Big energy consumers must visualize and take control of their usage: smart meters and IoT platforms can make energy demand and production work for you

The rollout of smart energy meters will go a long way to addressing the difficult balance between renewable energy (RE) production and demand, as more and more firms commit to using 100% RE. Simultaneously, enterprises are visualizing and taking control of their energy consumption with more precision on internet of things (IoT) platforms. For example, Vattenfall and Microsoft’s partnership is piloting the hourly visualization of the latter’s energy consumption, in combination with Guarantee of Origin electronic certificates (GOs) that are attached to the RE Generation (Renewable Energy Certificates [RECs] are the US equivalent to Europe’s GOs). Big enterprise energy consumers—whether industrial manufacturers or service giants—must be smarter about their energy usage. Competitors to Microsoft and Vattenfall will emerge as tech giants grapple with their energy consumption, and energy companies integrate themselves with countries’ smart grid transitions (albeit at varying speeds). A smart meter and IoT platform combination is the ticket to visualizing and controlling consumption, saving on energy bills, and promoting the RE market. 

GOs and RECs have to-date been allocated yearly—i.e., you can only change your supplier or consumption habits once you know you’ve missed the 100% RE mark for a whole year. 

GO electronic documents allocate a specific “package” (1 megawatt-hour, for example) of RE production from a given source, which as the name might suggest, guarantees the energy’s renewable origin and enables energy suppliers and the wider grid to track and balance the RE produced to the RE consumed.   

At a recent Microsoft sustainability event based on the technology’s potential across the Global Goals, it was clear that frustration is growing with the current norm of being presented your RE profile at the end of the year (typically below the supplier’s promise of 100% due to imbalances of production and demand). This lack of visibility means that energy consumers can’t act for a full year to get their ambitions for 100% RE back on track by changing supplier or adapting their patterns of consumption to better match production. 

Vattenfall and Microsoft’s 24/7 GO pilot matches RE production and consumption hourly, letting customers visualize and manage their usage in real-time. 

The partnership between Vattenfall, the Swedish government-owned energy producer and supplier, and Microsoft is currently being piloted at Microsoft’s new Stockholm datacenter. Hourly, it matches RE production, smart meter data, and grid data in the ever-increasingly–smart Swedish energy system with analytics and display on the Azure IoT platform. It helps both enterprises and energy suppliers optimize the generation, allocation, and consumption of RE via the GO certificates. The Azure dashboard allows the information to be visualized and shared throughout the company’s employees, investors, partners, and more. 

• Businesses know in real-time whether they’re meeting their 100% RE targets. If they aren’t satisfied, they can alter their chosen source of energy, change suppliers, or adapt their consumption habits. 
• Consumption and production profiles can be adjusted to better fit RE availability, giving businesses the knowledge and responsibility to contribute to the push for a RE market and climate crisis. Better visibility and responsiveness will also trigger demand and a market shift toward RE, as well as regulatory changes across the creation, acquisition, and retiring of GOs and RECs. 
• Energy providers can better correlate demand to their production and improve the forecasting, storage, and efficiency of their operations—as well as act in real-time to meet shifting demand. 

Microsoft is getting ahead of the curve alongside a government pioneering smart energy—its competitors will hope to match them before smart meters roll out worldwide. 

One-hundred percent (100%) renewable commitments are becoming commonplace, especially among tech giants. The Microsoft-Vattenfall partnership is ahead of the curve when it comes to revolutionizing the way RE is sold, used, and monitored; however, for prospective competitors across the globe, clearly there is a dependency on the state of a country’s smart meter rollout. For example, the UK has roadmaps that commit energy suppliers to install smart meters nationwide by 2020, but, in reality, we’re miles away from a finished smart grid, and the 2020 target will no-doubt be postponed. Sweden is already rolling out second-generation smart meters, breeding the perfect ecosystem (it does help that Vattenfall is state-owned) to pilot these initiatives.  

Scoping what the competition might be up to, Microsoft and Vattenfall’s gazes will be squarely on initiatives like AWS’ recent investment in Australian RE and a Swedish wind power infrastructure project, alongside 18 RE deals by Google fueling their European datacenter expansion; this is far from an exhaustive list.     

Microsoft and Vattenfall’s pilot is currently a B2B initiative; B2C implementation is a future goal in achieving the nationwide demand management that smart meters and grids promise. It also primarily targets offices and service-based businesses, but it’s clear that eventually, if successful, industrial companies will look to get on board… a level of enthusiasm that was candidly shared by a senior member of Microsoft’s team.  

The Bottom Line: The biggest energy consumers—industrial firms, especially—need to get a better handle on their usage profiles if they hope to truly move toward renewable energy. 

Whether you’re an industrial mass-consumer of energy or looking to improve your offices’ footprints, and whether you look to schemes like Vattenfall and Microsoft’s 24/7 GO or go out and partner with technology and energy suppliers to co-develop platforms, the sooner you get a handle on your energy consumption, the better—whether you’re in a mature, smart–energy country like Sweden or one striving to get on the ladder, like the UK. Make sure you can visualize your consumption and know how to respond. Whether your response is changing your behavior or changing suppliers, it will be enterprises’ responsibility to contribute to a desperately needed market shift to RE.