UCSB Institute for Energy Efficiency

May 12, 2010

Santa Barbara, California

Dan Reicher
Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives
Google Inc.
“The future is not what
it used to be.”
Paul Valery
French Writer
(1871-1944)
“The best way to predict the future
is to invent it.”

Alan Kay
Computer Scientist
“Biggest Economic Opportunity of the 21st Century”

The International Energy Agency estimates that the

world will have to invest more than $26 trillion in energy
infrastructure to meet currently projected demand
between now and 2030….
 Tomorrow’s Smart Grid

Renewable Source Advanced T&D Smart Home Plug-in Vehicle

5
But Edison Would Recognize Today’s U.S. Grid!

•  Largely fossil-fuel based

•  Aging insecure equipment

•  Inefficient – generation and use

•  Generation often distant from loads

•  Difficult to manage

•  Little access to usage information

6
Google Clean Energy 2030
The Elements of Success

TECHNOLOGIES

Sustainable
Energy
Future
POLICIES FINANCE
Efficiency First!
 “All people want is cold beer and
hot showers.” - Amory Lovins

We are interested in the services energy provides, not the

energy itself. How much energy we use to cool the beer and
heat the water is a choice we make.
McKinsey & Co., A Cost Curve for GHG Emissions
Building A Fridge to the 21st Century

Source: U.S. DOE

“If you cannot measure it, you
cannot improve it."
-- Lord Kelvin

13
What’s the problem?

Consumers receive home energy information via a monthly bill –

data is inaccessible, offline and not very useful

Utility
You expect more in the supermarket….

15
How informed are energy consumers?

How many kW-h do you use each day?

What appliances use the most energy?

What time of day do you use the most energy?

How much have you spent today? this week? this month?
ET Meets IT

Photos: NREL; blueacorn.com

The Elements of Success
Knowledge Is Less Power
Messaging and Co-Branding
RE<C: Renewable Electricity Cheaper than Coal
Renewable Electricity Cheaper than Coal (RE<C)

“Where oil fields are really found, in the final

analysis, is in the minds of men…”
W.E. Pratt, 1952

“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy.

The question which divides us is whether it is
crazy enough to have a chance of being
correct.”
Neils Bohr
Renewables Can’t Yet Compete with Coal
22

20

18 PV
Levelized Cost Cents/kWh

16

14
Coal
IGCC/CCS
12 Coal Nuclear Wind
US IGCC
10 Solar Thermal
Pulverized
Coal
8
6
Geothermal
Natural Gas
4

2 Chinese
Pulverized Coal (and U.S. efficiency)
Generation Type
RE<C : Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal

•  Conduct targeted R&D with

Google engineers

•  Support external R&D projects at

universities and labs

•  Address policy barriers and

increase access to information

•  Invest in breakthrough
technologies and make project
investments (>$80M to date)
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS)!

•  Vast and ubiquitous resource

•  Base-load, like coal
•  Cost trajectory < 4 cents/kWh
•  Scalable projects – 5-500 MW
•  No scientific show-stoppers
•  Potential for CO2 Sequestration
-- BUT --

•  Commercialization risks
o  High cost of innovation
o  High cost of site viability
o  High cost of drilling
o  Not yet commercially proven
o  Inadequate government support
o  Induced seismicity question
Where is EGS Possible?

3.5 km - EGS viable in specific

locations (tens of thousands of MW
potential)!

6.5 km - EGS viable throughout the

western U.S. (hundreds of thousands
of MW potential)!

10 km - Unlock geothermal energy

through virtually all of the U.S.
(millions of MW potential)!
Geothermal Resource (3-10 km): Texas
Off-Shore Wind Resource: Maine to Florida

DOE’s 20% Wind Energy by 2030 scenario includes a significant amount of

offshore wind (54 GW), much of it in the Mid-Atlantic region
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The Elements of Success
Clean Tech Investments

•  Concentrating solar power

o  BrightSource Energy : $10m investment
o  eSolar: $10m investment

•  Advanced wind
o  Makani: $18.5m invested

•  Plug-in hybrid vehicles

o  ActaCell: $0.75m
o  Aptera Motors: $2m

•  Smart Grid
o  Current Group: $10

•  EGS
o  AltaRock Energy: $6.25m investment
o  Potter Drilling: $4m investment
RechargeIT: Electrifying Transportation
Distributed Generation Meets Smart Vehicles

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E.T. Meets I.T.

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Google Driving Experiment Results

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Smart Charging Demo
•  Prototype aggregation system and
vehicle dispatch algorithms
•  Real time dispatch of 8 plug-in Priuses
commanded from grid operator data
•  Smart charging could help integrate
plug-ins and intermittent wind and
solar into the grid on a large scale
Smart Charging Dispatch Example -- Proof-of-concept
Vehicle charging controlled remotely such that overall load profile
is useful for the grid while meeting each driver’s recharging energy
needs

Texas Wind Generation

0 - 3800 MW
Incr. gen or decr. load
Texas regulation dispatch, ±900
Decr. gen or incr. load
MW

Vehicle aggregate recharge

load profile, 0 to 1.7 MW

Each row is one vehicle

Background color in a row

means that vehicle’s
charger is off
Color represents battery
state of charge (white is
full)

3:16pm Time (24 hours shown) Google Confidential and Proprietary

Jan 24, 2009
GM Google Strategy

!"#
The Elements of Success
The Dog Finally Caught the Car!

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The Stimulus: Major Opportunity… and Challenge

•  Unprecedented investment in clean energy: > $50B

•  Many mechanisms: e.g. R&D, loan guarantees, tax

credits, block grants

•  Many focus areas: e.g. smart grid, energy efficiency,

renewables, hybrid vehicles, weatherization, nuclear

•  Many agencies: DOE, Treasury, Ag, GSA, DOD, DOT

•  Tight timeline: ~2 years

Our Challenge: How to spend the money wisely

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Progress in the House:
American Clean Energy and Security Act

•  Comprehensive energy and climate legislation

•  Establishing a US carbon cap and trade system
•  Setting national energy efficiency and renewable
energy standards
•  Launching the Clean Energy Deployment
Administration
•  Green jobs!
 Now! – All Eyes on the U.S. Senate

“We need both a significant price on carbon and complementary energy policies.”
Google: Three Energy Policy Focus Areas

•  Create the Clean Energy Deployment

Administration (CEDA) to advance commercial
scale higher risk energy projects;

•  Adopt federal legislation establishing a

consumer “right to know” electricity consumption
information;

•  Increase federal energy RD&D funding from

$3-4B today to $15-30B annually as President
Obama has called for.
 U.S. Energy Innovation Institutions and Incentives:
In Flux and Recognizing Different Needs

level
of
risk Basic energy ARPA-E
Research
EFRCs Large Scale
Innovation Demonstrations
Hubs Loan
Applied R&D programs;
guarantee
National Laboratories
Industry program
grants & Standards,
Tax credits
partnerships
Etc.

basic research development demonstration commercialization diffusion

development stage
U.S. Support for Energy RD&D

Clean Coal
Technology Program,
government/industry
joint venture

Gallagher and Anadon (2010)

 The “Third D”
Deployment programs at the U.S. Department of Energy

Gallagher and Anadon (2010)

“The best way to predict the future
is to invent it.”

Alan Kay
Computer Scientist