Carbon Crusaders

Demobeat…smart energy grid.

Tom Sly, Google, leading PowerMeter biz dev. Grocery analogy…groceries with no pricing info…everything bundled, no idea how to improve on that. That’s how we buy power.

Powermeter. Mobile enabled, close to real time. Data is key to behavioral change. 5-15% reductions when have access. API open for 3rd parties. Power meter, direct to user. Also working with utilities and other device manufacturers. Data available. If we can get 50% of households to reduce consumption by 10%, it would me 8 million cars off the road, more reductions then total wind and solar generation now. I think Google is working with GE right now on the powermeter hardware.

Adrian Tuck, Tendril

Energy demand increasing, grid stressed. 2 principles. 1) Way to change is by giving conumers the tools, empower them, not utilities. 2) Humble to predict the killer apps of the smart grids. Eco saver app example. Don’t think they should be alone in developing. Open API (Yes, good plan Tendril, this will help you grow!).

Mobile app. Live. Instant view of consumption, price, cost. Nice visual. Open Mobile API too!

What took Tendril so long? Long process to aggregate data, tech challenges. Meter requirements, protocol for the. Regulatory environment needs to change. Decoupling is coming, seeding this model, not fighting it. Utilities must be incentivized. Yes, utilities will be key, government needs to incentivize AND punish those unwilling to cooperate. The carrot and the stick.

Robin Baker, AMEE

Crowd sourcing to collect consumption and carbon data. Product specific footprinting. Calculate C02 of everything on planet. Move orgs, individuals to a low carbon economy. Provide: Authority, Open access & scale, Independence, Interoperability. Anyone can access (pricing). Integrate policy, science, tech, & biz. Smart meter to UI carbon output. UK live demo.

Challenge of c02. Methodologies of each govt, area are different for carbon. AMEE wants to make the standard. $20 trillion dollar industry worldwide.

In conversations with Google and AMEE post (Tendril had a flight to catch) both companies see collaboration as central to both solving the climate problem and building business. This is hard for many traditionalist business mavens to understand. It’s the open source conundrum. In the end, the best products will win, why not just help those along and share in profits? Great DemoBeat panel, a nice break in the otherwise very techy oriented weekend (nothing wrong with that of course :).

Everything in the past 9 months has been driven by the “down economy” theme, literally, everything. Spending, budgets, revenues, and now even words. Words aren’t cheap, so this is Demo 09 day 1, MakeMeSustainable style in bullet form. Apologies to companies that I don’t mention, there were a few interesting ones that I couldn’t cover because of work (demonstrator list here). Start, Demo 09.

Sunday night: sick in room with vicious fever and stomach flu.

Monday: Chris Shipley. Reset year, recession. No more large user growth, and then monetize. This year business plans that make sense. Venture is changing. Tightening LP’s, tightening purses on both sides seeking capital efficient companies.

Matt Marshall. DemoBeat for ongoing conversation. Smart grid conversation (yes!). Company demo’s I paid attention to.

Pixetell…webex on drugs.

CC Betty…smart email management, not a fan of the colors, like to product.

Zuora…monetize facebook applications…hell yes, someone has to make money in facebook!

Zipadi…take printed materials and put them online…love it, love the green component, love the demo, great guys too, hope they get funded.

eFormic…product specific co2 offsets. label with website and code. software embedded into company website. can choose project and see where project is. any product and service. provides branding and green PR. tight demo. still not sold on effectiveness of offsets.

blue buzz…blue tooth content delivery. uses hardware and software.

This evening, I am sick again with stomach flu. Not much use at the jam session. On to tomorrow.