Energy innovation

I published two pieces on new kinds of energy technologies, one for conservation, one for generation. The conservation story, written with Elizabeth Dwoskin, involved how large companies, institutions and the government are applying analytics to help them find places where they are wasting energy and water.

It seems like a no-brainer, but there are real market challenges involving upfront expenses vs. finding savings over time, and ongoing management costs.

More exciting, to me, was the story on using electric vehicles as rolling power plants (or, more accurately, batteries on wheels). Being a start-up fanboy, I like the quixotic optimism of the project, and its novelty. But it also feels like it should work. Cars are becoming software; why wouldn’t we be able to network them and let electric vehicles serve the power grid in the same way solar panels can?