Big Data

Building Energy Efficiency: Options in a Dynamic Environment

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It is estimated that 40% of US power consumption is attributed to buildings, and companies large and small are focusing on ways to reduce wasted energy in the places we live and work. With technological advances come new options for streamlining energy efficiency programs.

“You have to look at a building as an organism that needs to be monitored consistently because conditions change – like weather or occupancy. A building is a dynamic entity, you can’t just build it and walk away,” Dave Bartlett, Vice President of IBM Smart Buildings recently told Breaking Energy. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 23, 2012 at 1:30 PM

Handling Big Data in the Energy Business and Beyond

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How do you get a weak signal from noisy data? That’s the question Blu Putnam, Managing Director and Chief Economist at exchange operator CME Group says will dominate the future of data analysis.

At a time when everyone is suffering from information overload, everyone also has a choice to make about how they handle and analyze the data they work with and often live by. While Putnam takes a ‘Bayesian’ approach (learn more about that here), others are trusting in everything from aggressive data mining to narrowing down data needs to suit desired outcomes (learn more about a wind energy startup based on that premise here). Keep reading →

 /  Published July 12, 2012 at 8:30 AM

Big Data and energy

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 /  Published July 12, 2012 at 8:00 AM

Big Data for the Public Good

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Lately it seems that everyone is talking about “big data,” and for good reason – the potential to gain greater insight into the way decisions are made has implications throughout businesses, governments and societies the world over. Capitol Hill just took a deep dive into the big data pool, to look at what this relatively new concept really means and how we can leverage it to address the greatest challenges of our day. Last week, IBM joined government leaders on Capitol Hill to discuss how we can apply new technologies – called analytics – to big data so that we make critical decisions to improve and better the lives of the citizens we serve.

 /  Published July 6, 2012 at 2:00 PM

Venture Backing for Distributed Generation Firm Marks a Shift

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Generating power for your residence is no longer for the paranoid or the peculiar; more than 2,000 of California’s heavy domestic energy users have signed up with Gen110 to meet most of their own power needs, and investors are sinking more money into the business as its burgeoning potential becomes apparent.

Gen110 CEO and co-founder Jason Brown isn’t your usual “energy guy.” He is a relatively recent graduate of business school with a background in sales, not power engineering, and his membership as part of Silicon Valley’s technorati has been confirmed this week with the announcement of funding by the tech startup’s venture capitalist of choice: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 18, 2012 at 8:00 AM

Energy Access In The Developing World: Biggest Opportunity Ever?

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A Moroccan engineer cycles past the solar panels of the solar power station of Ain Beni Mathar near Oujda on May 31, 2011. The station provides 13% of the Moroccan energy needs it is claimed.

When an energy industry opportunity sums up most of the current trends in global business and is ready for investment, how do you convince companies to take advantage of it? Keep reading →

 /  Published April 6, 2012 at 9:00 AM

What Does Your Energy Look Like?

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Millions of people in the US regularly respond to surveys asking where their energy comes from by responding “the socket” or “the plug.” The invisibility and omnipresence of electricity is, ironically, one of the challenges for the industry in trying to communicate its fundamental importance.

Making energy creation and consumption visible and relevant to people who are not engineers or experts, but are nonetheless reliant on energy for every aspect of their daily lives, is a challenge a number of firms in the sector have begun to embrace. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 24, 2012 at 11:20 AM
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