and their ability to learn. Atraditional computer can process thousands of bytes of data. On the other hand, acomputer powered by artificial intelligence can process that data, find trends and followthose trends to their conclusion.

Machine learning isn’t the perfect solution. Microsoft applied a basic version of theprogram to a Twitter account, and in less than 24 hours Twitter trolls were able to turn theAI chatbot into a racist mimic that sent nasty messages to everyone. A properly regulatedAI system could be an invaluable tool for the growing IoT industry. The two go togetherlike cake and ice cream, and they have the potential to change and shape every singleindustry by predicting the changes in the market before they happen.

Imagine running a business that produces wearable technology and being able to predictthe type of devices that were going to sell best during the next quarter. You couldpotentially make more money on sales, and save money by reducing the production ofitems that are less likely to sell. IoT paired with artificial intelligence could reduce oreliminate excess product inventory.

As long as the system is properly regulated, machine learning could shape the way welook at the world, and is already changing the way we use our connected devices.

Megan Ray Nichols is a blogger and freelance science writer. She writes weekly on herblog Schooled By Science where she explores the latest scientific news. Subscribe to herblog today, or follow her on Twitter @nicholsrmegan.