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DID YOU KNOW THAT SMART POWER OFFERS...
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PROFESSIONAL ADVICE?
Navigating the energy industry can be complex. At Smart Power we are here to make this easy for you. We can offer the following support:
Emissions trading scheme - we can help you collect the data, calculate the emissions and complete the reporting on this information.
Financial energy and environmental reporting - our utility dashboard helps you budget for utilities and report against your monthly budgets.
Web based access to financial utility and environmental information - this online service, e-Smart, enables clients to access their most up-to-date reports directly during any month
Spot market risk analysis - we've developed tools to determine the risks and rewards of different levels of spot market exposure. We'll work with you to advise you on the best level of exposure for your organisation.
Changes to the energy sector - keeping up with changes in the energy sector can be challenging. We use our knowledge to put together clear and concise briefing papers for our clients which identify the impact of any changes on them.
Energy budget and forecast mapping - we use our knowledge to help you determine better estimates of future pricing and can forecast expected consumption.
Hedge accounting services - If you need to know the net present value of the unexpired portion of your electricity hedge (contract for difference), using the expiry date, strike price, settlement Grid Exit Point (GXP) and hedge quantity we can do this for you. We can carry out this calculation for you for a single hedge or a portfolio of hedges so you can make an informed decision on your next step.
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| EVER WONDERED ABOUT.... | | | ANDROID@HOME ?
Last May Google unveiled the Android@Home framework, a set of protocols for controlling light switches, alarm clocks and other home appliances through any Android device.
That means some day in the future, you could control home appliances - your dishwasher, the heating system, the lights in your house - using your Android device as a remote control.
The search giant's ambitious plan intends to turn the home into one connected device. Android@Home essentially makes it possible to control wireless or connected devices. The protocol is designed to offer low-cost connectivity to everything electrical in the home. Lights, alarm clocks, thermostats, and more are included in the first iteration of this connectivity protocol - Google wants to think of every single appliance in your home as a potential piece of the puzzle in this Android@Home framework, ready to work with Android apps.
In the original presentation of Android@Home, an app with four off/on switches was presented. This app connected with a set of four lamps, each simply controlled by the app and connected with the protocol written for Android@Home.
The next example was an app that connected to your alarm clock/stereo and your lights throughout a room - this app gradually raising the brightness of the lights and turning up the sound on your stereo as the time for your awakening in the morning approaches.
Other apps connected to home irrigation schemes, or connected lights into a gameplay situation, e.g. when the player was shot the lights flickered; no more life, no more light.
Google has partnered with several industry groups on this project, one of these being Lighting Science - a leading LED lighting manufacturer. This group will be the first to sell LED lighting and switches directly tied to the Android@Home environment. Lighting Science plans five products, including internal lamps and external lighting fixtures that use the technology.
I wonder if they will be able to invent an app that empties the dishwasher as well....
References:
slashgear
pcmag
engadget
wired
mashable
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Greetings!
Welcome to the new edition of "Get Smart", Smart Power's regular bulletin. Get Smart provides a round-up of energy news and views from Australia, New Zealand and around the world.
In "Company Voice" this month, director Shaun Hayward talks about the functions and capabilities that have been added to the Smart Power group by the merger with Energy Select.
As always your feedback is most welcome. |
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AUSTRALIAN ENERGY HEADLINES
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1000 smart meter customers set to track their energy use
Electricity distribution business SP AusNet is recruiting customers for its home energy management trial using new technologies to help residents understand and manage their electricity use, which may help reduce energy bills.
As part of the trial, up to 1000 participants the network will be able to remotely monitor the energy consumption of appliances through a smart phone application, online portal and in-home display unit.
SP AusNet Director of Smart Networks John Theunissen said the introduction of smart meters in Victoria gives households many benefits including greater access to energy usage data, which may help residents reduce electricity costs. Read more
Solar roof project uses wasted energy to warm air and water A new form of solar panel that warms air and water as well as generating electricity is being developed by Sydney researchers. The twist in the University of NSW project is that the solar cells are integrated into the structural fabric of a building, so rather than being attached to a roof, they are the roof. It is part of a wider project to investigate future energy efficiency projects, and check how effective current methods really are. ''I'm a harsh marker,'' Associate Professor Alistair Sproul said. ''You can show me a 'green building' in Australia and I bet I can find a few ways it could be improved. Read more Audit finds errors on emissions
Just months before the carbon tax is introduced, an auditor's report has found that more than one in six major polluters has made ''significant errors'' when reporting its greenhouse emissions and energy use to the government.
The report comes as the government suffered a blow to its clean energy efforts, saying it was rethinking its $300 million support for a massive solar power station that is struggling with financing.
Yesterday's report by the Australian National Audit Office said that in 2009-10, three-quarters of major polluters' self-assessments - on which the government will depend for calculating how much carbon tax they owe - had errors and 17 per cent had ''significant errors". Read more
Green fuel fails to meet emissions standards
The NSW government's plan to ban regular unleaded fuel has been thrown into doubt by the revelation that the state's only ethanol producer, Manildra, has failed the government's clean fuel test, with its ethanol producing more greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. New modelling by the Productivity Commission has shown the ethanol produced by the Manildra Group is only 42 per cent more efficient than unleaded petrol, falling short of the target set by the government regulator, Office of Biofuels, which says ethanol should have 50 per cent lower greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels. Read more
Miner facing emissions charge
In what is being described as a landmark decision, the Land and Environment Court has held that one of NSW's coalmines should have to pay to offset some of its greenhouse gas emissions as a condition of operation.
The provisional decision was a win for the Hunter Environment Lobby, represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, which had appealed to the court over the Minister for Planning's decision to consolidate historical consent authorities of the Ulan mine, near Mudgee, and to double its operational life and capacity until 2031.
Ulan Coal Mines - which is owned by Xstrata and Mitsubishi - backed by the minister, and the Department of Planning, had argued that offsetting the mine's scope 1 emissions was discriminatory, given that there are at least 50 coalmines operating in NSW. Read more
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NEW ZEALAND ENERGY HEADLINES
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Electricity savings on NZ dairy farms
New Zealand's dairy farms could achieve cost-effective annual energy savings of at least 68.4 million kilowatt hours (kWh) in the dairy shed, according to the results of a pilot programme. That's a 10% reduction and is equivalent to the annual electricity use of around 7100 households.
Individual farms could cut milking shed electricity consumption by 16% and a post-pilot survey shows 46% of farmers will adopt savings technologies if their costs can be recouped within three years.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) and Fonterra Co-operative Group, the pilot was run across 150 dairy farms in the Waikato, Lower North Island, Canterbury and Otago/Southland in the 2010/11 season.
As Principal Service Provider, Smart Power provided the energy auditors for the 150 farm audits, reports and follow-up surveys. Read more
Power costs on the rise for Kiwis
New Zealand power consumers have dealt with some of the sharpest price rises in the world over the past 20 years.
Kiwi electricity tariffs are now average on a global scale but in 1990 they were the eighth-lowest.
Over the past 20 years, New Zealand's average annual power prices have increased more than 15c per kilowatt hour (kwh), from 9.2c per kwh in 1990 to 25.5 at the end of 2010. That's compared with an increase of less than 2c per kwh in Australia and about 3c per kwh in the United States. Read more
Meridian says water caution could hit earnings
Meridian Energy has warned it could fall short of financial targets as it cuts generation to conserve water in southern hydro lakes.
The state-owned enterprise, which is in line for partial sale, says that although it has hit targets for the first half of the year, "assuming average hydrology from this point on, we see some risk to achieving our full-year key statement of corporate intent financial targets".
One of the country's biggest industrial plants, Rio Tinto's smelter at Tiwai Pt, had cut production partly because of high spot prices for electricity. Read more
Troubled water debate flows on
A sweeping Maori claim to New Zealand's fresh water runs directly counter to the Government's view that no-one owns the resource.
The water claim is about who owns and controls the fresh water in New Zealand, lakes and rivers. A claim was lodged in the Waitangi Tribunal on Wednesday this week titled the "national water and geothermal claim". It says the Crown has breached the Treaty of Waitangi 1840 by failing to recognise Maori control and rangatiratanga over fresh water resources and expropriated these resources without Maori consent or compensation. It says Maori owned all the resources of New Zealand before the Treaty of Waitangi 1840 according to their own usages and concepts of title and that it was a taonga. Read more
Commerce Commission releases draft Information Disclosure paper for submissions
The Commerce Commission review of electricity information disclosure requirements has moved another step forward with the release of the Draft Information Disclosure Determinations and Draft Reasons papers. Submissions on the documents are now open until 24 February. Smart Power has been a participant in the industry discussions and we would like to see an improvement in the information which is available to consumers about the way the network charges are calculated. Read more
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INTERNATIONAL ENERGY HEADLINES
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Poland hopes shale gas will free it from Gazprom
A gold rush is underway in Poland, where international energy companies are scrambling for the right to drill for shale gas. Poland's government sees the extraction as a ticket to independence from Russia's Gazprom, but some residents near the drilling sites are wary of the risks.
The Polish government is excited about shale gas because it represents a shot at energy independence. The country is currently one of the largest customers of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, buying 10.25 billion cubic meters of natural gas from it last year alone. Gazprom's opaque pricing policies related to Poland are a constant source of tension between the countries. The fact that the Kremlin-cozy company has delivered 7 percent less gas to the Poland since last Thursday, while Europe suffers from a record cold snap, hasn't helped, either. Read more
New York: Is Your Building Gobbling Energy?
A new interactive map prepared by Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science allows New York City residents to compare estimates of their use of electricity and heat by neighborhood and by building. Posted online on Tuesday, it offers statistics on energy consumption by ZIP code in all five boroughs of the city.
The map indicates the type, quantity and purpose of the energy used - whether it is powering lighting or heating water, for example.
"This map will enable New York City building owners to see whether their own building consumes more or less than what an average building with similar function and size would," said Vijay Modi, a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia and a co-author of the study that yielded the map. Read more
Finding Energy Advantages Six Feet Under
It seems that universities are competing more and more these days in the efficiency of heating and cooling. New York University recently unveiled a heating and cooling system that it says is 90 percent efficient. Ball State, in Muncie, Ind., says its technology - called a ground source heat pump - is not new, but that its system will soon be the largest installation of its kind in the country, if not the world.
The key to the system is a series of pipes buried below the frost line, which in Indiana means about six feet under the ground. In the summer, water carrying heat from the air conditioning system can give off that unwanted energy to the soil, which is at 55 degrees. This expends considerably less energy than giving it off to the warm, muggy air. In the winter, it can pull out water at 55 degrees and extract heat from it to warm the rooms.
The system will eliminate almost all of the university's $3 million annual bill for fuel but will take about $1 million a year in electricity to run. Read more
Big Switch UK: 75,000 consumers join forces to get cheaper utility bills
Within the space of just a few days, more than 75,000 consumers signed up to a pioneering campaign to secure cheaper gas and electricity tariffs. Which? has launched the first "collective purchasing" trial for energy in Britain, although such schemes have been used successfully in other European countries, such as the Netherlands.
Already the "Big Switch" scheme has cross-party support: the new Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, has said he wants to see other similar schemes launched, in a bid to drive down energy costs for consumers, while minister Caroline Flint described it as a "trailblazing way to help bring down soaring bills". Read more
Does Cow Power Pay Off?
Livestock animals in the U.S. produce more than one billion tons of manure annually. It's a problem being surveyed critically by climate change advocates, because, according to standards developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, farm waste emits two potent greenhouse gases: methane, which has 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, which has 310 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 100-year timespan. Since a 2008 University of Texas-Austin study showed that converting farm animal droppings into renewable power could generate enough power to meet up to 3% of North America's consumption, interest in cow power has been piling up. Read more
Icelandic facility uses geothermal energy to store data for UK colleges
Hertford Regional College (HRC) in the UK has joined forces with the Thor Data Center (THORDC) in Iceland to provide cost efficient, eco-friendly technology to schools, colleges and universities throughout the UK. Drawing on Iceland's combination of freezing temperatures and natural volcanic heat, THORDC has become one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world. Powered by clean renewable hydroelectric and geothermal energy sources, the facility is claimed to offer cost savings to its customers whilst at the same time helping them lower their carbon emissions.
Located just south of Reykjavik, in Hafnafjordur, with temperatures between 1.8°C (35.24°F) in winter and 10°C (50°F) in summer, THORDC uses a new type of natural free cooling technology, developed jointly with ASTmodular in Spain. The result is a power usage effectiveness ratio close to 1:1, one of the lowest in the world. Pollution from energy production is non-existent and the carbon footprint is said to be absolutely zero. Read more
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THE COMPANY VOICE
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Shaun Hayward is the Managing Director of Energy Select Limited, as of Oct 2011 a wholly owned subsidiary of Smart Power Australasia; Shaun is now a director of Smart Power. Shaun has over 12 years' experience in the New Zealand electricity industry, predominately in retailing, energy trading and retailer operations. Prior to purchasing Energy Select Shaun worked for Mercury Energy in various Senior Management roles, and with the Electricity Commission to develop the industry rules. "I am very pleased to join the Smart Power Group and to take this opportunity to introduce Energy Select. Established in 2001, Energy Select is located in the Auckland CBD and has seven staff constantly monitoring the NZ and Australian energy markets. Energy Select and Smart Power are independent of retailers and are able to source supply offers via the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) for NZ Electricity Futures Contracts and from independent generators, as well as providing independent procurement advice to clients on offers from traditional retailers. Energy Select is approved under the Securities Markets Act to provide electricity futures contracts in NZ, and is seeking approval in Australia. I am a registered financial services advisor approved to make recommendations to clients on spot exposure, partial and full cover contract offers and financial contracts such as price caps and collars (a floor and ceiling price) and Contracts for Difference (fixed volume fixed price). Many clients, before using our services, feel that retailers are all the same Our view is that, while the electricity is a commodity, the service offering and price are not. Retailers have varying strengths and weaknesses in the markets they supply, and often wildly differing forecasts for electricity pricing. Energy Select specialises in linking each client with the right retailer for both price and service, whilst minimising cost. Clients who can manage the cash flow issue of spot exposure or are prepared and able to manage their electricity demand have benefitted from market developments. Managed risk for lower expected cost is a key element in all supply contracts and the days of 'cheap set and forget' contracts are being, if not have been, relegated to history. By developing purchasing strategies for each client, we can customise a price path fit for your requirements, for the foreseeable future. Please feel free to contact your Smart Power account manager or myself if you would like us to review your energy purchasing strategy - a few answers to some simple questions is all it takes to start the process." Shaun.Hayward@energyselect.co.nz +64 9 358 1259 or 021 828 343 |
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