Conference Bites

GE Ecomagination Challenge Launch Event: Powering the Grid July 13 San Francisco

"We want to make clean tech our reality."
~ Beth Comstock, SVP & CMO, GE

"Our business would be a Fortune 130 business, just in clean technology."
~ Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE

"This is not a precious initiative, it is a broad based industrial effort."
~ Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE

"Smart Gird may be an elite term, we are using 'Digital Energy' within GE."
~ Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE

"Policy clarity would help, but we are going to go forward regardless."
~ Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE

"This problem is a fat slow rabbit. There are lots of ways to succeed Scale is the challenge GE can help with."
~ Ray Lane, Managing Partner, KPCB

"We've got this 100 year hairball of pricing based on past needs, not current opportunities, that we have to unwind."
~ Chuck McDermott, Founder & General Partner, Rockport Capital

"Storing electricity could be the holy grail, if it's low cost."
~ Mark Little, SVP & Director, GE Global Research

"Our partners help GE avoid being like Godzilla at the end of the movie with the tail wiping out villages, when it comes to working with small firms."
~ Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE

"We are the pioneers, and we now have the arrows in the back."
~ Peter Darbee, CEO, PG&E

"Necessity may be the mother of invention, but energy and environment is the mother of all necessities."
~ Arun Majumdar, Director, ARPA-E

For more information on the GE Ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid:

National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid, June 23-24 D.C.

"Energy efficiency standards help us tell OPEC we need their oil as much as we need their sand."
~ Congressman Ed Markey (D–MA)

"Because we have organized markets, we are ahead of Chinese in ability to bring technology and demand response to consumer."
~ Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman, FERC

"The Smart grid industry needs to focus on selling benefits to consumers as well as benefits to utilities."
~ John Jimison, Sr. Counsel, House Energy and Commerce Committee

For more information on the National Town Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid:

ConnectivityWeek 2010 May 24-27 Santa Clara, Part 1

"If we are going to cook up something for consumers, we don't have the right cooks in the kitchen."
~ Glen Allmendinger, Harbor Research

"From the wall of the building in, we call it smart consumption rather than smart grid."
~ Christoph Vogel, Siemens

"I keep telling my wife... this time energy is REALLY going to matter (as opposed to past cycles).
~ John Petze, Cisco

"There is no green building w/o intelligent building."
~ John Petze, Cisco

"The home area network is the jewel."
~ Ken Devore, SoCal Edison

"The challenge: how to roll out smartgrid technology so that consumers will not vomit all over it."
~ Susan Cashen, Control4

"We want to nudge consumers, not shove them."
~ David Kolata, Illinois Citizens Util Board

"The smart in the smart grid is going to start with tiny bits of silicon."
~ George Goodman, Intel

For more information on ConnectivityWeek 2010:

ConnectivityWeek 2010 May 24-27 Santa Clara, Part 2

"Distributed Intelligence and automated systems are poised to take off."
~ Paul De Martini, Cisco

"30% of building savings in carbon is low hanging fruit (as opposed to building 1000 nukes)."
~ Harvey Michaels, MIT

"The media has made 'Bakersfield' an urban smartgrid legend."
~ Ahmad Faruqui, Brattle Group

"You have to have information to do the right thing."
~ David Hart, Elster

"If we can't make smartgrid better than the iPod, we are going to have a hard time."
~ Doug Houseman, Enernex

"We see a smartgrid network forming to provide the balance between energy supply and demand."
~ Ed Richards, Cisco

"Great talk equating commercial leasing to the Stockholm Syndrome... long duration, emotionally intense relationship."
~ Michael Frost, CBRE

"To be a smart building, the app that is going to deliver savings... is persistent vigilance in energy Management."
~ Tom Arnold, EnerNoc

For more information on ConnectivityWeek 2010:

Networked Grid 2010 May 18-19 Palm Springs, Part 2

"Electric vehicles can be the tail wagging the smart grid dog. A car's load will be more than a house."
~ David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

"Demand Response is now up to 50GW of power—25 to 50 power plants not built due to these negawatts. Demand Response is the first killer app of the smart grid."
~ David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

"Duke is in joint ventures with China just to learn more quickly on new wind & nucular progrms which take too long to test in the US."
~ Bob Irvin, North Highland Energy Advisor, ex-VP of Strategy, Duke Energy

"Smart metering is the cornerstone, the core first app of smart grid, but we don’t think it is the end all be all."
~ Andy Tang, Senior Director of Customer Care, PG&E

"At risk of 'California chest beating', we live in a different state. Our 12% of US population has 70% of solar and 26% of hybrids."
~ Andy Tang, Senior Director of Customer Care, PG&E

"Southern California Edison predicts that 36% of customers will interact with data in ten years, 64% will be unengaged."
~ Alex Laskey, President & Founder, Opower

"Utilities used to manage to 'cost to serve', meaning 'don’t talk to your customers'."
~ Greg Guthridge, Managing Director Utility Customer Care Practice, Accenture

"We have to meet the customer where they already are, not give them a new place to go."
~ Ivo Steklac, EVP of Sales and Strategy, Tendril

"The average customer thinks about their electricity bill 6 minutes a year."
~ Greg Guthridge, Managing Director Utility Customer Care Practice, Accenture

"We are in half a dozen pilots that we are not allowed to talk about. We (as an industry) need to be free to fail."
~ Seth Frader-Thompson, CEO Energy Hub

For more information on Networked Grid 2010:

Networked Grid 2010 May 18-19 Palm Springs, Part 1

"Can we get the consumer engaged in smart grid? Its the $64 billion dollar Question."
~ David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

"Customer empowerment is the first area of focus in SCE’s Smart Grid Vision."
~ Michael Montoya, Director Grid Advancement, Southern California Edison (SCE)

"Customers are not waiting for utilities to lead—they want to lower their cost and their footprint."
~ Peter Corsell, Gridpoint

"We can’t wait for the infrastructure before we address the customer!"
~ Alex Laskey, President & Founder, Opower

"Value creation, rather than consumer savings, is the key to smart grid success."
~ David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

"We have to meet the customer where they already are, not give them a new place to go."
~ Ivo Steklac, EVP of Sales and Strategy, Tendril

"The average customer thinks about their electricity bill 6 minutes a year."
~ Greg Guthridge, Managing Director Utility Customer Care Practice, Accenture

"Smart Grid is a journey that will be 20+ years in the making."
~ Michael Montoya, Director Grid Advancement, Southern California Edison (SCE)

"Great smart grid conference Freudian slip—(we want to) avoid too many power points, I mean power plants."
~ David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

"Making the public smart is as critical as making the grid smart."
~ David Leeds, Smart Grid Analyst, Greentech Media

For more information on Networked Grid 2010:

Green:Net April 29 San Francisco - Part 2

"There is an illusion that consumers will stare at a screen and wait for a price signal all day.
(Early adopters) wont make a market. Consumers will buy an outcome, not monitor it all day long like your stocks."
~ Allan Schurr, VP Strategy and Development, IBM

"There are many ways that non-utilities will enter the space… and create great value. Utilities have to decide if they want to compete."
~ Allan Schurr, VP Strategy and Development, IBM

"We are on double time march up to launch in December--well on the way to having 25,000 orders by December."
~ Mark Perry, Director, Product Planning and Strategy, Nissan North America

"This is not a silver bullet. We need silver buckshot. (in the way of multiple solutions for EV transportation)."
~ Mark Perry, Director, Product Planning and Strategy, Nissan North America

"We are in inning one in a nine inning game."
~ Saul Zambrano, Director, Integrated Demand-side Management Core Products, PG&E

"In 2004 when I went to talk about Green at Universities, no one showed up. Energy wasn’t on the radar screen for Phds. Now it is the first choice. Phd focus today leads to great solutions ten years later. That is what makes me positive about 2020."
~ Vinod Khosla, Partner, Khosla Ventures

For more information on Green:Net:

Green:Net April 29 San Francisco - Jerry Brown

Quotes from Keynote by California Gubernatorial Candidate Jerry Brown

and from interview with Katie Fehrenbacher, Earth2Tech:

"How do you handle the aftermaths of republican actor Governors during deep recessions? I am the only one with that unique experience."

"(Governing today) is a chess game with complicated rules and not as many moves as you would like to think."

"California has been a leader (in emissions) since Reagan was Governor and Nixon was President... in every case, the country has followed."

"Ive had long history in the state. Some say too long." 

"If you want innovation—don’t look in government."

"The state is always on a roller coaster." 

"The Country’s partisanship is now showing 'cult-like tendencies'."

"On prop 16 and Marin in particular: Its an example of a utility wanting to create more certainty for itself… while community wants to go its own path. To crush that with undue burden will limit innovation… we can learn from the experiment."

"Governors usually leave office to howls of excoriation."

For more information on Green:Net:

Fortune Brainstorm Green April 12-14 Laguna Niguel, Part One

"We approached sustainability from a business standpoint, not because of altruism."
~ Lee Scott, Wal-Mart Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors

"We assumed before that people who criticized us were out to get us. Now we undrstand that they wanted to help us."
~ Lee Scott, Wal-Mart Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors

GE talks about being involved with the smart grid, from "turbines to toasters".
~ Kate Brass, GE Ecomagination Energy Leader

"Why are we eating the leopards + other carnivores of the oceans? Not smart: too many inputs, too long to raise."
~ Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence

"We are not waiting for technology to make a difference (in smart gird), we are waiting for inspiration."
~ Kate Brass, GE Ecomagination Energy Leader

"Bottled water is the new cigarette."
~ Heard between sessions

"Don't try to change the consumer. Change what they consume."
~ Adam Lowry, Method Co-founder & Chief Greenskeeper

"Water crunch comes before climate crunch."
~ Hugh Grant, Monsanto CEO

"Message from the blue part of the planet—think blue…. the oceans of the world are in trouble… No water—no life—no business. The actions we take in the next 10 years may be the most important in the next 10,000."
~ Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence

For more info on Fortune Brainstorm Green:

Al Gore's Keynote at GreenBeat's Smart Grid Conference Nov 19

"At some point I will fully depreciate that line—namely 'I used to be the next president of the US'."

"This roller coaster is heading towards a crash and we are in the front car."

"Each one meter of sea level rise means 100 Million climate refugees."

"We are locked in a way of thinking about the grid, as large centralized generation... the world is passing that model by."

"The economists have a word - externalities, which basically means 'forget about it' so no wonder its hard to price carbon."

"The smart gird is connected to all threads of the crisis. The Smart Grid will empower an new set of devices, (many) not even invented yet."

"It requires a 1000mw power plant just to power the televisions that are turned off in the US."

"We will soon live in an era where the use of the internet by things (smart devices) will eclipse the use of the internet by people. For every man, woman and child on earth (there are  5.6B) there are, or soon will be 1B transistors."

"The single largest solution is energy efficiency… The transition to green tech clean tech is a jobs initiative. We can 2.5M new jobs just for retrofitting—jobs that can’t be outsourced."

"The odds of us encountering a leopard as we leave today are pretty small.  But the odds of encountering the climate crisis are 100%."

"The builders of the great cathedrals of Europe stayed on task across generations. We have that capacity..."
~ Al Gore, Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner

For more information on GreenBeat: