Revue de presse IoT / Data du 24/12/2016Bonjour,

Voici la revue de presse IoT/data/energie du 24 décembre 2016.

Je suis preneur d'autres artices / sources !

Bonne lecture !

Table des matières

1. Electrification hors-réseau en Afrique : IFC propose une base de données en lignepour les porteurs de projets

2. The World's First Solar Road Is Open in France3. La France inaugure la première route solaire au monde4. Prioritizing Upgrades for Smart Energy Solutions5. Aria Created Connected Vehicles Solution6. Could Cryogenic Energy Storage Solve Renewable Energy’s Biggest Problem?7. IoT Connected Lighting in Commercial Buildings8. 3D Printed Trees Harvest Energy From Sun, Wind, & Temperature

Electrification hors-réseau en Afrique :IFC propose une base de données enligne pour les porteurs de projetsRédigé par Amandine Perrault | Le 24 décembre 2016 à 15:10

Soutenir l'électrification hors-réseauCette plate-forme en ligne baptisée « Off-Grid Market Opportunity Tool » propose laconsultation d'une vaste base de données afin de soutenir les entreprises,gouvernements, organismes de développement, universitaires ainsi que la société civile àmieux définir le potentiel d'un projet d'électrification hors-réseau.

Cet outil peut être consulté via le site https://energydata.info. Il se fonde sur le croisementde données géospatiales ouvertes et sur un aperçu général des marchés del'électrification hors réseau à partir d'un certain nombre de paramètres pertinents.

The World's First Solar Road Is Open inFranceSource URL: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a24468/first-solar-road/Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA

The first solar road has opened in Normandy, France. The kilometer-long stretch of road isexpected to generate enough electricity to power a nearby village of over 3000 people.

Solar roads are a controversial and mostly untested new technology. A solar bike pathwasbuilt two years ago in the Netherlandsand only managed to generate enoughelectricity to power a single home. It was estimated that the cost of that bike path couldpay for over 100 times as much electricity from other sources.

The solar road in France has even more of an uphill battle. In Normandy, where the roadwas built, there are typically less than two months of strong sunshine a year.

However, if this test produces as much power as it's expected to, and the companybuilding the roads, Wattway, can bring down the costs of future panels, it's possible solarroads could become a good investment.

La France inaugure la première routesolaire au mondeSource URL: http://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/environnement/la-premiere-route-solaire-au-monde-inauguree-en-normandie_444150La première route solaire au monde a été inaugurée jeudi 22 décembre par la ministreSégolène Royal dans un village normand, une technologie en phase test, expérimentée enFrance par la filiale de Bouygues, Colas, à laquelle travaillent également Néerlandais,Américains et Allemands. A partir de jeudi, les 2.000 automobilistes qui empruntent enmoyenne chaque jour la RD5 pour sortir de Tourouvre rouleront pendant 1 km sur despanneaux solaires collés sur la chaussée.

Ces 2.800 m2 de dalles aux allures de carrelage plastifié doivent permettre de produirel'équivalent de l'éclairage public d'une ville de 5.000 habitants, selon la direction deWattway, le projet co-inventé par Colas et le CEA Tech. Elles sont fabriquées par la ScopSNA à Tourouvre. L'ensemble des travaux est couvert par une subvention d'Etat de 5millions d'euros hors taxe, précise le conseil départemental.

"Ce nouvel usage de l'énergie solaire permet de profiter des grandes surfacesd'infrastructures routières, déjà utilisées aussi bien par les transports, voitures, vélos,piétons, pour produire de l'électricité sans mobiliser de foncier supplémentaire", se félicitele ministère dans un communiqué. Confiante dans cette technologie, Ségolène Royal aannoncé un "plan de déploiement national des routes solaires". Ce plan se traduira par le

lancement d'un "appel d'offres innovation pour encourager le développement detechnologies solaires innovantes".

Depuis quelques mois, le concept est déjà expérimenté sur quatre sites pilotes (deux enVendée, un à Septèmes-les-Vallons, près de Marseille, un dans les Yvelines) sur desparkings, ou devant des bâtiments publics. Les surfaces sont beaucoup plus petites, de50 à 100 m2 de dalles solaires.

A la Roche-sur-Yon, par exemple, depuis juin, "pratiquement tous les week-ends desvoitures électriques viennent recharger leur batterie à la borne du complexe sportif etculturel Vendéspace, alimentée par 50 m2 de dalles solaires. Les cellules photovoltaïquesn'ont pas bougé. Ca fonctionne parfaitement bien", assure à l'AFP le député LR de laVendée Alain Leboeuf qui préside le Syndicat départemental d'énergie (Sydev), partenairede cette expérimentation. Ailleurs, les dalles pourraient alimenter les aires d'autoroutes oules maisons isolées, précise Wattway.

"Première mondiale"

La route solaire ornaise est une "première mondiale", explique Jean-Charles Broizat,directeur de Wattway, ce que confirment les concurrents. Au nord d'Amsterdam, unepiste cyclable solaire de 70 m est en service depuis deux ans, sur une voie où passentquelques 2.000 vélos par jour. Si le revêtement a mal résisté au premier hiver, le problèmea été résolu depuis: la piste "SolaRoad" vient d'être prolongée de 20 mètres, assure TNO,société à l'origine du projet. "Nous avons des projets de routes solaires publiques pour2018", précise Sten de Wit, de TNO.

L'Allemagne est aussi sur les rangs. "Nous projetons une route test de 150 m près deCologne à l'été 2017, puis une route publique fin 2017", explique Donald Müller-Judex,ingénieur à l'origine du projet Solmove, basé en Bavière.

Aux Etats-Unis, le Missouri "travaille" à l'installation d'environ 19 m2 sur un trottoir àproximité de la Route 66, indique à l'AFP Tom Blair, ingénieur au ministère des Transportsde cet Etat (MoDOT) sans donner de date.

Avantages et inconvénients

A chaque fois, le concept est de coller sur la route des panneaux solaires protégés parune résine pour produire de l'électricité. Avantage: la production d'électricité ne gênepersonne sur ces surfaces qui ne sont en moyenne occupées par les voitures que 20%du temps, selon Colas. Avec un million de km de routes, la France pourrait ainsi enthéorie accéder à l'indépendance énergétique en pavant le quart de ses routes, met enavant la société.

Inconvénient: les panneaux à plat produisent moins d'électricité que les panneauxinclinés. Pour "300 kWh installés", les dalles Wattway produisent "5 à 10 kW de moins"que les toitures, selon M. Broizat. Les sceptiques attendent aussi de voir si les panneauxrésisteront effectivement, avec le temps, en dehors des laboratoires, au passage despoids-lourds et aux intempéries.

Surtout, le modèle économique reste à trouver: "Aujourd'hui Wattway est à 17 euros lewatt-crête (unité de mesure de l'énergie solaire) raccordé", selon M. Broizat, contre 1,3

euro pour le solaire en grande toiture, selon le syndicat des énergies renouvelables (SER).

Mais Wattway compte d'ici à 2020, "rejoindre" le prix de production dusolaire classique.Un objectif "ambitieux" mais "réaliste", selon Colas. Car le coût de production del'énergie solaire classique a diminué de 60% entre 2009 et 2015, selon le SER.

(Avec AFP)

Prioritizing Upgrades for Smart EnergySolutionsSource URL: http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/iiot/articles/428189-prioritizing-upgrades-smart-energy-solutions.htmBy Special Guest Consuelo Azuaje December 20, 2016

There are over 3000 utilities companies supplying $400 billion dollars’ worth of electricpower in the US. The US power grid is so massive that it was coined “the largest machinein the world” a few years ago by Bloomberg journalists Mark Chediak and Ken Wells.Therefore, to say that updating legacy power grid infrastructure and adapting it toincreasingly demanding efficiency regulations and energy needs (such as bi-directionalpower flow) would be challenging is an understatement. The Internet of Things (IoT) couldbe used as a tool by power companies to gather and analyze the massive amounts ofdata needed to yield smart energy results. Thus the IoT could be used to streamlineoperations, eliminate inefficiencies, and ultimately modernize the power grid.

Smart energy applications go far beyond simple electrification and, ranging from top tobottom, often have little in common beyond their shared use of a power source (e.g.,HVAC monitoring of individual buildings, smart metering, fault detection, etc.). There arescenarios that highlight the need for the IoT in the energy sector. Imagine the fallout of anatural disaster wiping out large sections of powerlines and causing blackouts in anumber of different areas. Remember what Hurricane Sandy did in 2012? Or whatHurricane Katrina did in 2005? In those cases, the IoT would be used for triage to quicklysort out which areas—such as those with hospitals or senior care facilities—should havetheir energy needs addressed first. The IoT would be used to bring back power as swiftly,effectively, and efficiently as possible.

Applications aside, a smart power grid would—by nature—operate more efficiently thantraditional grids do. For a hundred years, power companies relied solely on humanworkers to read meters, look for/inspect broken equipment, and monitor voltage. In asmart grid, those tasks would be automated. Smart grids would perform constant self-assessment to detect/respond to network disturbances and to restore grid operationswhen needed. This saves power companies time and money; in a 2010 report, the ElectricPower Research Institute (EPRI) estimated annual losses due to power disturbances areon the order of $100 billion. Smart grid maintenance, thus, would be much more targeted,efficient, and effective (i.e. less broken equipment) than traditional grid maintenance.

Despite the capabilities and benefits it offers, however, figuring out where to start is a

daunting task owing to the complexity and cost of implementation. A smart grid wouldautomate and improve electricity generation, distribution, and use, but its constructionwould demand the combined use of networking equipment, sensors, andcommunications networks. The costs of implementing a smart grid in the U.S. arestaggering. The EPRI estimates it would cost $338-476 billion. The returns, however,would be even greater—$1.3-2 trillion, according to EPRI estimates. 70% of that costwould go solely to upgrading the infrastructure (i.e., meters, lines poles, substations, etc.).

If IoT is going to be used to improve operations, upgrades will have to start from thebottom up. First, infrastructure must be modernized to improve operations. The powergrid infrastructure that we inherited from the past wasn’t designed for the types ofoperations and demands that we have today, but we can’t start from scratch and build anentirely new power grid. The only available option is to improve the existing technology.After that, we can focus on enhancing efficiency and saving on cost by integrating digitaltechnology, distributed energy, and advances in renewable energy.

Having done these things, smart energy could begin to be used to offer value-addedservices to consumers. Gridco is among those who have begun to fill the smart energygap. Gridco uses a Multitech gateway and embedded cellular modem to offer a utility-scale solution that would provide more reliable, power and be able to operate withdistributed power sources, variable customer demands, increasing instances of cyber-attacks, and increasingly demanding efficiency standards.

ElectriCities is another example of a power company stepping forward as a champion formodern, smart energy. ElectriCities uses Digi LTE routers to obtain frequent, real-timedata—such as meter readings—on substations and generators in the field with a varietyof communications devices. Digi’s LTE routers, have saved ElectriCities over $300thousand on telemetry charges by providing them an alternative to legacy copperconnections and fiber optics via software-defined multicarrier support enable Electricitiesto switch between all North American carriers (e.g. AT&T, Verizon, etc.,) and provideflexible, reliable service to its clients.

Utility-scale solutions are a first step towards unlocking IoT’s potential in smart energy.From blackouts due to natural disaster to energy conservation (and cost savings) viasmart thermostats in buildings, smart energy has a lot of potential. Once a brave few starton the path (and some already have) to smart energy the rest will inevitably follow to abrighter, smarter future.

Edited by Ken Briodagh

Aria Created Connected VehiclesSolutionSource URL: http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/smart-transport/articles/428236-aria-created-connected-vehicles-solution.htmEdited by Alicia Young

Aria Systems, a subscription and usage-based revenue services provider, has announcedAria for Connected Vehicles, a cloud-based offering for IoT-enabled connected cars,heavy equipment, on-demand transportation as a service, telematics, and post-sale orlease add-on services.

Manufacturers are shifting business models from a transactional sales focus to owninglong-term recurring customer relationships. To facilitate longer, more predictable revenuestreams, they are looking to become closer to their end customer, gain better feedback,and align their offerings with customer choices, Aria said. Industry disruption is openingup new opportunities for recurring revenue streams from services inside and outside thevehicle.

Aria for Connected Vehicles is designed to be used by OEMs, third-party devicemanufacturers, and service providers looking to rapidly create, introduce, test, and scaleIoT and digital products and services. It manages the monetization of innovativesubscription and usage-based IoT services without compromising enterprise-gradescalability, performance, and security. With this platform, connected vehicle offerings canbe constructed into combinations of one-to-one and one-to-many permutations of users,data services, and devices.

Possible through this solution is usage monitoring, monetization, and billing of on-boarddiagnostics (ODB) data streams at both the IoT platform and application levels. Itintegrates with smartphone apps, entitlement and provisioning systems, paymentprocessors, and existing accounting/GL systems to provide a single view of accounts,activity, invoices, and accounting.

The connected vehicle moves cars, equipment, and machinery from a simple world ofisolated tasks to being interactive providers of information for end consumers of value-added digital services that improve productivity, enable innovative practices, and increasesafety. The OEM capitalizes on these closer relationships through increased revenue fromdigital services and stronger brand loyalty, leading to reuse and repurchase.

Aria for Connected Vehicles enables: on-demand access to cars, equipment, andmachinery by the hour; subscription to a pool of cars so users can swap out car types asneeded; road use and mileage tracking; giving customers access to expertise onlineincluding rating, diagnostics, management tools, and marketing tools; recurring revenue;data monetization via downstream analytics of driver patterns.

“IoT-enabled features have become strategic growth drivers for automobiles, farmmachinery, heavy equipment and even automobile insurance companies,” said TomDibble, President & CEO, Aria Systems. “Aria for Connected Vehicles helps OEMs, third-party providers and others monetize the tremendous opportunities arriving from thewealth of valuable data streaming from vehicles.”

Could Cryogenic Energy Storage SolveRenewable Energy’s Biggest Problem?

Source URL: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/could-cryogenic-energy-storage-solve-renewable-energys-biggest-problem/One of the biggest challenges facing renewable energy as it becomes cheaper and moreubiquitous is energy storage. A British energy storage company wants to scale up usageof cryogenic energy storage using liquid air.

Cyrogenic energy storage (CES) utilizes low-temperature (cyrogenic) liquids as energystorage, typically liquid air or liquid nitrogen. Scientists believe that cryogenic energystorage and supply might help improve the usability of renewable energies.

Highview Power Storage, a company that designs and develops large-scale energystorage for power systems, plans to construct the largest cryogenic energy storage plantin the world. The plant will be built at a location close to Manchester, England, and willuse LAES or liquid air energy storage.

How Cryogenic Energy Storage Works

Cryogenic energy systems are broken down into three components: a chargingsystem, an energy store, and a discharging (or energy recovery) system.

Highview's plant will be fed electricity from land lines where the liquefaction plant will usethe electrical energy to draw in air from the surrounding environment. Once the air isdrawn in, liquid air (or, in some systems, liquid nitrogen) is generated through extremelylow-temperature refrigeration. The heat lost in this process is captured and stored untilthe discharging stage. Meanwhile, the liquid air is pumped to insulated storage tankswhere it is kept at low pressure. The liquid air can be stored in these tanks for long-termstorage in large amounts as it takes up 1/700th the amount of space as ambient-temperature air.

To discharge the stored energy, the liquid air is taken from the insulated storage tanks andtransported to a much higher-pressure area. Through the increase of pressure in theliquid, energy is created.

Once pressurized, heat (or a higher temperature waste) is applied to the liquid air throughheat exchangers. The resulting high-pressure gas is then fed through a turbine to provideelectrical energy to the required source.

Below is an illustration of this process:

Image courtesy of Highview Power Storage

The Role of CES in Renewable Energy

The incredible thing about this process is its efficiency.

Solar and wind renewable energy sources cannot produce when there is no sunshine orairflow, respectively. Similarly, CES isn't restrained geographically like hydropower is inorder to move water uphill. Cryogenic energy storage helps renewable energy sources tosidestep the problem of environmental factors by allowing intermittent (and sometimesunreliable) energy to be stored.

Gareth Brett, CEO of Highview Power Storage told BBC Science: "Anywhere that needslarge-scale long-duration storage—that might be to help integrate an offshore wind farm—a system like ours can help achieve that."

Thus far, other forms of renewable storage, such as used for solar, can get costly as thesize of the plant increases due to batteries. With LAES, this is not the case, giving it anadvantage among renewable energy storage systems. CES also doesn't require anyharmful or toxic metals that are so often associated with large-scale battery systems.

Below is a rendering of the proposed gigaplant that is projected to produce200MW/1.2GWh:

Rendering of the proposed gigaplant. Image courtesy of Highview Power Storage

Another advantage to this LAES system is that it is able to use its own excess waste heat(and cold, as well) as from other systems. The proposed power plant will be located nextto the Pilsworth landfill gas generation site. The Pilsworth plant puts out methane gas as itdecomposes trash, which is used to generate electrical energy. The LAES plant willcollect this waste heat from the methane and boost the efficiency of the cryogenicprocess.

As renewable energy becomes cheaper, it will need better infrastructure to store anddischarge the power it harvests. LAES could be pivotal in helping renewable energysources truly claim their place in the energy industry.

IoT Connected Lighting in CommercialBuildingsSource URL: http://www.iotevolutionworld.com/smart-home/articles/428194-iot-connected-lighting-commercial-buildings.htmBy Special GuestAlex Pop, Alex Pop is a writer on behalf of The Window ExpertsDecember 20, 2016

Smart lighting allows individuals to control lights in imaginative ways, and use them asvaluable information points for collecting and sharing information about one’s facilities.With smart lighting poised to revolutionize both the lighting and networking industries,some business owners are finding it a boon, while others are still finding it complicatedand are, understandably, resistant to change.

Let There be LightOne need only look at Cisco’s innovation center to find that the future of commercialsmart lighting is already here. The Berlin-based, 100 person office has no light switches;instead, over 5,000 sensors control lighting and climate - feeding this data into Cisco’scentral IT systems - where the company can do some pretty cool things with it.

Smart Lighting: A BoonWith all the lights in the building connected to motion sensors, the company is harvestingdata about its 13,000 square foot facility through lights connected to motion sensors. Theceiling panels respond to network commands for on/off, brightness, color, and colortemperature. Cisco claims these modern improvements have helped curtail costs as theyonly turn on when they need to be in use. They also help to highlight the high-traffic areasof the building, offering data on building occupancy, while creating a more ergonomicwork environment for its workers, putting to use low-traffic zones, while minimizingcongestion in other areas.

Cisco is leading by example; LEDs Magazine finds that the hardware and telecomcompany has already implemented IoT connected lighting in its San Jose headquartersand regional center in Toronto. Its UK headquarters in London will soon follow, while theBerlin office will double the amount of sensors from 5,000 to 10,000 (Source).

Smart Lighting: A BaneMeanwhile, individuals and business owners may be asking themselves what all thehoopla is about. For residents and small businesses who may not have the electricalwiring and networking know-how to replace one’s existing light bulbs - and run thecomplex APIs necessary to link smart lights to other “smart systems” of the house - thefeat can seem daunting and disadvantageous.

A funny tweet managed to capture the frustration of going from light switches to WiFicontrolled light switches (Source). Cisco is a global company with individuals talentedenough to implement these Power over Ethernet solutions; the rest of us still need to playcatch up.

It’s safe to say that unless you, the business owner or manager, have a large, 10,000square foot facility, then you don’t need to shell out the upfront costs that will replace yourdumb lights with smart ones. Similarly, you may not be ready to implement these changesif you do nothing with the data these motion sensor activated lights collect.

Final ThoughtsSmart lighting is currently a multi-billion dollar market, with applications in residential,office, shop, hospitality, industrial, outdoor, and architectural (Source). One Harvard chief,heavily into research and development claims that the entire lighting industry supply chainneeds to get on board with the IoT and advanced lighting controls or be left behind(Source). One thing is for sure, however: more money will be placed into lighting controlsand connected bulbs as part of a smart-home or smart-business.

3D Printed Trees Harvest Energy FromSun, Wind, & Temperature

Source URL: https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/17/3d-printed-trees-harvest-energy-sun-wind-temperature/December 17th, 2016 by Steve Hanley

Originally published on SolarLove

Can a 3D printed solar tree capture energy from the sun? Yes, say researchers at the VTTTechnical Research Centre of Finland. Not only do these little powerhouses makeelectricity from the sun, they also harvest energy from the wind and changes intemperature. VTT is the largest multi-technological applied research organization innorthern Europe. It is part of the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy.

The tiny leaves are made of 3D printed organic solar cells. They react to sunlight to makeenough electricity to power a cell phone or other small device. The flexible cells alsomake electricity when they vibrate, which happens when the wind blows or changes intemperature occur. The cells not only make electricity but can store it as well.

The “trunk” of the tree is manufactured from the byproducts created when real trees areharvested and made into lumber, so the trees even smell like real wood. The tiny trees canbe used outdoors or indoors. The more “leaves” the solar tree has, the more power itgenerates.

Each “leaf” is just 0.2 millimeters thick and consists of electrodes and polymer layers. Theengineers at VTT actually made them look like real leaves — well, sort of, if you squint alittle and let your imagination roam free. VTT claims 200 of its leaves are good for 3.2amperes of electricity. It they are placed on an outdoor location, one square meter ofleaves can generate 10.4 watts in direct sunshine. Each “leaf” has its own micro-converter built in.

The 3D printed leaves have a useful life of 2 to 3 years. VTT says they can be fullyrecyclable so new ones can be produced with old materials. Thanks to their roll-to-rollmanufacturing method, they can produce up to 100 meters of leaf rolls per minute.

Innovative thinking about solar power is taking place all around the world. InIndia, researchers have unveiled asolar power treethey claim can produce 5 kilowatts ofelectricity while using only 4 square feet of land. For areas where open land is at apremium, the solar trees could produce significant energy in far less space than aconventional solar panel installation would require. Creative people are finding new waysto harvest the free power of sunlight every day.