80 PLUS™ Not the Average ‘Wall Wart’

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Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Years ago, while doing technical marketing for a Unix system integrator, I lugged a mini computer and its paraphernalia to product demonstrations using a two-wheeled cart. I secured the clunky mass with bungee cords. The power supply – used by each of the dumb terminals of this Unix system – was called a ‘brick.’ Then, the ‘brick’ was bigger than a red-clay brick, heavier than a red-clay brick, and once plugged into electrical current, heated up like a red-clay brick baking in blazing sun. But it was black, as are most all power supplies (time to call Ideo).

Power supplies are the devices that convert incoming high voltage ac power from wall outlets into low voltage dc power needed by various electronic products. Power supplies can be internal to the product they are powering, as with televisions, or external, as with cellular and cordless phones. While the form factor of the ‘brick’ has slimmed down over the last 20 years, its energy consumption remains piggish. And, it has garnered more colorful names, too, like ‘wall wart’ for the bulky protuberance affixed to an outlet or power strip.

Run Cool, Run Reliably, Run With 80 PLUS™

In 2001, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) initiated a study of power supply energy efficiency and retained Ecos Consulting to “conduct initial research into the number of power supplies in use, their basic applications and technologies, energy efficiency differences, and national energy saving opportunities. Ecos found that improvements in power supply efficiency could save more than 1% of all U.S. electricity use. This would not require the invention of better power supplies, but the expansion of market opportunities for the highly efficient technologies that already exist.”

So began Ecos’ mission to transform the market of computer-based plug loads via energy-efficient power supplies…called 80 PLUS™. The name comes from the program’s requirement that the power supply for a desktop computer or desktop-derived server be at least 80% efficient at 20%, 50% and 100% operating loads, and have a power factor of 0.9 or better at full rated load.

Five years later, Kent Dunn, Senior Program Manager for 80 PLUS, describes the program’s well-turned channel marketing strategy – which he dubs “guerilla marketing.” The strategy is multi-pronged and involves outreach directly to multiple stakeholders: utility sponsors (which provide program funding) and two industry sectors (power supply suppliers and the computer industry). Not to overlook federal agencies and standards, Ecos corresponded with the Environmental Protection Agency to find synergies and establish a good working relationship. (80 PLUS power supply specifications were, ultimately, included in proposed EPA 2006 ENERGY STAR® desktop standards, according to the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, one of the program’s funders. These new standards are scheduled to go into effect the end of 2006, along with standards for desktop computers operating in active mode; standards already exist for sleep, or stand-by, mode.)

To fuel market transformation through a business-to-business, one-to-one strategy – one aimed to build awareness and interest with these multiple stakeholders – things had to happen in concert. In keeping with Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” guidelines, Ecos chose and coordinated its discrete markets and channels carefully.

Utilities. Ecos established partnerships – through direct outreach, events, and large meetings with existing sponsors – with utilities in markets experiencing very high electricity rates or those known to be progressive, such as those in the Northeast, California and Canada. Targeted utilities include those on the West Coast, in the Pacific Northwest and some interior mountain states, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, and the Midwest. Adds Dunn, 80 PLUS has great representation in Canada.

“Though the energy efficiency benefits of better power supplies are compelling, the non-energy benefits may be even more important to the companies that purchase power supplies for their finished products, the retailers that sell them, and the consumers that buy them. Highly efficient power supplies tend to be smaller, lighter in weight, and more convenient. They operate at cooler temperatures, contain fewer parts, and are likely to result in greater product reliability.” NRDC: Power Supplies – A Hidden Opportunity for Energy Savings

Power Suppliers. Ecos solicits mostly (and directly) in China (Taiwan, specifically) as well as to representatives of the power supply industry in the States (California, primarily). Dunn says “this is very guerilla marketing…phone calls, encouragement, market benefits, differentiating opportunity to them.” He says suppliers can see the advantages to those suppliers that get a leg up on market demand. And, they see that ENERGY STAR is going to push for energy efficiency (so, it’s in the interest of power suppliers to begin adoption).

“The principal challenge is that the purchaser of the power supply is not the one that pays the electric bill. While the consumer pays the electric bill, it is the large companies such as Sony, Hewlett Packard, and Black and Decker that buy the power supplies for use in their TVs, computers, cordless telephones, and portable vacuums and power tools. This is a classic split incentive case where the purchaser, of the power supplies, is not the one that benefits directly from the reduced electricity bills.” Ibid.

Computer industry. Ecos understands the main barrier to adoption facing the computer industry: slim margins. However, according to Dunn (and Sun Microsystems, see below), the industry also sees that energy efficiency is now technically feasible…it can be good PR…its energy and non-energy benefits are measurable…and there are tools (like 80 PLUS) to make it possible. With ENERGY STAR standards fast approaching for computers operating in active mode, it behooves the industry to co-brand with 80 PLUS, as the language and specs will be the same as these new federal standards. Says Dunn, the incentives are there for the computer industry to do supply changes and implement new product into their supply line. These external forces help along Ecos’ ‘guerilla marketing’ efforts.

Consumer Marketing, Co-Branding
I asked Dunn if the public would see the 80 PLUS logo in retail stores any time soon. He said it won’t show up in retail for some time, but that Ecos has already completed marketing and style guides to share with industry, along with approved language and creative. However, computer retailers are already running advertisements that can be heard on the 80 PLUS website (“Every business wants to reduce costs and everyone wants to save energy. Computer Systems West can help you do both. As a comprehensive technology company, Computer Systems West is always looking for ways to provide the most cost-effective computers for their clients. Now Computer Systems West offers 80 PLUS power supplies…it’s good for the environment and good for business…”).

Dunn said that after the computer industry gets involved, the marketing money will be made available by utilities to work with the computer industry to sell product to consumers. Ecos is talking with some of the big Tier 1 OEMs like Apple and Hewlett-Packard, as well as system integrators. They are working with the small and the large and moving through a targeted customer list. Again, it looks like Geoffrey Moore would be pleased.

Eschewing advertising and favoring direct sales, of a sort, Ecos created a suite of standard marketing collateral and technical material with consistent messaging, including pull sheets such as 80 PLUS Benefits, Power Quality, 80 PLUS Reliability, 80 PLUS Procurement Guidelines, and a list of Approved Products. Their website is clean, informative and current. This collateral is standard marketing delivery for the computer industry.

Followers or leaders? In February 2006, Sun Microsystems held a joint conference with the EPA to market its push for SWaP (space, wattage and performance) – energy efficiency metrics for data center servers. It may be just a marketing campaign, but they’re saying all the right stuff…“Sun’s sponsorship of the conference also builds upon the company’s continued effort to address global environmental concerns by delivering innovative and “eco-responsible” products to market. As a technology-driven company, Sun’s prime contribution to eco-responsibility is centered on innovation which not only benefits customer’s business, but also helps to benefit the environment, including improving energy efficiency, choosing less harmful materials, and encouraging reuse and recycling.” Sun says it’s time for the equivalent of the hybrid engine of the processing world, and that it has been working to reduce the energy demands of computing and networking for many years.

OK, but special thanks must go to Ecos Consulting for spurring energy-efficient technology forward, for acting as a conductor to orchestrate multiple stakeholders in good time.

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More Technical Summary on Solar Concentrators from The Energy Blog

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Jim Fraser of the Energy Blog wrote an excellent follow-up to our discussion on solar PV concentrators, with a lot of depth of several of the various technologies, which I felt merited its own posting on CleantechBlog. With minor edits, his note is below:

Excuse a few technicalities to keep the terminology clear. Solar energy devices can be divided into three types; 1) photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, composed of a number of PV cells, these are the type that are seen on the roofs of homes and covert solar energy directly into electricity 2) thermal systems that use concentrators to magnify the solar radiation so that it is more powerful. This concentrated thermal energy is then used to heat a fluid to a high enough temperature so that it can drive some sort of a generator to make electricity. These systems are of two types solar dish systems and solar trough systems and 3) concentrating solar photovoltaic systems that focus solar energy on an expensive, but very efficient PV cell, which can tolerate the more intensive solar energy.

These systems can either use a lens or mirrors to do the concentrating. An overview of concentrating solar power can be found in my blog.

Only some of these products use plastic Fresnel lenses, other use some form of a mirror which have less distortion and are more efficient. Most of these systems use advanced multi-junction solar cells developed by NASA with an efficiency approaching 40%, compared to the 12-22% efficiency achieved by cells used in typical solar panels. Their high cost is justified by reducing the number of cells by a factor of 25 or more in most systems. The concentration factor is limited to 250 to prevent degradation of the cells.

Energy Innovations was started by Bill Gross the entrepreneur behind NetZero, FreePC, CitySearch, eToys, Eve.com, FirstLook and several other dotcom companies. Their product, the 25X Sunflower uses utilizes 25 – 1′ x 1′ mirrors that concentrate the sunlight by a factor of 25 and focus the light on a photovoltaic receiver which produces 200 watts of electricity. The system, as do most concentrating systems, uses an active tracking system to follow the sun in order to capture as much of the suns energy as possible. They claim their system would cost about $4.50 per watt installed, which is 25-50% less than traditional PV systems. My post on Energy Innovations is on my blog.

I was not at all familiar with Prism Solar, but a brief look at their technology indicates that they are using two stage (read 2X concentration) mirror like optics combined with holographic techniques to both concentrate and divide the light into the most desirable spectrums. The ability to select the desirable part of the light spectrum enables them to collect more sunlight at dawn and dusk. They call this passive tracking. They claim their system reduces the number of cells required by 50 to 85% and cuts the cost about in half compared to traditional solar panels. Using only 2X concentration allows then to use normal relatively low cost solar cells.

I couldn’t find any technical information on Whitfield Solar. They have artists renderings of their products on their website which don’t tell much. Three other companies in this arena, that you didn’t mention are Amonix, Sunball and SolFocus.

Amonix, which was established in 1989, uses plastic Fresnel lenses to concentrate the sun by a factor of 250 onto 26.5% efficient solar cells to produce 5 kW panels that are mounted to a tracking system. Amonix is focusing on utility scale applications. They announced in 2005 that they have plans to install a 3 megawatt system in the southwestern U.S. They also have a joint venture with Spain’s Guascor to build a 10 megawatt system in 2006. Installed costs of $3.00 per watt at production rates of 10 megawatts per year are anticipated.

Australian Green and Gold Energy has developed the SunBall rooftop solar concentrator which comes in two models, a 42 W model and a 1.3 kW model. They use a plastic Fresnel lens to achieve their concentration onto a high efficiency solar cell. They just started delivering the small unit and will start shipping the larger unit as soon as they iron out some supply problems. They anticipate that their units will be competitive with grid power in the sunniest parts of the country and slightly higher in the northern regions. Export to the US is anticipated later in the year. Initially their intended market is homes and small businesses. See my post at The Energy Blog for more information.

SolFocus who is collaborating with Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center is the most recent and one of the most innovative of these companies. They use precisely shaped curved optical mirrors molded or stamped from glass to focus sunlight on the solar cell. They point out that their optics are more efficient than a Fresnel lens. They end up with modules that are only slightly thicker than a conventional PV panel. Their design has been highly influenced by the ability to mass produce their product. Initially the installed cost is expected to be $5.00 per watt but in mass production they are targeting an installed cost of $1.00 per watt which is competitive with grid power. See my post at for more information.

Concentrating solar photovoltaic systems are still but one of several technologies in the run for the lowest cost solar technology. Currently the solar dish and solar trough technologies are believed to be the lowest cost of the solar technologies. A 354 megawatt complex built in California during the 80’s is still operating efficiently and delivering power to the grid with high reliability. Significant improvements in the optics, mechanical fabrication and the tracking system have been made since the original plants were built.

There are about eight plants of over 100 megawatts in capacity under construction in California, Israel, Nevada, Portugal and Spain. Six different companies are supplying the plants. The cost of electricity from these plants will be less that that from natural gas plants but more than from conventional power plants or wind power. Efficiency of scale and cost reductions discovered during this construction boom are hoped to keep them competitive in the future.

Thin film solar is finally coming into its own and production volumes are being ramped up to hundreds of megawatts of capacity. They are taking advantage of the severe shortage of silicon that is preventing significant growth of producers of the more expensive, but more proven conventional silicon solar cells. Cost projections by Daystar and ECD Ovonics, who are the leaders in this technology, indicate that costs of $1.00 per watt may be possible when they reach gigawatt production capacity. Daystar expects to reach that milestone by 2008 and Ovonics will lag by a few years.

The technology seems to be very sound as compared to some questions that were raised a few years ago. A recent happening was that Shell sold off its silicon cell production facilities in order to concentrate on its thin film product. (See Previous Cleantech Blog post by Peter Beadle) Sharp, the leading silicon cell producer, with capacity already near a gigawatt, expects that their costs will be cut in half by 2010. Evergreen who makes thinner silicon cells, by a different process than the rest of the industry, is making some inroads due to the lower silicon content of its cells. The eventual winner of the race to produce the lowest cost solar power is not going to be determined for quite awhile, but some strong indications should be available by 2010.

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BP And Edison Plan $1 Billion 500MW Hydrogen Power Plant

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Energy giants BP and Edison are considering investing $1 billion for a new use of hydrogen – generating electricity on a large scale. Instead of this large scale plant using coal, natural gas or nuclear, it will use hydrogen. The plant would be in Carson, California, near BP’s current oil-refining operations that heavily use hydrogen to produce cleaner, high-octane gasoline. BP America Inc. and Edison Mission Group, an unregulated subsidiary of Edison International, said Feb. 10 that they plan to develop a $1 billion, 500-MW hydrogen-fueled power plant near Los Angeles that will generate power with minimal carbon dioxide emissions. This would increase use of hydrogen in California by 2 million metric tons per year.

The project would also hinge, in part, on using financial incentives included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for advanced gasification power technology. Petroleum coke produced at California refineries would first be converted to hydrogen and CO2 gases, and around 90% of the CO2 would be captured and separated.

The hydrogen gas stream would be used to fuel a gas turbine to generate electricity. The captured CO2 would be transported by pipeline to an oilfield and injected into reservoir rock formations thousands of feet underground, both stimulating additional oil production and permanently trapping the CO2.

BP announced a similar project in Scotland in June 2005 and shortly afterward Edison Mission contacted BP about teaming up for such a project in the United States.

Refineries in the South Bay and Harbor Area create about 17,000 tons of petroleum coke a day during the production of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, officials said. BP Carson, which makes the Arco brand, alone, creates about 4,000 tons a day. The coke is not thrown away. It is often shipped to Asia, where it is simply burned as a fuel.

The BP-Edison project would consume about 5,000 tons per day, according to Ted Craver, CEO of the Edison Mission Group, the Edison subsidiary which will work on the project.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chatted with BP and Edison executives as he briefly strolled through the Watson site, where the light-green units burn a mixture of 70 percent natural gas and 30 percent refining gases to produce electricity for the refinery and for Edison to distribute to the state’s power grid.

Construction could begin as soon as 2008 and could be completed by 2011, when it will provide about 150 permanent jobs. Edison executive Craver said there is a similar plant in Scotland, but nothing else like it in the U.S. For more details:

http://www.californiahydrogen.org/page.cfm?content=20&display=49

John Addison is the author of the book Revenue Rocket (Executive Summary at http://www.optimarkworks.com/) and the upcoming book Cleantech Marketing. Since 2002, John has been a Board member of the California Hydrogen Business Council (www.californiahydrogen.org). John Addison is president of OPTIMARK Inc. a firm that helps with marketing strategy and partner development. He is a popular speaker in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

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A National Crash Project for Alternative Energy?

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It is sometimes suggested that the U.S. should undertake a no-holds-barred crash program for developing alternative energy technologies, similar in scope to the Manhattan Project for the atomic bomb or the Apollo Project for moon travel.

While I agree that far more R&D on alternative energy technologies would be a good thing, and that the government has a valid role in stimulating efforts in that aim, I’m pretty sure that a project like Manhattan/Apollo for alternative energy simply wouldn’t work.

This is because there are two major differences between solving our energy challenges and either building an atomic bomb or landing a man on the moon.

First, it would be difficult to set a meaningful final goal for an alternative energy program. How exactly would success be defined? In Apollo, the goal was to send a man to the moon and bring him (male chauvinists!) back by 1970. For Manhattan, it was to build a deliverable atomic bomb as quickly as possible, before Hitler did. These were unambiguously clear and motivating goals. For energy, well, what? Should the goal be to completely eliminate the use of oil? To completely eliminate the use of all fossil fuels? Neither seems even remotely plausible in any time horizon of less than three decades – an impossibly long time to maintain focus. Should the goal be to create a solar cell that costs $0.25/watt? A fuel cell that costs $25/kw? Picking any particular technology to focus on, or any economic/performance threshold to achieve, will invariably be arbitrary and of dubious inspirational value.

Second, it’s hard to see how a major alternative energy effort led by the government wouldn’t lead to nationalization of all subsequent energy industrial activity – a potentially miserable outcome. The previous analogues are instructive: in both atomic weapons and space travel, stemming from their respective mega-projects, the government is the only buyer of the resulting product. There are essentially no markets, and hence no pricing mechanism to allocate economic resources. Entrepreneurial activity is limited to vendors in the supply chain – most of whom are members of the vaunted military/industrial complex. You think you hate ExxonMobil and Halliburton and your local regulated monopoly utility today? You think they lobby too much now? You think they’re too powerful? You think too much corruption derives from them? Imagine a world after an alternative energy program that has been driven by the government, where these companies and their peers negotiate contracts through bidding programs with government agencies for sole-source public supply of energy. As important as it is to dramatically advance alternative energy, I don’t want to see the $900 toilet seat coming to the energy sector.

So, I would submit that we need to think of more creative ways for the government to spur on the massive increase in alternative energy R&D that we badly need. Perhaps it’s well-funded grant programs competitively selected by unbiased expert panels associated with clearly-defined technical/economic challenges. Perhaps it’s tax deductions equal to qualified energy R&D expenditures.

Or, perhaps it’s just an appropriately high carbon tax, to drive fossil fuel prices faced by customers to levels sufficiently high to motivate more energy R&D. I bet we’d be amazed at what $10 gas and 50 cent/kwh electricity would bring out of the woodwork.
Nah, that’s too logical. It’s far more dramatic for politicians and pundits to grab the spotlight and ask for a Manhattan/Apollo program for alternative energy, which has no chance of coming to fruition or succeeding.

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News on the Rise of Solar Concentrator Technologies in Energy Tech

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I always try and keep an eye out on what other investors and analysts think is hot. We have been chronicling on Cleantechblog the rise in energy tech / cleantech venture capital investment in solar for some time. This has been driven primarily due to an exploding public capital markets in solar, creating attractive exit returns.

Well the “new” news in energy tech venture investing seems to be solar concentrators. Opportunities in solar collectors / concentrators have been coming across my desk in increasing numbers lately.

Solar concentrators basically put a lens (called a Fresnel lens) on top the solar cells, focusing sunlight onto a standard photovoltaic cell and making it tremendously more efficient. Not too different from using a magnifying glass and the sun to start a fire. However, concentrators tend to do better when the light source is a single point, and pointed straight at the cell.

There are literally hundreds of design concepts in the academic and commercial literature on ways to achieve this, but that’s the basic concept.

The advantages:
  • Solar concentrators at heart are attractive because they reduce the amount of cells needed to deliver the same level of power output (and thereby the cost)
  • In addition, many solar concentrators are trying to use a much larger part of the light spectrum to generate electricity.
  • They also deliver the promise of low capital cost for the manufacturing facilities (equipment to make concentrators is not as expensive as that to make cells on a per watt basis).
  • One of the biggest advantages, I think, is the potential to make much larger module sizes with concentrators than straight PV cells. This has long been a big knock in the solar industry.

The knock on solar concentrators, however, has proven tough to get over so far:

  • To be effective, they tend to need very high efficiency cells (most people are saying 25%+ efficient).
  • To be economic, they tend to need some sun tracking capability – which is tricky to do for systems designed to last 20 years.

However, advances in new high efficiency cells for the aerospace industry, long the province of niche solar players like Spectralab, are expanding the potential.

Some of the recent venture capital deals in solar concentrators include:

Energy Innovations raised $16.5 mm in 2005 for their Sunflower module array of concentrating mirrors that track the sun. http://www.energyinnovations.com/ Lead investor was Mohr Davidow.

Prism Solar raised a seed round for a holographic planar concentrator which passively tracks the sun and spectrally selects desirable wavelengths. http://www.directglobalpower.com/

Whitfield Solar in the UK received a funding round in 2005 including Carbon Trust for its solar concentrator technology. http://www.whitfieldsolar.com/

And given the level of new solar concentrator deals heading to venture forums like the Cleantech Venture Network, IBF and Clean Edge’s Cleantech Investment Conference, and NREL’s Industry Growth Forum, we are likely to see a lot more.

One of my favorite ones that hasn’t gotten major funding, but has been building full scale systems for several years is Solar Systems in Australia, http://www.solarsystems.com.au.

A few other solar concentrator energy news tidbits:

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is sponsoring a Conference on Solar Concentrators for the Generation of Electricity or Hydrogen http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/scc/ in May in Scottsdale with Arizona Public Service, one of the leading renewable utilities in the country.

Blog world is picking up the trend:

The Energy Blog just did a post on one that uses a flat Fresnel lens to collect the sun’s energy and focus it onto a copper block, Energy Blog Solar Concentrator Tech Post.

Future Pundit did an article on solar concentrators last July, Future Pundit Solar Concentrator News

EV World did a blurb on solar concentrators in July, EV World News Post

If you have any other concentrators, news, deals, or blogs, post them here in the comments section.

Despite all this, solar concentrators remain a minute portion of new solar installations, let alone the total installed base. So I guess the big question, still unanswered, is whether solar concentrators can be the elusive technology to take solar into 1:1 competition with grid power. The last solar technology class to wear that mantle, thin film, has yet to overtake the crystalline silicon market in cost or market share.

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Two New Cleantech Market Reports

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There a couple of new clean tech market reports available now detailing investment activity in the sector.
Jeffrey Castellas of the Cleantech Forum in Melbourne, where I had the privilege of speaking at their inaugural 2005 event, has published a 2005 Benchmark report on the Australian Cleantech Sector. It is available for download at:
Also now avaliable for sale is the Cleantech Venture Capital Report 2005 by the Cleantech Venture Network. See link here:
For those of you new to the sector who don’t know the work these groups have been doing:
Cleantech Venture Network
“The Cleantech Venture Network™ LLC is a membership organization bringing insight, opportunities and relationships to investors, entrepreneurs and service providers interested in clean technology. We do this through related information products, advisory and online services, and the Cleantech Venture Forum™ series of events. We introduced the “cleantech” concept in 2002 and have since popularized it as a viable investment category. We believe cleantech is one of the next and necessary waves of business innovation. Our goal is to ensure “good money meets good deals”. We serve over 900 affiliate investor member firms worldwide. We have tracked more than $4.5 billion invested in cleantech ventures since 2002, of which over $400 million has been raised by Cleantech Venture Forum presenting companies. “
Cleantech Forum
“Clean Technology AustralAsia is presently developing the 2nd Annual Cleantech Finance & Investment Forum 2006 program that will be held on Tuesday 22nd of August at the Sofitel Hotel, Melbourne, Australia.
The 2nd Cleantech Finance & Investment Forum program will address the most contemporary issues and deals in Cleantech investing with presentations by international and national Cleantech leaders. A new feature of the Forum in 2006 will be presentations from Cleantech companies and funds raising capital, building partnerships or seeking M&A’s.
There will be a special focus on the Asian Cleantech opportunities for Australian investors and companies. In addition to public and private equity, we will look at debt and include the banks and project finance deals. Positioning Australia as global leaders with Melbourne as a hub together with attracting and deploying international investment capital, technology products and building partnerships will be key themes. “
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Welcome to New Cleantech Contributors – John Addison & Heather Rae

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CleantechBlog is excited to welcome two new contributors in green and renewable energy policy & branding news.

John Addison

We excited to announce that author and cleantech industry analyst John Addison will be doing a blog column on green and renewable energy policy issues. He has launched his column in February.

Big Oil is the Biggest User of Hydrogen
Over 1,000 Hydrogen Riders in California

A well known figure in the Cleantech world, and an expert on marketing and strategic partnership, John Addison is the author of the book Revenue Rocket (Executive Summary at http://www.optimarkworks.com/) and the upcoming book Cleantech Marketing. Since 2002, John has been a Board member of the California Hydrogen Business Council. John Addison is president of OPTIMARK Inc., a firm that helps with marketing strategy and partner development. He is a popular speaker in the Americas, Europe and Asia. A former channel manager with Sun Microsystems, John has consulted for numerous tech companies on marketing and product growth issues, and has turned his attention to the issues facing cleantech and energy technology.

Heather Rae

Also launching in February, we are excited to welcome Heather Rae, principal of Brae Consulting, who will be doing a Wednesday column on cleantech branding and the major brands seeking to establish themselves in the market. Heather launched her column in February with articles like:

GM goes Yellow – GM’s Flex fuel/E85 branding campaign
Energy Efficiency – California Dreamin’ – On California’s Flex Your Power campaign

Heather Rae, is a principal of brae consulting, a cleantech and sustainability activist, with more than 18 years of management, marketing and technical expertise in the energy services, telecommunications and information systems industries. Her corporate experience includes in demand side management at Xcel Energy, branding at Qwest Communications, as well as marketing at a number of cleantech start-ups. She has been active in the public arena as well working on marketing campaigns for UN sustainability conferences (on population, fisheries, women’s rights and climate) and reporting on sustainability meetings at the World Bank, the State Department and other organizations such as Resources for the Future. A graduate of Wesleyan University, she is a member of the Boulder (CO) Green Building Guild and co-director of Colorado’s Interfaith Power & Light, and spends her spare time modifying a former school bus into a “sustainability showcase.”

Welcome to both John and Heather.

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Energy & Non-energy Benefits

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March 1, 2006

My addiction (“Sex and the City” reruns) forces me to endure an inordinate number of mind-numbing advertisements for gum, shampoo, toothpaste, lipstick, cars, trucks (and more trucks) with a lead thumb on mute. An ad for Tide Coldwater started me out of the silence.

Tide Coldwater “Deep Clean. Save Green.”

Taking advantage of rising energy prices, Proctor & Gamble, masters of fast-moving consumer goods marketing, has launched a product/campaign touting the energy and money saving benefits of laundry detergent. P&G’s Tide Coldwater (“lowers energy costs, deep cleans in cold water, gives fabric extra protection”) is similar to GM’s ethanol-based flex-fuel vehicles: you don’t have to buy a GM car to use ethanol (several car makes and models are already ethanol-ready, and ethanol gasoline makes up 2% of all fuel sold in the US) – not any more than you have to use Tide Coldwater to wash clothes in cold water. But, like GM, P&G is avidly pursuing an energy angle in product promotion, although using very different messaging.

The Tide Coldwater ad – dollar bills swirling (like money down a drain) around a shocked woman holding an (unopened) bill from “Energy Company” (in red letters) – is pure mirth. First, because P&G leverages the image of the generic utility with abandon (it’s all about the utility bill, a whopper of a surprise). The messenger and the solution have better brand image with the consumer, and P&G is soaking it. Second, because Tide Coldwater advocates washing in cold water to save energy, something “big bad utilities” that profit from energy sales aren’t going to spend money to advertise on tv any time soon (here’s an ad for laundry detergent challenging the profit model of investor-owned utilities; sure, the utility may send you some print material about saving energy during peak periods along with that whopper bill, but, taking a lead from Tide Coldwater, you’re too shocked to read it.)

And last, the campaign is amusing, because the Tide Coldwater website provides energy efficiency tips: “More great ways to save…Are you energy conscious? You could earn tax credits up to $500 for being good at saving energy.” Addressing both consumers and businesses, the Tide Coldwater site links to the Alliance to Save Energy’s “Home Energy-Efficiency Improvement Tax Credit” and the Tax Incentives Assistance Project (“a coalition of organizations in the energy efficiency field, designed to give consumers and businesses information they need to make use of the federal income tax incentives for energy efficient products and technologies passed by Congress as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”) Tax subsidies are another similarity to ethanol which now receives a federal tax subsidy of about 52 cents per gallon.

Did I mention this campaign is about laundry detergent? If P&G can swing a marketing campaign using energy benefits to sell product this mundane, then, in the converse, we can get seriously good at marketing the non-energy benefits, as well as energy and dollar benefits, of cleantech and energy efficiency itself.

NEBs (non-energy benefits) of Energy Efficiency

Lisa Skumatz of Skumatz Economic Research Associates and others like the Department of Energy – in coordination with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and others – have conducted in-depth research on non-energy (non-bill savings) benefits of energy efficiency, measuring and quantifying them as well. Benefits can include reduced waste and emissions, improved maintenance and operations, increased productivity and working conditions, and other benefits like decreased liabilities and better public image. The research draws out the value of energy efficiency to utilities, participants and society; it provides rich ground for marketing and sets the stage to move the energy efficiency discussion away from utility-centric terminology of kWh savings…away from the acronym soups of DSM and DR (demand-side management and demand response)…and toward the broader benefits valued by consumers (health, comfort, safety), businesses (productivity) and society (job creation, cleaner environment).

Perhaps one day, fortified with energy efficient technologies and conserving habits – and lots of great marketing to support them – consumers and businesses will open their utility bills with aplomb. I’ll be keeping my thumb on the mute button, just the same.

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