[Senate Hearing 111-668]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-668
IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE INTERNET
of the
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 23, 2010
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas,
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts Ranking
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
BARBARA BOXER, California JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
BILL NELSON, Florida JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE S. LeMIEUX, Florida
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
TOM UDALL, New Mexico SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
MARK WARNER, Virginia MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska
MARK BEGICH, Alaska
Ellen L. Doneski, Staff Director
James Reid, Deputy Staff Director
Bruce H. Andrews, General Counsel
Ann Begeman, Acting Republican Staff Director
Nick Rossi, Republican Chief Counsel
Brian Hendricks, Republican General Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE INTERNET
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada, Ranking
Chairman OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
BILL NELSON, Florida ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington GEORGE S. LeMIEUX, Florida
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska
TOM UDALL, New Mexico
MARK WARNER, Virginia
MARK BEGICH, Alaska
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on February 23, 2010................................ 1
Statement of Senator Kerry....................................... 1
Statement of Senator Brownback................................... 3
Statement of Senator Johanns..................................... 37
Statement of Senator Klobuchar................................... 42
Statement of Senator DeMint...................................... 46
Witnesses
Hon. Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer and Associate
Director for Technology, Office of Science and Technology
Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States. 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Daniel R. Hesse, Chief Executive Officer, Sprint Nextel
Corporation.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Adrian Tuck, Chief Executive Officer, Tendril Networks, Inc...... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Lorie Wigle, Director, Eco Technology Program Office, Intel
Corporation and President, Climate Savers Computing Initiative
(CSCI)......................................................... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Kathrin Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer, EMC Corporation... 28
Prepared statement........................................... 30
IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATIONS
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the
Internet,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:59 a.m. in
room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John F.
Kerry, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. Hearing will come to order.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for being here
and coming to order without anybody asking you to.
I appreciate the fact that our Chief Technology Officer,
Aneesh Chopra, has agreed to join into one panel. Normally we
don't do that, but we have a competing Finance Committee
hearing. And I'm very, very appreciative to you for doing that.
And I thank the members of the Committee for being willing to
do that.
We're holding this hearing to--I just came, actually, from
a session, hosted by the New Republic, where we were talking
about energy policy and climate change and so forth. And I
think the world is beginning to realize--if you look at what
China, India, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, and other countries
are doing, they are racing to the marketplace rapidly with new
technologies, new approaches to energy savings, energy
production, and economic growth, which comes out of it. And
probably there has never been a more important time to do this,
because energy independence has remained an elusive goal for
the United States, as critical as it is, and as much as the
American people want us to achieve it. And believe me, they do.
It polls off the charts, in terms of a goal for Americans.
The companies represented here today are, each of them,
companies with vision. They're making so-called ``smart
devices,'' which increase people's productivity. And they're
making any number of different types of things--chips that
allow machines to communicate with one another; they're
involved in startups that are thinking about how you help
homeowners to manage energy, save money as a result--and there
are many ways to lower the household expenditure and retain
money in the pockets of Americans.
We're also going to hear, as I mentioned, not just from the
companies, but from Aneesh Chopra, who is our Nation's Chief
Technology Officer. And he is going to share with us what the
government is doing to help innovators bring new technologies
to the marketplace. And so, again, I appreciate everybody, sort
of, joining into the one panel.
We're also going to examine the innovation stemming from a
hearing that the FCC held a few months ago at MIT on the
relationship between broadband and smart grid technologies.
Those who follow communications policy know that--as well as
technology policy--know that the FCC is scheduled to release
the national broadband plan next month. When I ran for
President in 2004, I called for a universal, affordable,
accessible broadband infrastructure. And I regret that it has
taken us so long to, sort of--you know, it's now, what, 6 years
later, and we're still, sort of, only talking about it.
I very much look forward to evaluating the roadmap that the
FCC is going to produce toward that end. And early indications
are that they're going to set bold goals for itself, for the
industry, for Congress. And I encourage the FCC to do so.
Experts estimate that the information and communications
technology industry is responsible for as much as 2.5 percent
of the national carbon dioxide emissions in the United States,
and that will grow as the ICT industry grows. But, the services
that the industry provides, and the way that a lot of firms
manage their own energy use, can help the other 98 percent of
the economy dramatically reduce carbon emissions. And
modernizing our infrastructure, getting broad operating
standards, and establishing market incentives, are the keys to
success for the country.
So, I appreciate the panel.
Mr. Chopra is the assistant to the President, the Chief
Technology Officer in the White House, of Science and
Technology Policy. He was named to the Government Technology
Magazine's top 25 in their ``Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers''
issue in 2008. We like that. And doers are exactly what we need
right now.
So, congratulations, and welcome.
I look forward, particularly, to hearing from him on how
smart grid standards are going to accelerate the adoption of
technologies that will allow us to maximize our efficient use
of energy.
Dan Hesse, is the CEO of Sprint. It's rare that we have the
CEO of a major corporation testify at a subcommittee hearing,
and I'm very grateful to him for doing that. I think it speaks
volumes about his commitment to this vision and the issue. The
measurable goals for carbon reduction that he is setting for
his firm is exactly the kind of leadership that we need across
the board. And he's proving that you can be environmentally
sound and also do good business as you do it.
In addition, we have Adrian Tuck, the CEO of a cutting-edge
tech startup called Tendril; Kathrin Winkler, the CSO of EMC, a
global information management business leader headquartered,
I'm proud to say, in Massachusetts; and Lorie Wigle, the
Director of Intel's Eco-Technology Program office.
So, thank you, all of you, for joining us today. We're very
appreciative.
The Ranking Member is not here, I don't know if any of our
other Senators have openings they wanted to make, or we just go
right to the----
Senator Brownback?
STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK,
U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS
Senator Brownback. If I could, I'd like to welcome a
Kansan, Mr. Hesse, the CEO of Sprint. I really appreciate him
and the very dynamic, good, aggressive company, doing a great
job and great leadership. I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad
you're going to be participating. I look forward to what you
have to say and what we can learn from the panel.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Chopra, if you'd begin. And we'll just
run right across the panel.
Thank you, sir.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANEESH CHOPRA, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AND
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY,
OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Mr. Chopra. Thank you----
The Chairman. If you could all summarize, without
objection, your full testimonies will be placed in the record
as if read in full, and that will give us more time to have a
discussion. Thanks.
Mr. Chopra. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the
invitation--and Senators. It's an honor and a privilege to join
you today to discuss the role of technology and energy
efficiency.
Last September, the President unveiled his strategy for
American innovation, which was focused on sustainable growth
and quality jobs. He noted in that presentation that in no area
will innovation be more important than in the development of
new ways to produce, use, and save energy; that the Nation that
leads the clean energy economy will be the Nation that leads
the global economy. In my capacity, as Chief Technology
Officer, I'm focused on the power and potential of technology,
data, and innovation to transform the Nation's economy and to
improve the lives of everyday Americans. That means, frankly,
an economy where energy use is cleaner and more economical.
Today's hearing is focused on an important lever to
modernize the electric grid, to make our homes and businesses
more energy efficient. According to a recent report by the
National Academies, aggressive efforts in the building,
transportation, and industrial sectors could enable the United
States, by the year 2030, to reduce energy use 30 percent below
the level of the U.S. energy use in 1990 while saving consumers
and businesses hard-earned money.
To realize these benefits, I am focused, and will share
today, three opportunities to accelerate progress in energy
efficiency. Those three areas are smart grid technologies, to
your point; open data systems that benefit consumers; and the
work we're doing in research and development for next-
generation buildings.
So, a word on each:
First, on smart grid technologies. The Department of Energy
Smart Grid Investment Grant Program funded by the Recovery Act
is accelerating the deployment of smart meters and other
components of an advanced electrical grid. NIST, the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, is leading a public-
private effort to develop a core set of smart grid standards.
The National Science Foundation supports leading-edge research
in smart grid technology, primarily through their Engineering
Research Center programs. An important goal of this effort is
the widespread availability of energy saving choices for
consumers that will increase reliability, reduce environmental
emissions, and foster the growth of renewable energy.
Related to that, today marks the opening of a new program
to help us understand the role of standards in the topic of
energy efficiency. On behalf of the President's Open Government
Program, we are, today, launching a Smart Grid Forum, an online
vehicle hosted at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology website. The goal of the Smart Grid Forum is to
engage all Americans in a conversation on how energy consumers
can participate in the effort to spur innovation both in smart
grid products and services.
Very specifically, our goal is to encourage smart grid
solutions that provide all consumers with the information and
services they need to efficiently manage their energy
consumption, that integrate well with existing or new
information and entertainment systems, and that can be widely
deployed at low cost. A robust, secure, and flexible
architecture based on open standards is needed for information
exchange between the home and the smart grid. These systems
need to ensure cybersecurity while enabling broad participation
among diverse consumers.
Mr. Chairman, this smart grid forum, we believe, will help
invite the American people to decide how and in what manner
they can balance all of these goals. Our obvious intention is
for everyone to participate.
In addition, we are focused on next-generation research and
development programs. In my capacity as the Chair of the
National Science and Technology Council's Committee on
Technology, I'm working very closely with about 16 Federal
agencies to design the future, today. What does a ``net-zero''
building look like, and how might we learn from those research
activities to commercialize them in real estate throughout the
United States?
And in that regard, I'm pleased to announce that, just a
week ago, the Federal agencies associated with energy usage--
not just the Department of Energy, but the National Science
Foundation and others--have joined forces in the first regional
innovation cluster grant program--we call it E-RIC, the Energy
Regional Innovation Cluster--of--making available over $130
million over the next 5 years to create a regional research
center of excellence that focuses on buildings' efficiencies,
but looks at startup opportunities and areas in which we can
unleash the value and the power of this information into the
hands of the American consumer.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to report that the
President has called on us to take action and leadership. While
a number of these initiatives will take time to deliver the
results, in signing the Executive Order 13514 on Federal
sustainability, he's directed each Federal agency to achieve--
to present their plans and goals and milestones for a detailed
implementation plan on driving energy efficiency. I'm pleased
that a good component of that will be areas like telework,
where people can use technology today to reduce their reliance
on carbon emissions, with respect to car travel, and so forth.
And we'll see more of that in the years to come.
Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity. I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chopra follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer and
Associate Director for Technology, Office of Science and Technology
Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States
Chairman Kerry, Senator Ensign, and Members of the Committee, it is
an honor to appear before you today to discuss the role of technology
in advancing energy efficiency.
In my capacity as Assistant to the President, Chief Technology
Officer, and Associate Director for Technology in the Office of Science
and Technology Policy, my mission is to harness the power and potential
of technology, data, and innovation to transform the Nation's economy
and to improve the lives of everyday Americans. The Administration
envisions an economy in which jobs are more plentiful, American firms
are more competitive, Americans are more safe and secure, and energy
use is cleaner and more economical.
In order to achieve our energy and environmental goals, we must
fully leverage the commercially attractive energy efficiency
opportunities that already exist while accelerating development and
deployment of next-generation technologies. While the Nation's energy
use per dollar of gross domestic product has been cut in half since
1973--and about 70 percent of that improvement has come from gains in
energy efficiency--much more progress is needed.
Energy supplies are limited, energy demands continue to grow, and
global emissions from fossil fuel combustion imperil the planet that we
will leave to future generations. That's why the Recovery Act that we
passed 1 year ago commits about $90 billion to clean energy. A large
portion of this funding is being used to modernize the electric grid,
to make our homes and businesses more energy efficient, and to double
our capacity to generate renewable electricity. These investments not
only contribute to economic recovery; they also lay a new foundation
for lasting prosperity.
Broad-based deployment of energy efficiency practices and
technologies will yield great benefits to the Nation. According to a
recent National Academies report, aggressive efforts in the buildings,
transportation, and industrial sectors could enable the United States
by 2030 to reduce its energy use by 30 percent--below the level of U.S.
energy use in 1990--while saving money.
To help realize these benefits, the Administration has stepped up
its leadership on energy efficiency through high-level policy actions,
public-private partnerships, and research initiatives to develop next-
generation efficiency technologies. In this context, I am focused on
three opportunities to accelerate progress in energy efficiency: smart
grid technologies, open data systems that benefit consumers, and
research on next-generation buildings.
Smart Grid Technologies
Modernization of the Nation's electric grid is a vital component of
the President's comprehensive energy plan. The ``smart grid'' will help
provide consumers with the information, automation, and tools they need
to control and optimize energy use. The tools and services enabled by
the smart grid will improve the reliability, security, and efficiency
of the electric grid. Smart grid technologies can facilitate energy
generation from clean energy supplies and enable more effective
integration with the electricity delivery system of renewable energy
sources, demand response resources, and plug-in electric vehicles.
The Department of Energy (DOE) Smart Grid Investment Grant program,
funded by the Recovery Act, is accelerating deployment of smart meters
and other components of an advanced electric grid. The National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is leading a public-
private effort to develop a core set of smart grid standards. The
National Science Foundation supports leading edge research in smart
grid technology primarily through their Engineering Research Centers
Program. An important goal of our efforts on the smart grid is the
widespread availability of energy-saving choices for consumers that
will increase reliability, reduce environmental emissions, and foster
the growth of renewable energy.
Open Government
In December, OMB Director Peter Orszag published the President's
Open Government Directive to hardwire accountability, access, and
public participation into government operations, reflecting a set of
recommendations that my office culled directly from the American people
during the summer of 2009. We are working with the DOE, NIST, and other
Federal agencies to apply these principles of openness and incentives
for innovation to the arena of the smart grid.
As one step in our efforts to increase the government's
participation and collaboration with the public, today we are launching
the Smart Grid Forum, a public on-line forum on the future of the smart
grid and what it will mean for consumers, including how to encourage
innovation in smart grid products and services.
We seek to encourage smart grid solutions that provide all
consumers with the information and services they need to efficiently
manage their energy consumption, that integrate well with existing or
new information and entertainment systems, and that can be widely
deployed at low cost. A robust, secure, and flexible architecture based
on open standards is needed for information exchange between the home
and the smart grid. These systems need to ensure cyber security while
enabling broad participation among diverse consumers. Through the Smart
Grid Forum, we are inviting the public to provide input on how to
achieve these goals most effectively. I encourage everyone to
participate.
Buildings Energy Efficiency
In the United States, buildings consume 40 percent of end-use
energy and over 70 percent of electricity, while contributing nearly 40
percent of carbon emissions. Energy consumption in the commercial
buildings sector alone rose by 70 percent over the 25 year period
ending in 2005 (largely because of the increase in commercial building
stock over that time period). U.S. buildings contribute more than 9
percent of world CO2 emissions, more than the total
emissions of the United Kingdom, France, and Japan combined. Clearly,
buildings are essential to achieving our national energy and
environmental goals.
One of our efforts to accelerate technology's role in promoting
energy efficiency is to develop net-zero energy buildings, which
consume no more energy than they use from renewable sources. We also
focus on building designs and technologies that can meet other
sustainability objectives, such as using recycled building materials,
implementing smart data center designs, reducing water use, or ensuring
indoor occupant health and safety.
I currently serve as the Co-Chair of the National Science and
Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Technology, which includes a
Buildings Technology R&D Subcommittee. With sixteen Federal agencies
represented, this group promotes the development and deployment of
cost-effective net-zero energy building technologies, including
sensors, software tools, and advanced heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning technologies. The group collaborates with two major DOE
initiatives--the Building Systems Innovation Hub and ARPA-E--on these
and other research priorities. We are working with public and private
stakeholders to integrate these technologies and principles into future
building designs, investments, and codes and standards.
We are committed to partnering with local and regional stakeholders
to develop and deploy these technologies. On Feb. 12, seven Federal
agencies issued a combined Funding Opportunity Announcement of up to
$129.7 million over 5 years to create a regional research center. This
Energy Regional Innovation Cluster (E-RIC), which includes the DOE
Building Systems Innovation Hub as an integral component, will develop
new building efficiency technologies, work with local partners to
implement advanced technologies in area buildings, and promote regional
growth. This is our first demonstration of collaboration to pursue
economic growth through clusters. By bringing together synergistic
Federal programs, we are proactively encouraging collaboration amongst
stakeholders at the regional level to bring the benefits of these
technologies to spur new business and job creation, and to align
education and workforce training with new business opportunities that
may spin out of the E-RIC.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), with support from DOE and
EPA, is investing as much as $20 million in an Fiscal Year Emerging
Frontier and Research Innovation program to understand the fundamental
science and engineering needed for next-generation energy and materials
technologies for future building systems.
Private-sector innovation, often spurred by public policy and
incentives such as the cost-shared R&D grants provided by the DOE's
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs, has led to major
strides in energy-efficient and cost-effective technologies for
lighting, heating, cooling, refrigeration, computing, and other basic
services that drive energy demand in residential buildings and
commercial facilities. Hundreds of commercially feasible and
demonstrated technologies, some already available and others just
beginning to enter the market, could, in total, lead to huge
improvements in energy efficiency.
As just one example, public and private collaborations have
identified numerous cost-effective opportunities to improve the
efficiency of IT data centers, which represent a small but rapidly
growing portion of U.S. energy consumption. The Save Energy Now program
at the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is one
example of this collaboration, aiming to reduce energy use in U.S. data
centers by 10 percent by 2011.
Federal Leadership
The Administration has taken strong action to spur efficiency gains
within Federal agencies. The Federal Government is the single largest
user of energy in the Nation, representing 1.6 percent of U.S. total
consumption and costing taxpayers about $25 billion in Fiscal Year 7.
Of this amount, over $7 billion was spent on energy to operate the
500,000 buildings that the Federal Government currently owns, operates,
and leases in the United States.
To ensure that the government leads by example and makes the best
use of taxpayer dollars, last October President Obama issued Executive
Order 13514 on Federal Sustainability, requiring each agency to
establish goals, milestones, and a detailed implementation plan across
a range of sustainability metrics. Subsequently, in January, the
President announced that the Federal Government will reduce its
greenhouse gas pollution from non-National security mission critical
activities by 28 percent by 2020, yielding a projected $8 to $11
billion in cumulative avoided energy costs through 2020. A significant
portion of these reductions will be obtained through Federal building
efficiency measures and on-site renewable energy. As part of the
Executive Order implementation, each agency will be graded on how well
it is meeting its performance targets. These annual ``scorecards'' will
be publicly posted online.
Data centers represent an area where there is significant
opportunity to achieve energy savings. Over the past decade, we have
seen a large increase in the number of Federal data centers. In 1998,
there were 432 Federal data centers; today, there are 1,101. This
growth has driven increases in the total power requirements and
consumption of these facilities. According to DOE, in 2006, data
centers accounted for 1.5 percent of all electricity use in the United
States, double the corresponding amount in 2000. If current trends
continue, future data center energy consumption will grow
exponentially, increasing both the costs to the Federal Government and
challenges to the reliability of electrical supplies.
We have the opportunity to do better with existing technologies. As
one example, the U.S. Postal Service eliminated over 88 percent of its
physical servers--from 895 to 104--and reduced power consumption by 3.5
million kilowatt hours. When I served as Virginia's Secretary of
Technology, we undertook a similar effort--generating $12 million
annually in savings as the result of a 35-percent reduction in energy
use. To ensure that these savings can be achieved across the entire
government, the Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, has
undertaken a significant data center consolidation effort. Adoption of
a cloud computing model--by which I mean, for purposes of today's
discussion, providing useful online services through efficient, shared,
and consolidated infrastructure--is a major part of this strategy.
Another area where the Administration is looking to lead by example
is in promoting telework. As the recent snow storms in Washington, DC
demonstrated, the ability to telework can help keep the government
functioning when Federal workers are unable to get to work. Telework is
not only important during emergencies but also as a way to reduce
energy consumption as employees depend less on modes of transportation
powered by fossil fuels. Last year, the White House held an online
forum seeking ways for the Federal Government to be more energy
efficient; telework filled the online suggestion box. Under the
leadership of Director John Berry, the Office of Personnel Management
will be hosting a forum next month to examine ways for the government
to incorporate telework more and to address technology and other
challenges to telework.
Innovation Strategy
The Federal Government also leads by investing in the building
blocks that only the government can provide, setting an open and
competitive environment for businesses and individuals to experiment
and grow, and by providing extra catalysts to jumpstart innovation in
sectors of national importance. In this way, we can harness the
inherent ingenuity of the American people and a dynamic private sector
to generate innovations.
In September 2009, as part of his Strategy for American Innovation,
the President called for a set of ``grand challenges'' to improve our
quality of life and serve as the foundation for the jobs of future.
Such challenges could include net-zero energy homes and solar cells as
cheap as paint. We intend to fully harness the power and potential of
technology and innovation to advance a set of challenges.
Another critical component of innovation in energy efficiency is
workforce development. Thus the Fiscal Year DOE budget includes $55
million for the RE-ENERGYSE program--or REgaining our ENERGY Science
and Engineering Edge--a partnership with the NSF for clean energy
education and training. These opportunities include undergraduate and
graduate scholarships and fellowships, internships, and post-doctoral
opportunities as well as technical training at community colleges, and
new K-12 education and outreach efforts.
In conclusion, under President Obama's leadership in calling for a
government that works, we are focused on the transformative power of
technology and innovation to deliver economic and environmental
benefits through improved energy efficiency in buildings and by
enabling smarter use of energy by consumers.
I welcome any questions that the Committee may have.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chopra, appreciate it.
Mr. Hesse.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL R. HESSE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SPRINT
NEXTEL CORPORATION
Mr. Hesse. Good morning, Chairman Kerry and Members of the
Subcommittee.
I'm Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint Nextel Corporation. Thanks
for the opportunity to testify about how the progressive
environmental path Sprint is forging is challenging the
technology industry to create a greener, more sustainable
future.
Our country has been transformed by numerous periods of
historic and evolutionary change, from the Industrial
Revolution to the dot-com bubble in the age of the Internet.
Today, we are in the midst of a new green era. Today's U.S.
consumer and members of this legislative body are sending a
call to action to corporations to act in the best interests of
our people and our planet. Sprint is proud to embrace this
opportunity as we make environmental responsibility a
cornerstone of our company.
In my capacity as the Sprint CEO, let me take this
opportunity to highlight just how seriously Sprint is heeding
the call. In 2008 Sprint established, and publicly announced, a
set of 10-year environmental goals, including securing 10
percent of Sprint's commercial energy use from use from
renewable sources by 2017; reducing greenhouse gas emission by
15 percent; achieving a wireless device collection rate of 90
percent, as compared to device sales; ensuring that at least 90
percent, based upon spend, of all Sprint suppliers comply with
environmental standards; reusing or recycling 95 percent of
Sprint's network NIT waste.
We are making significant progress toward achieving our
goals. Sprint achieved a 6.8-percent greenhouse gas reduction
in 2008, and we expect a further improvement when we see our
results this year, for 2009.
Sprint was awarded a $7.3-million grant from the U.S.
Department of Energy as part of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act funding for fuel cell technology. This grant
will allow Sprint to extend the unassisted runtime from 15
hours currently, in deployed fuel cells at cell sites, to 72
hours. Sprint possesses, or has filed, 47 patents in green
technology areas, and we have 15 issued patents for hydrogen
fuel cell technologies which emit no greenhouse gases.
Sprint expanded its commitment to green power use,
announcing an agreement, with Kansas City Power and Light, that
facilitated the building of a local Kansas-based wind farm. As
part of this agreement, Sprint agreed to purchase, from Kansas
City Power and Light, 87 million kilowatt hours per year,
providing 80 percent of the power needed to run our 200-acre
Overland Park, Kansas, headquarters. Sprint recently partnered
with Samsung to launch the Reclaim, which you have here, an
eco-friendly, full-featured wireless device that is 80-percent
recyclable, with components made partly from biodegradable
plastic sourced from corn. The Reclaim has been a market
success and is the most technologically advanced eco-friendly
device currently available in the U.S.
As a result, over the last year, Sprint has earned numerous
industry awards and accolades for our leadership in the green
space. Sprint ranked 15th overall, and was the only telecom
company listed in a top 100 in Newsweek's green rankings.
Sprint also scored highest among U.S.-based wireless companies
on the Carbon Disclosure Project's 2009 Global 500 Report on
Carbon Disclosure.
At Sprint, the innovations we pursue and the new
environmental programs in which we engage are both transparent
and accountable. Experience has taught us that collective
action, working cooperatively with handset manufacturers,
nongovernmental organizations, and government agencies, helps
to quickly and broadly establish common standards for better
environmental performance. Today, I'm proud to announce that
Sprint is the first U.S. wireless carrier to establish a set of
green design criteria for consumer devices.
Moving forward, every handset vendor who manufactures
handsets to operate on Sprint's networks must produce handsets
that meet or exceed Sprint's new design--green design criteria
and specs. The green design criteria and specifications
supports Sprint's product development vision, which is to
provide devices and accessories for our customers that are made
of sustainable materials; manufactured and packaged
sustainably; free of potentially hazardous materials; highly
energy efficient, or even self-charging; compatible with
interoperable accessories; and fully and easily recyclable.
Working in partnership with our handset manufacturers,
Sprint has developed an industry-first environmental scorecard
to bolster progress toward Sprint's green design
specifications. The criteria in the scorecard better enables
Sprint and our vendors to gauge the degree to which each
handset manufacturer complies with our environmental standards.
These handset manufacturers include Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola,
Palm, RIM, and Sanyo. Handsets will be measured according to
the following scorecard categories: environmentally sensitive
materials, end-of-life management, sustainable packaging,
energy efficiency, and innovation.
We hope that by collaborating proactively with our handset
vendors, we will encourage the entire wireless industry to
develop new, innovative, greener handsets for consumers.
Designing greener handsets is crucial for our industry and is
also part of our larger goal to ensure that wireless devices do
not end up in landfills. According to recent statistics from
the EPA, only 10 percent of cell phones are recycled each year
in the U.S. Americans annually dispose of 140 million old or
unused cell phones and send 65,000 tons of e-waste to
landfills. While 40 to 50 percent of Americans recycle common
materials, the truth about e-cycling, or the reuse of--or
recycling of electronic goods is that many consumers just
don't.
The implication of low e-cycling rates is significant. Many
of these electronics contain valuable metals, such as gold and
silver, that could be recycled into jewelry, electronics, lawn
furniture, car parts, plastic containers, and more. A great
example of an innovative use of these reclaimed materials from
electronics can be seen in Vancouver, where this year's
athletes are receiving gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals
that contain materials reclaimed from end-of-life electronics.
A recent ABI research report found that, of 1,000 people
surveyed, 98 percent were prepared to return handsets to an
operator store, to a charity, to a refurbishing company, or to
the manufacturer, but only in return for some compensation--
either cash, store credit, or a tax deduction.
Sprint has been at the forefront of recycling efforts in
the wireless industry. In 2008, we made a public commitment to
achieve a wireless reuse and recycling rate of 90 percent, as
compared to our device sales. Our current wireless rate, at the
end of 2009, was just over 40 percent, well ahead of the
industry average. We accept all phones for recycling or reuse,
regardless of which wireless carrier or who the customer may
have bought the phone from. Since 2001, Sprint has collected
more than 19 million devices for wireless reuse and recycling.
Today, we are announcing the launch of a new vastly
expanded wireless handset buyback program that offers a
financial incentive in the form of an instant account credit to
current and new Sprint customers, who can turn in up to three
eligible wireless devices. Sprint's new expanded buyback
program accepts all eligible wireless devices, regardless of
the manufacturer or the carrier. Through this new buyback
program, currently--current or new Sprint customers can go to
one of more than 1,000 Sprint-owned retail stores nationwide,
or go online, to convert any eligible old Sprint, Verizon,
AT&T, or T-Mobil network phone into an instant account credit.
Thank you for holding this hearing today to highlight how
the U.S. wireless industry can take our environmental
responsibilities even more seriously. And I'm happy to answer
any questions you may have later.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hesse follows:]
Prepared Statement of Daniel R. Hesse, Chief Executive Officer,
Sprint Nextel Corporation
Introduction
Good Morning, Chairman Kerry, Ranking Member Ensign and members of
the Subcommittee. I am Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint Nextel Corporation.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify about how the progressive
environmental path Sprint is forging is challenging the technology
industry to create a greener, more sustainable future.
Our country has been transformed by numerous periods of historic
and evolutionary change--from the Industrial Revolution to the dot-com
bubble and the Age of the Internet. Today, we are in the midst of a new
``green'' era. Today's U.S. consumer and the members of this
legislative body are sending a ``call to action'' to corporations to
act in the best interests of our people and our planet. Sprint is proud
to embrace this opportunity as we make environmental responsibility a
cornerstone of our company.
As a result, over the last year, Sprint has received numerous
industry awards and accolades; however, perhaps the one I am most proud
of is our recent #15 ranking on Newsweek's 2009 Green Rankings of top
500 U.S. Corporations, the only U.S. telecom company listed in the top
100. Accolades such as Newsweek's Green Rankings are important;
however, organizations need to continue to achieve tangible
environmental progress toward measurable sustainability objectives.
Research supports that the best business strategies effectively target
the environmentally conscious consumer.
In my capacity as Sprint's CEO and the Chair of Sprint's Corporate
Responsibility Steering Committee, let me take this opportunity to
highlight just how seriously Sprint is heeding this call:
Sprint's Corporate Sustainability Initiatives
In 2008, Sprint established and publicly announced a set of 10-year
environmental goals, including:
Securing 10 percent of Sprint's commercial energy use from
renewable sources by 2017.
Reducing greenhouse gas emission by 15 percent by 2017.
Achieving a wireless device collection rate of 90 percent as
compared to device sales by 2017.
Ensuring that at least 90 percent, based on money Sprint
spends, of all Sprint suppliers, comply with environmental
standards.
Reusing or recycling 95 percent of Sprint's Network and
Information Technology (IT) e-waste.
Sprint is committed to the belief that we all share in the
responsibility to conduct our businesses in a socially and
environmentally responsible manner. We base this on the premise that a
company is much more than the products and services it sells; the
effect a company has on the environment, the people and the communities
it serves reflects a company's dedication to being not only a good
business, but to being a good corporate citizen.
Renewable Energy Use
Sprint leads the wireless industry within the U.S. in terms of
actual renewable energy use by the corporation. Sprint's green-energy
initiatives include wind, solar, hydrogen and geothermal power. Sprint
began participating and promoting the testing of wind energy in 2004
with the purchase of Green-e wind energy certificates for a building on
the Sprint World Headquarters Campus in Overland Park, Kansas. In 2
years, Sprint prevented approximately 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide from
entering the atmosphere with these Green-e wind energy certificate
purchases.
Sprint expanded its commitment to green-power use, announcing an
agreement with Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) that facilitated the
building of the Spearville, KS Wind Farm. As part of that agreement,
Sprint agreed to purchase 87M kilowatt hours per year for its 200-acre
Overland Park, KS, headquarters campus from KCP&L via the Spearville,
KS wind farm. In 2008, this accounted for 80 percent of Sprint's campus
energy needs. This purchase provided a reduction of 87,519 metric tons
of C02 equivalents in 2008 and is the equivalent of:
Taking 16,029 passenger cars off the road for one year,
Producing 203,533 fewer barrels of oil a year,
The electricity used in 12,139 households each year, or
Preserving 610 acres of forest.
Sprint plans to expand its use of green-power and currently ranks
in the top 25 purchasers of green-power in EPA's Green Power
Partnership Fortune 500 Registry.
Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy Use to Power Sprint's Wireless
Network
Sprint's network consumes approximately 80 percent of its total
corporate-energy use. With such a significant percentage, our network
is our biggest priority in terms of finding energy improvement
opportunities--both through energy efficiency and deployment of
renewable-energy resources. Sprint has a partnership with the
Department of Energy to conduct alternative-energy research and
currently works with two national laboratories--Sandia in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, and National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden,
Colorado. Their projects include energy storage and photovoltaic-panel
research.
In an effort to produce green backup power during commercial power
outages, Sprint has already deployed more than 250 hydrogen fuel cells
at cell sites, with more installations planned. Sprint is also using
solar-powered energy at cell sites in California and New York. The
photovoltaic-panels capture solar energy and power the site using
sunlight during the day, then switch back to commercial utility power
at night. In addition, Sprint is exploring geothermal systems as a way
to reduce electricity use by improving cooling efficiency and improving
reliability by avoiding high-heat equipment shutdowns. In these
systems, the heat from a cell site is transferred to a heat exchange
system and cooled through wells drilled in the ground.
In April 2007, Sprint installed a small wind turbine on its
Overland Park, KS campus to test the use of wind as primary power for
cell sites. The turbine was the first of its kind in the community and
continues to provide excellent data for Sprint's energy researchers. It
is also iconic of Sprint's commitment to alternative energy.
Sprint's most exciting new achievement on green network energy is
its award of a $7.3 million United States Department of Energy grant
for the expansion of hydrogen fuel cell deployment. Sprint, already a
leader in fuel cells, will use the grant funding to expand its hydrogen
fuel cell program at cell sites throughout the United States--creating
72 hours of additional network resiliency, especially critical during
emergencies and natural disasters. As part of the grant, Sprint will
work with hydrogen fuel cell manufacturers, tank providers and hydrogen
suppliers to extend the unassisted run-time to 72 hours (57 hours more
than the typical amount currently available). Sprint's innovative work
to extend the run-time of hydrogen fuel cells will benefit any industry
with a need for longer and cleaner back-up power.
Sprint possesses or has filed for 47 patents in green technology
areas, and we have 15 issued patents in hydrogen fuel cell
technologies.
Greenhouse Emissions
Sprint understands that greenhouse gas is a critical issue and that
reducing greenhouse gas (greenhouse gas emissions) is an important
goal. As a large corporation with thousands of locations throughout the
United States, Sprint has a role to play in the reduction of harmful
greenhouse gas emissions, and is actively engaged in making a
difference. Sprint has committed to absolutely reduce its greenhouse
gas emissions by 15 percent by 2017 and to increase its use of
renewable energy to 10 percent by 2017. The majority of Sprint's
greenhouse gas emissions come from energy use in Sprint's network and
facilities. Sprint has been actively working to reduce its energy
impact for the past several years, as evidenced by our large purchases
of renewable energy, investments in alternative-energy research, and
development of an energy-conservation program.
Sprint was the first telecommunications carrier to join the
EPA Climate Leaders Program in 2007, and was recognized for our
goal to absolutely reduce greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent
by 2017. Sprint is the only carrier participating in the EPA
Climate Leaders Program and the only one to have published an
absolute greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal.
Sprint achieved a 6.8 percent greenhouse gas emission
reduction in 2008 and expects further improvement when we
finalize the 2009 results.
Sprint also participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project
(CDP) and received the highest ranking among wireless providers
in 2009 for its carbon disclosure efforts. CDP is a non-profit
organization, led by institutional investors in partnership
with government and non-government organizations (NGO's).
The Greening of Sprint Facilities and Retail Store Locations
Sprint's 200-acre Overland Park, Kansas, headquarters campus is one
of the most environmentally responsible campuses in the country. It was
designed with the environment and employees in mind and is a source of
pride for both campus workers and the surrounding community. Some of
the eco-friendly highlights include:
Capture of site run-off water to use for landscape
irrigation (no municipal water is used).
Restoration of wetlands and natural landscape.
Plantings of more than 6,000 trees; use of landscaping for
shade.
Dedicating 60 percent of the campus to green space.
Regional extraction of 81 percent of campus construction
materials, reducing transportation emissions.
Use of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)-
certified border-collie program for migratory-bird control.
A comprehensive composting program that takes food waste and
other compostable-waste, such as cardboard, and turns it into
useful by-products.
Use of solar power for signage.
Preferred parking for drivers of hybrids or carpoolers to
encourage reduction of employee greenhouse gas emissions.
A ``Smart Commute'' program to help employees find and use
alternative transportation options.
Sprint received its first Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) certification from the United States Green Building
Council (USGBC) for new construction in April 2005, for a building
(6480 Sprint Parkway) at our headquarters campus in Overland Park, KS.
Sprint received its second LEED certification in mid-2009 through the
LEED Retail pilot project for a Sprint retail store in the San
Francisco, California area.
All new and refurbished Sprint retail stores will utilize numerous
sustainable design elements consistent with LEED design standards that
will reduce the carbon footprint of each store by about 19,000 pounds
of carbon dioxide annually.
All Sprint retail stores feature a dedicated green section to
highlight green products such as the eco-friendly Samsung Reclaim
TM, solar chargers and cell phone carrying cases made from
recycled plastic water bottles. Sprint's eco-charger options include
the All-In-One Vehicle and Wall Charger and the SOLIO TM
Mono Hybrid Charger. The All-In-One charger offers users the benefit of
being an all-in-one car and home/office charger. It also features an
inline USB port that allows two devices to be charged simultaneously
and operates within EPA's Energy Star guidelines. The SOLIO
TM Mono Hybrid Charger allows mobile-phone users to charge
their device from the sun or electrical socket allowing customers to
recharge their mobile phone anytime, virtually anywhere. Sprint's carry
case solutions include two from Nite Ize TM, made from 100
percent recycled plastic water bottles and two universal cases made
from cotton and linen.
The Greening of Sprint's Accessory Packaging
In November 2009, Sprint expanded its responsible product efforts
by launching redesigned and even more environmentally responsible
packaging for its entire accessory line. The new designs are smaller,
fully recyclable, free of PVC, and include recycled content. Sprint
estimates that the redesigned accessory packaging will save 647 tons of
waste annually and reduce packaging costs by 35 percent or $2.1 million
annually. Highlights of the new accessory packaging include:
Overall packaging dimensions reduced by 20 to 40 percent.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) clamshell eliminated and replaced
with Polyethylene terephthalate (PET 1), a more recyclable and
environmentally friendly material that includes 30 percent
recycled content.
Soy- and vegetable-based inks replace petroleum-based ink,
exceeding the American Soybean Association SoySeal Standards
and reducing the level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Paperboard is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified--
ensuring that the paper travels from an FSC-certified forest to
a paper manufacturer, merchant and printer, all of whom have
FSC ``chain-of-custody'' certification. The process promotes
conservation and responsible management of forests. The
paperboard includes 40 percent pre-consumer waste content and
10 percent post-consumer waste content.
Eco-Conscious Consumer Solutions
One of the benefits of being a communications solutions provider is
that Sprint is part of an incredible societal shift toward smart-
mobility. Sprint customers use their wireless devices day-in and day-
out to communicate remotely with their friends and family, to send
pictures, conduct on-line banking, purchase items remotely, find the
fastest route to the doctor's office, and even find out where they can
recycle their glass bottles.
Sprint's wireless devices can replace alarm clocks, calculators,
calendars, note pads, voice recorders, cameras and more. In the
sustainability circle, this is called dematerialization, where one is
able to eliminate material goods with virtual ones. Sprint hopes to
help customers realize the environmental opportunities their devices
offer and intends to provide specific solutions to enable a greener
lifestyle.
One of the simplest environmentally responsible solutions Sprint
offers its customers is eBilling. Sprint eBill Online Billing
eliminates customers' paper bills and thus helps the environment and
provides convenient access to customer invoices. Sprint offers
consumers a service credit for signing up and staying with eBill.
Millions of Sprint customers have already selected this option and
avoided the use of an estimated 2 million pounds of paper and emitting
27 million pounds of greenhouse gases.
Sprint has expanded its eco-conscious offerings to include
environmentally-themed ringers. In October 2009, Sprint announced the
release of downloadable bird-call ringtones in association with
National Audubon Society. Customers can choose from among 28 ringtones
include the Field Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Black-capped
Chickadee. Sprint and the National Audubon Society believe the bird
song ringtones will help raise awareness of Audubon's mission to
protect and conserve birds and their natural habitats. These ringtones
are part of an official licensing program of the National Audubon
Society from which Audubon will receive royalties.
Sprint's Green IT Efforts
Green Information Technology (IT) is typically defined as the
efficient design and use of computing resources. It includes using
environmentally-friendly hardware and software, and deploying options
such as virtualization, power management and recycling practices.
Sprint is committed to being a green IT leader, and Sprint's efforts
were recognized in September 2008 at Computerworld's Green IT Symposium
where Sprint was named a top-five finalist for increasing ``green IT''
by reducing IT complexity. This recognition was based on Sprint's
efforts to simplify its complex IT environment by identifying,
consolidating and removing redundant or unused applications and their
supporting infrastructures, and by simplifying the hardware and
software footprint in Sprint's data centers.
Over a 20-month period, Sprint has significantly reduced its IT-
based power consumption by retiring more than 3,850 servers. Not only
did this improve energy efficiency, it reduced greenhouse gas emissions
by 20,355 metric tons, which is the equivalent of removing more than
3,200 cars from the road.
Sprint has also transitioned to more energy-efficient servers and
storage, has consolidated several of its data centers, significantly
reduced the applications that are in use and implemented a much simpler
hardware and software IT plan that incorporates virtualization and
other green IT options.
Two New Environmental Initiatives from Sprint
At Sprint, the innovations we pursue and the new environmental
programs in which we engage are both transparent and accountable. While
recognition is inspiring, what counts most is tangible environmental
progress. It is Sprint's hope to change norms so that what we define as
``green'' today is ``average'' tomorrow. Experience has taught us that
collective action--working cooperatively with handset manufacturers,
non-governmental organizations and government agencies--helps to
quickly and broadly establish common standards for better environmental
performance.
Today I am proud to announce that Sprint is the first U.S. wireless
carrier to establish a set of green design criteria for consumer
devices. Moving forward, every handset vendor who manufactures handsets
that operate on Sprint's networks must produce handsets that meet or
exceed Sprint's new green design criteria and specifications. The green
design criteria and specifications support Sprint's product development
vision, which is to provide devices and accessories for our customers
that are:
Made of sustainable materials
Manufactured and packaged sustainably
Free of potentially hazardous materials
Highly energy-efficient or even self-charging
Compatible with interoperable accessories, and
Fully and easily recyclable
Working in partnership with our handset manufactures, Sprint has
developed an industry-first environmental ``scorecard'' to bolster
progress toward Sprint's green design specifications. The criteria in
the scorecard better enable Sprint and our vendors to gauge the degree
to which each handset manufactured complies with our environmental
standards. These handset manufactures include: Samsung, HTC, LG,
Motorola, Palm, RIM and Sanyo. Handsets will be measured according to
the following scorecard categories:
Environmentally Sensitive Materials--to improve the removal
of environmentally sensitive materials such as Polyvinyl
Chloride (PVC), Brominated Fire Retardants (BFR) Phthalates and
Beryllium. This category also includes compliance with the
European Union's Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
standards.
End of Life Management--to increase the average
recyclability rate and the use of recycled plastics and other
environmentally friendly parts.
Sustainable Packaging--to reduce a product's environmental-
footprint by eliminating waste and using recycled or eco-
friendly materials.
Energy Efficiency--to improve the energy efficiency and
reduce the overall consumption of energy by the handset and
charger.
Innovation--to raise the bar with new product innovations.
Sprint hopes by collaborating proactively with our handset vendors,
we will encourage the entire wireless industry to develop new,
innovative, greener handsets for all U.S. consumers.
Wireless Recycling
Designing greener handsets is crucial for our industry and is also
part of our larger goal to ensure that wireless devices do not end up
in landfills. According to recent statistics from the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) only 10 percent of cell phones are recycled
each year in the U.S. Americans annually dispose of 140 million old or
unused cell phones and send 65,000 tons of e-waste to landfills. While
40 to 50 percent of Americans recycle paper and other common materials
regularly, the truth about e-cycling, which is the reuse or recycling
of electronics, is that many U.S. consumers don't.
The implication of low e-cycling rates is significant. Many of
these electronics contain valuable metals--such as gold and silver that
could be recycled into jewelry, electronics, lawn furniture, car parts,
shingles, plastic containers and more. A great example of an innovative
use of these reclaimed materials from electronics can be seen in
Vancouver, Canada where this year's athletes are receiving Gold, Silver
and Bronze Olympic medals that contain materials reclaimed from end-of-
life electronics. A recent ABI Research Report found that of 1,000
people surveyed, 98 percent were prepared to return handsets to an
operator's store, to a charity, to a refurbishing company or to the
manufacturer--but only in return for some compensation; either cash,
store credit, or a tax deduction.
Sprint has been at the forefront of recycling efforts in the
wireless industry. In 2008, we made a public commitment to achieve a
wireless reuse and recycling rate of 90 percent as compared to our
device sales. Our current wireless reuse and recycling rate at the end
of 2009 was just over 40 percent, well ahead of the industry average.
Since 2001, Sprint has collected more than 19 million devices for
wireless reuse and recycling.
Today we are announcing the launch of a new, vastly expanded
wireless handset buyback program that offers a financial incentive, in
the form of instant account credit, to current and new Sprint customers
who turn in up to three eligible wireless devices. Sprint's new,
expanded Buyback program now accepts all eligible wireless devices,
regardless of manufacturer or carrier. Through this new Buyback
program, current or new Sprint customers can go to one of the more than
1,000 participating Sprint-owned retail stores nationwide or go online
to www.sprint.com/recycle to convert any eligible old Sprint, Verizon
Wireless, AT&T or T-Mobile network phone into an instant account
credit.
Conclusion
Chairman Kerry, Senator Ensign and members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for holding this hearing today to highlight how the U.S.
wireless industry can take our environmental responsibility even more
seriously. Sprint is committed, for the long-haul, to ``green'' our
business operations, promote the design of more eco-friendly handsets,
increase wireless industry recycling rates, and remain a leader in our
industry. In partnership with our handset manufactures and other
allies, Sprint will continue to work to introduce greener handsets
similar to the Samsung ReclaimTM, and to educate our
customers about how they can make ``greener,'' more sustainable choices
when it comes to handset purchases and end-of-life device management.
I am happy to answer any questions you may have and Sprint looks
forward to working with you and your staff on these mutual goals in the
coming year.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Hesse.
Mr. Tuck.
STATEMENT OF ADRIAN TUCK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TENDRIL
NETWORKS, INC.
Mr. Tuck. Good morning. My name is Adrian Tuck. I'm the CEO
of a smart grid technology company based in Boulder, Colorado,
called Tendril.
As a newly minted American citizen, it's an honor to be
asked to participate in however small a way in the setting of
Federal policy, so I thank you all for the opportunity to
testify this morning.
Tendril's sole reason for being is to provide the devices
and software that allow consumers and utilities to manage their
energy consumption. Our platform works by linking residential
energy customers with utilities, and we do so by providing
customers with simple-to-use devices, such as smart thermostats
and home energy monitors, that allow consumers to manage their
energy use. Numerous studies have shown that this kind of
energy awareness prompts consumers to reduce their energy
consumption.
Our technology communicates with the home in two ways.
First, it can utilize new two-way smart meters, as being
deployed by utilities in many States. But, second, it can also
utilize commercial broadband networks and work with the
approximately 60 million American households equipped with
drive-by meters that chirp out a one-way signal of the meter's
read.
In this setting, we use the broadband capability and the
Internet to create a two way communication link, making the
smart grid come alive by using meters that are in the field
today, and broadband technology that's well understood. We
found this approach to be viewed favorably by many State
regulators, who are responsible for identifying cost-effective
solutions.
Using a platform like Tendril's, consumers benefit by
consuming less energy, saving money, and emitting less carbon
dioxide. Utilities are better able to optimize loads on the
grid and plan for the future by accommodating renewable
generation, electric vehicles, and smart appliances. Our
studies show that for every 1 million Tendril equipped homes,
we can reduce carbon emissions by over 200,000 tons and save
consumers over $75 million annually.
Like you, sir, we believe that the transformation of the
energy economy will be every bit as great as the transformation
of the information and communications economy we've witnessed
over the last 20 years. We see similar sustained wealth and job
creation opportunities for the Nation if we seize the
initiative. We also humbly believe that Google-sized businesses
will emerge in this transition, and we're hoping, and working
hard, to make Tendril one of them.
In our small way, we've contributed to job creation. We've
added approximately 100 well-paid jobs in the last 12 months,
and plan to add several hundred more in the years ahead.
Indirectly, our systems will support tens of thousands of new
and retrained jobs as we deploy.
I'd like to offer three observations for the Subcommittee's
consideration:
First, realtime energy information is key to driving energy
savings in the home. Today, there's no consistent policy
regarding whether and how consumers can see how much energy
they're using in realtime. Three States--Pennsylvania, Texas,
and California--stand out for their decisions to guarantee
consumers the right to use energy--or, the right to see their
energy so they can take action. Some of my own employees
complain, in Colorado, that we have smart meters on their
homes, but there's no policy from Congress, the State
legislature, or the Public Utility Commission to give them the
right to use that information.
Federal policy--a consumer's right to know--can begin to
correct that oversight. Only with realtime information can we
inform, not just how, but when we use energy. I firmly believe
that the first step to Federal coordination is to establish
clear policies to ensure consumers and entrepreneurs have
access to energy data.
Second, the biggest barriers to innovation are not actually
technical, but economic. Much work is underway, led by NIST, to
adopt standards that enable communication between energy
providers and consumers. But, most utilities have little
incentive to sell you or me less energy, and in most States, we
don't have a choice of energy supply. We think Federal
legislation can establish greater coordination and give State
regulators more abilities to include national energy priorities
within their economic analysis.
Third, like the Information and Communications Revolution,
the ultimate driver of change will be the consumer. We, along
with partners, such as Best Buy and Intel, are offering
compelling solutions to consumers as part of utility programs
and where utilities are slow to move without them. We would
like to see a consumer rebate program established that would
accelerate the deployment of home energy monitors and energy
efficiency technologies. In fact, we proposed such a concept as
part of our application for a Smart Grid Investment Grant.
The consumer market is a powerful force for change, but,
like all markets, it will only be truly effective when it has
accurate and actionable information. Federal policies
supporting entrepreneurs and American competitiveness can
provide that information and support innovation. We, and our
trade association, the Demand Response and Smart Grid
Coalition, stand ready to work with the Committee as it
continues to examine this issue.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to share these
thoughts. I look forward to answering any questions you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tuck follows:]
Prepared Statement of Adrian Tuck, Chief Executive Officer,
Tendril Networks, Inc.
Introduction
Good morning, my name is Adrian Tuck, and I am the CEO of a smart
grid technology startup based in Boulder, Colorado, called Tendril
Networks. As a newly minted American citizen, it is an honor to be
asked to participate, in however small a way, in the development of
Federal policy. I wanted to thank Chairman Kerry, Ranking Member
Ensign, and the members of the Subcommittee for allowing me to testify
this morning.
Tendril's sole reason for being is to provide the devices and
software that allow consumers and utilities to better manage their
energy consumption. Our platform works by linking residential customers
with their utilities, and we do so by enabling the utilities to provide
their consumers with simple-to-use devices such as smart thermostats
and home energy monitors that allow consumers to manage their energy
use. Numerous studies confirm that this kind of ``energy awareness''
prompts consumers to reduce their consumption. Our software allows our
partners--such as General Electric--to make smart appliances that can
react to prices and environmental signals to modify their energy usage.
Our technology communicates with homes in two ways:
1. It utilizes new 2-way communicating ``smart meter'' networks
being deployed by utilities in many states, and
2. It also utilizes commercial broadband networks for the
approximately 60 million American households equipped with
``drive-by'' meters that chirp out a one-way signal of the
meter's read.
In this setting, we use broadband capability and the Internet to
create a two-way communication link, making the smart grid come alive
by using meters that are in the field today and broadband technology
that is well understood. We've also found this approach to be viewed
favorably by many state regulators who are responsible for identifying
cost-effective solutions.
Using a platform like Tendril's, consumers benefit by consuming
less energy, and thus saving money and emitting less carbon dioxide.
Utilities are better able to optimize loads on the grid, and plan for
the future by accommodating renewable generation, electric vehicles and
smart appliances. Our studies show that every one million homes
equipped with a system like Tendril's will reduce carbon emissions by
over 200,000 tons and save consumers $75 million or more annually.
In our view, energy efficiency is best measured across at least two
dimensions. On the one hand, we can and must focus on improving the
throughput efficiency of the electric system and the buildings it
serves, including programs to fund improvements in insulation, caulking
and replacing appliances. On the other hand, we must also consider the
real-time market and environmental information that can drive true
transactional and behavior changes. The impacts of these changes can
drive tangible energy efficiency and environmental benefits.
A recent Department of Energy Report (``The Smart Grid: An
Estimation of the Energy and CO2 Benefits'', January 2010)
concluded that the development of a smart grid can lead to reductions
in carbon emissions of 18 percent by 2030 through direct and indirect
effects. The largest single mechanisms include ``Conservation Effects
of Consumer Information and Feedback Systems.'' It is clear that
engaging the consumer with information technology is a vital component
of an effective carbon mitigation strategy.
Reducing peak loads on the grid also has a powerful economic
benefit. A report issued by the Government Accountability Office
(``Consumers Could Benefit from Demand Programs, but Challenges
Remain'', August 2004) observed that, ``Although the 100 highest priced
hours of the year account for only about one percent of the hours in a
year, they can account for 10-20 percent of the total electricity
expenditures for the year.'' It is clear that providing solutions to
reduce peak demand can provide enormous economic benefits and avoid or
defer the need to build new power plants.
We believe the transformation of the energy economy will be every
bit as great as the transformation of the information and communication
economy we have witnessed over the past 20 years. We see similar
sustained wealth and job creation opportunities for the Nation if we
seize the initiative. We believe Google-sized businesses will emerge in
this transition, and we're working hard to make Tendril one of them. In
our own small way, we have contributed to job creation. We've added
approximately 100 well-paid jobs in the last 12 months with plans to
add several hundred more in the next couple of years. Indirectly, our
systems will support thousands of new and retained jobs as we deploy
more of them.
Smart Grid is a National Priority
Development of a ``smart grid'' has forcefully emerged as a
national priority, and it was firmly articulated with the enactment of
the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). This Act
established that, ``It is the policy of the United States to support
the modernization of the Nation's electricity transmission and
distribution system to maintain a reliable and secure electricity
infrastructure that can meet future demand growth. . . .'' This
national policy includes, ``provision to consumers of timely
information and control options'' (emphasis added). This policy of
smart grid development was reinforced through funding provisions of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
We highlight the connection between the provision of ``timely
information'' and ``control options,'' because it suggests that
Congress, in passing this legislation, considered information to be a
key enabling factor of consumer control. In this context, the provision
of information is important not only for historical analysis of energy
consumption patterns, but also to enable real-time, automated functions
by consumers.
This legislative intent is further supported by the EISA's
references in this same section to ``digital information and controls
technology'', ``deployment of *smart' technologies (real-time,
automated, interactive technologies that optimize the physical
operation of appliances and consumer devices)'', and the ``integration
of *smart' appliances and consumer devices''.
This legislation was amended in the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act to establish conditions upon any Federal funding
provided to smart grid projects that, ``The Secretary [of Energy] shall
require as a condition of receiving funding . . . that demonstration
projects utilize open protocols and standards. . . .''
In June 2009, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
released National Assessment of Demand Response Potential. This report
described the residential customer class as representing ``the most
untapped potential for demand response.'' Earlier, in March 2009, FERC
issued a proposed policy statement and action plan that noted,
``Ultimately, the smart grid will facilitate consumer transactions and
allow customers to better manage their energy costs.'' This policy was
finalized in a July 2009 FERC order.
We highlight these FERC statements and policies because we believe
these policies suggest FERC's anticipation of information being used by
consumers to facilitate real-time market transactions. This is
highlighted further by statements accompanying the adoption of this
policy by several FERC Commissioners, including Commissioner Marc
Spitzer who said, ``Equally important, this policy statement is a step
toward smarter rates that will enable customers to control their
personal use of electricity.''
Tendril believes that providing information tools to the consumer
is consistent with national policy. Improving system efficiencies,
reducing consumer costs and mitigating environmental impacts all depend
upon the provision of detailed energy usage information directly to the
consumer. Open, non-proprietary consumer access to usage information is
a guiding principle for development of policies governing smart grid
technologies. We also believe that such access will accelerate
technology innovation and help the consumer realize additional
benefits.
Moreover, providing consumers with greater transparency and control
over how their information is used in the smart grid environment will
build consumer trust and confidence in this developing technology. Such
increased consumer trust will, in turn, promote public adoption and
acceptance of smart grid systems and solutions, which are not ends in
themselves but means to achieve policy objectives of clean energy,
reliable and secure energy infrastructure, economic development, and
market-based options for the consumer.
Observations
I would like to offer up three observations for the Subcommittee's
consideration:
1. Real-time information is the key to driving energy savings.
Today, there is no consistent policy regarding whether and how
consumers can see how much energy they are using in real-time.
Three states--Pennsylvania, Texas and California--stand out for
their decisions to guarantee consumers the right to see their
energy use so that they can take action to save energy. Some of
my own employees complain that while they have a smart meter at
their house, there is no policy from Congress, the state
legislature or the public utility commission that gives them
the right to useful information coming from the meter. Federal
policy--a consumer's right to know--can begin to correct that
oversight. Only with real-time information can we inform not
just how, but when, we use energy. Is energy expensive right
now? Are there renewable sources available on the grid
currently? That information is collected at the wholesale
level, but it does not flow down to the consumer in real time.
As noted above, at least three state utility commissions have
addressed the provision of real-time information to consumers.
Specifically, Texas, Pennsylvania and California have issued
decisions in rulemaking proceedings establishing that advanced
metering infrastructure (AM I) must provide consumers with
direct, real-time access to electricity usage data by
delivering that information directly into the home area network
(HAN).
In Texas, the Public Utility Commission established a policy
through a rulemaking procedure to implement provisions within
2005 legislation HB 2129 and subsequent rulemakings.
In Pennsylvania, the Public Utility Commission established a
policy in June 2009 regarding Smart Meter Procurement and
Installation (Docket No. M-2009-2092655) in which they directed
that information be delivered via electronic and ``open,
nonproprietary two-way access.''
Finally, we note that the California PUC issued a decision in
December 2009 (R.08-12-009) requiring that all AM I deployment
in the state must also provide direct access to usage data.
These state regulations could provide useful models for
potential Federal legislation addressing the consumer's ability
to access energy usage information in real time.
In December, our trade association, the Demand Response and
Smart Grid Coalition, joined with leading companies including
General Electric and Google to support a Call to Action
released during the climate meetings in Copenhagen. These
companies called on nations and regulators to ensure access to:
(1) real-time home energy consumption, (2) pricing information,
and (3) carbon intensity information of delivered energy.
Together, we concluded that ``[w] e can't solve climate change
if people are in the dark about how they use energy in their
own homes''
I firmly believe that the first step to Federal coordination is
to establish clear policies that ensure consumers and
entrepreneurs have access to the data.
2. The biggest barriers to innovation are not technical, but
economic. Much work is underway to adopt standards that enable
communication between energy providers and consumers, but most
utilities have little incentive to sell you or me less energy.
And in most states, we don't have a choice of energy supplier.
We think that Federal legislation can establish greater
coordination and give state regulators more abilities to
include national energy priorities within their economic
analysis models.
As a general rule, state regulation was not established to
encourage innovation. Rather, it was established to manage
cost-effective solutions to known challenges of energy
distribution. If we hold as a goal the encouragement of
innovation, then Federal leadership will be a welcome
contribution to the industry. Federal leadership--in the form
of policy, legislation and funding--will serve to identify
national priorities around energy efficiency, renewable energy,
reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and the adoption of new
technologies, such as electric vehicles and smart appliances.
These identified national priorities provide a foundation upon
which state commissions can align local rates and regulation.
In addition to Federal leadership, we see a benefit from a
coordination of Federal activity. Currently, many agencies are
making significant contributions to the development of the
smart grid. NIST is working with industry to accelerate the
development of standards. When established, FERC may promulgate
rules establishing the standards. FERC is also developing a
National Action Plan for Demand Response to reduce peak loads,
and it is examining barriers to the integration of variable
energy resources, such as renewable energy. The FCC has
indicated that its National Broadband Plan will include
strategies to encourage innovation and increased energy
efficiency. We strongly support the FCC's initial
recommendations regarding the National Broadband Plan. In
particular, we support the integration of broadband into the
smart grid and provisions to ensure consumer access to
information. The DOE is supporting research and development, as
well as deployment, through the Smart Grid Investment Grant
Program and Smart Grid Demonstration Grant Program funded in
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The DOE's smart
grid research also received a boost in funding in the
President's 2011 budget. Finally, The White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy recently initiated an examination
of smart grid policy, and Congress has made significant steps
toward passing energy and climate legislation that further
emphasizes smart grid development.
It is our opinion that all of the efforts will be strengthened
by an overarching Federal strategy for smart grid that can
inform and coordinate each of the individual efforts.
3. Like the telecom revolution, the ultimate driver of change
will be the consumer. We, along with partners such as Best Buy
and Intel, are offering compelling solutions to consumers as
part of utility programs and, where utilities are slow to move,
without them. We would like to see a consumer rebate program
established that would accelerate the deployment of home energy
monitors and energy efficiency technologies. In fact, we
proposed such a program as part of the smart grid funding in
the Recovery Act.
Federal consumer rebates have proven effective in other
industries to drive consumer adoption. For example, the TV
Converter Box Coupon Program helped drive the transition from
analog to digital television. Similarly, the State Energy
Efficient Appliance Rebate Program is currently being widely
promoted by retailers such as Sears as an effective mechanism
to drive consumer adoption of more energy efficient appliances.
We believe that a similar consumer rebate program that focuses
on the deployment of home energy monitoring systems will bring
enormous benefit to the Nation in the form of energy efficiency
improvements, technology development, and job creation.
Of course, consumer confidence will be reinforced though cyber-
security and data privacy protections much like those that enable
convenient online financial transactions. I understand that the full
Committee will be examining cyber-security and critical infrastructure
this afternoon, and I urge the Committee to consider the topic in the
context of our future of smart grid capabilities and our national
energy efficiency goals.
Conclusion
The consumer market is a powerful force for change. But like all
markets, it will only be truly effective when it has accurate and
actionable information. Federal policy, supporting entrepreneurs and
American competitiveness, can provide that information and support
innovation. We and our trade association, the Demand Response and Smart
Grid Coalition, stand ready to work with the Committee as it continues
to look at this issue.
Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts. I look
forward to answering any questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Tuck. We appreciate it.
Ms. Wigle, I think I added a G to your name, and I take it
back.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Wigle. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thanks.
STATEMENT OF LORIE WIGLE, DIRECTOR, ECO TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
OFFICE, INTEL CORPORATION AND PRESIDENT, CLIMATE SAVERS
COMPUTING INITIATIVE (CSCI)
Ms. Wigle. Mr. Chairman, Senators, thank you very much for
the opportunity to speak on this important topic of energy
efficiency and information and communication technology.
I work for Intel Corporation as our General Manager for
Eco-Technology, and also have the privilege of being President
of Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which is a consortium
focused on driving energy efficiency of computing, itself.
What I'd like to do this morning is talk about a framing
device, similar to what the--Mr. Chairman introduced initially,
and then talk a little bit about what we see as the inhibitors
and potential policy actions that can be taken to increase the
adoption of ICT to benefit energy efficiency. And last, I'd
like to introduce an organization called the Digital Energy
Solutions Campaign, which is another group that's come together
to tackle this problem.
First of all, if you think about it, in 2007 Gartner
Research published a study that documented that global
CO2 emissions from computing were at 2 percent. And
I think you all understand that we, as an industry--Intel,
from--at a microprocessor level; our customers, at the system
level--are doing everything we can to optimize that 2 percent.
And you'll hear a little bit more about that, I think, later as
the conversation goes on. And, in fact, I think you can
consider energy efficiency a basis for competition, for most of
our industry.
On the other hand, I think we've put too little emphasis on
how information and communications technology can benefit the
other 98 percent. And, in fact, there was a report released in
2008, called ``Smart 2020,'' that documented that global
CO2 emissions could be reduced by 15 percent through
the application of technology. The areas that they called out
in that report were smart grid, smart buildings, smarter
transportation, better logistics systems, as well as smarter
motors and the use of technology to substitute for
transportation. And, in particular, it'd be great if I could be
doing this testimony from my home in Oregon instead of
traveling to Washington, D.C.
So, there is clearly an opportunity. And Intel, as a
company, and many of our counterparts, are participating in the
businesses associated with this.
One might ask, though, why we're not seeing more rapid
adoption in these areas. This has been documented, as I said,
for almost 2 years now.
We believe, part of the problem is lack of awareness, this
lack of understanding of the benefits of ICT in these
deployments. But, there are also other problems associated with
just the lifecycle of such investments. The reality is that the
people who are making the up-front investments are often not
the people who pay the ongoing operating costs, and that goes
across a lot of different areas. For example, buildings--you
think about building stock; the architects and the designers
may not be thinking about what it costs to actually operate the
building. So, that's definitely an area where we can see
improvement by connecting those things.
In terms of policy, some of the recommendations that we
would make is for the Federal Government to actually establish
a roadmap for the implementation of ICT, to lay out the steps
that should be taken on a timeline, to lead by example. The
government, at all levels, is a large employer, owner of
building stock, fleet operator. And so, the government, leading
by example, both delivers efficiency, as well as provides a
role model for private enterprise.
We also believe there's an opportunity to establish tax
incentives and other incentives to promote the more rapid
incorporation and adoption of technology. And, along with my
colleague from Tendril, we also believe that giving utilities
the incentives to actually drive efficiency or sell megawatts--
as opposed to megawatts, is really, really important.
And last, we can improve what we can measure. So, we would
really encourage policy and development of methodologies for
measuring the effectiveness of ICT in delivering energy
efficiency. We have some work underway in Japan, in the EU
here, which we would be happy to share.
Last, this organization that Intel has helped co-found and
is now populated with a number of industry companies as well as
NGO's and trade associations--the Digital Energy Solutions
Campaign,--is in place, has put together, I think, a really
good foundation for actions that could be taken here. And we
would welcome the opportunity, either as DESC or as Intel, to
support the further work of the Subcommittee.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wigle follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lorie Wigle, Director, Eco Technology Program
Office, Intel Corporation and President, Climate Savers Computing
Initiative (CSCI)
Thank you, Chairman Kerry, for the opportunity to address this
hearing focused on the role of information and communications
technology (ICT) in improving energy efficiency throughout the U.S.
economy. My name is Lorie Wigle. I direct Intel's Eco Technology
Program Office and also serve as President of the Climate Savers
Computing Initiative (CSCI). I am here today to stress the importance
of the Federal Government adopting policies that support and enable the
full potential of ICT to drive significant energy efficiency gains
throughout the economy.
Recent studies have estimated the ICT industry's contribution to
the world's energy and carbon footprint to be 2 percent and rising.\1\
This is what we call the ``micro story''--the energy consumption and
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with individual
ICT devices. A major focus of government policy in recent years has
been on reducing the growth of ICT's direct footprint. Many of those
same studies, however, have highlighted the significant role ICT can
play in reducing the footprint of the rest of society--the other 98
percent--through the energy efficiency gains such technologies can help
enable. We call this the ``macro story.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Gartner Estimates ICT Industry Accounts for 2 Percent of Global
CO2 Emissions,'' Gartner press release, April 2007.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Triple Challenge of Climate Change, Energy Security and Economic
Growth
The U.S. and the world face three difficult challenges
simultaneously: Our climate is changing at the same time that we face
significant energy security and economic growth challenges. Finding
public policies that address all three must be a priority.
Improving society's energy efficiency is the best way to begin
addressing the challenges of climate change, energy security and
economic growth. By using energy efficiency to lower energy demand, we
can reduce emissions of CO2, reduce the need for energy
imports and free up resources for economic growth.
Fortunately, energy efficiency measures are not only cost effective
but, in many cases, have a negative marginal cost, meaning they create
wealth for society overall. Energy efficiency measures, including
approaches driven by ICT, provide a foundation for economic growth by
enabling carbon-reducing actions at lower cost, or even a savings of
resources.
The ICT Industry Has Made Great Progress on the Micro Story
The ICT industry has made great progress in improving the energy
efficiency of the products it designs and manufactures. The chart \2\
below shows that progress made in the energy efficiency of computation
has been orders of magnitude greater than progress made in other
technologies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Based on statistical comparisons compiled by the Technology CEO
Council.
What's more, the industry has not become complacent and continues
to find new ways to deliver products that perform more work while
consuming less energy.
Studies Show that Greater Energy Reduction Potential Lies in the Macro
Story
Substantial evidence shows that the gains realized by improving the
efficiency of ICT devices are dwarfed by the much greater gains from
using and networking these devices to improve the energy efficiency of
society as a whole. The American Council for an Energy Efficient
Economy (ACEEE) looked at the impact of ICT on the energy efficiency of
the U.S. economy. The ACEEE report highlights the nexus between ICT and
energy intensiveness of the U.S. economy: ``Information and
communication technologies (ICT) have transformed our economy and our
lives, but they also have revolutionized the relationship between
economic production and energy consumption.'' Specifically, ACEEE found
that increasing deployment of ICT in the U.S. over recent decades has
been a significant causative factor in the declining energy-
intensiveness of the U.S. economy. Comparing the micro and macro story
effects, ACEEE concludes that, ``For every extra kilowatt-hour of
electricity that has been demanded by ICT, the U.S. economy increased
its overall energy savings by a factor of about 10. . . . The
extraordinary implication of this finding is that ICT provide a net
savings of energy across our economy.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ ACEEE, ``Information and Communications Technologies: The Power
of Productivity: How ICT Sectors Are Transforming the Economy While
Driving Gains in Energy Productivity,'' Laitner and Ehrhardt-Martinez,
February 2008.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Building on the work of McKinsey and others, The Climate Group and
the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) in 2008 produced a report
entitled, ``Smart 2020: Enabling the Low-Carbon Economy in the
Information Age'' that found that ICT strategies could reduce global
carbon emissions by up to 15 percent in 2020 against a baseline of
business as usual.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information
age,'' The Climate Group.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Examples of Where the Potential Lies
Focusing on the U.S. alone, a follow-up report by The Boston
Consulting Group for The Climate Group and the GeSI found that the
potential emissions reductions from ICT-enabled energy efficiency could
be even greater--from 13 to 22 percent over the same period. This
report identifies, as illustrations, a number of specific ICT-based
technologies that hold particular promise, including:
Smart Motor Systems--Optimized for energy efficiency, smart
motor systems control and adjust power usage output through
variable speed drives and intelligent motor controllers. Smart
motors monitor energy use and utilize that data for energy and
cost savings. Wireless networks enable inter-machine and system
communication for further optimization, and simulation software
improves overall plant and manufacturing process design. Smart
motor systems have a total abatement potential of 970 Megatons
(Mt) CO2 emissions in 2020.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Smart 2020 Report.
Smart Logistics--Smart logistics include a variety of ICT
applications that enable reductions in energy demand through
better journey and load planning. This includes software to
improve transport network design, inter-modal shifts to a more
efficient form of transport, eco-driving, route optimization
and inventory reduction. Smart logistics have a total abatement
potential of 1.52 Gigatons (Gt) CO2 emissions in
2020.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Ibid.
Smart Buildings--Smart buildings (new and existing) are
optimized for energy efficiency through technologies that make
their design, construction, and operation more efficient. Smart
buildings use building management systems that employ a
computerized, intelligent network of electronic devices
designed to monitor and control the mechanical systems (heat
and air conditioning) and lighting. They also use solutions to
automate power control and/or remotely power on and off devices
like PCs. Smart buildings have a total abatement potential of
1.68 Gt CO2 emissions in 2020.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Ibid.
Smart Electrical Grids--Smart grids integrate ICT
applications throughout the grid, from generator to user, to
enable efficiency and optimization solutions. These solutions
include smart meters to help customers use energy more wisely,
as well as: interactive energy generation systems, advanced
grid management solutions, demand management systems, greater
integration of renewables and transmission and distribution
loss reduction equipment. Smart grids have a total abatement
potential of 2.03 Gt CO2 in 2020.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ibid.
Travel Substitution--Broadband availability can
significantly reduce carbon emissions by supporting telework
and making many business trips unnecessary. Teleworking alone
can contribute savings up to 260 Mt CO2 emissions
each year.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
More About the Potential for the Smart Grid Challenges with Today's
``One-way'' Power Grid
The way the world delivers electric power is based on designs and
plans that date back many decades. It's based largely on a ``single-
direction delivery'' model: a big power plant that sends out power to
lots of homes and commercial buildings that receive it.
No one thought that the grid would someday have to support solar
power coming from millions of rooftops, or electricity being generated
by thousands of wind turbines. But that's the future--and the
electricity grid has to get much more ``intelligent'' to deal with all
these different sources. It has to manage energy supply and consumption
across the network in a more real-time, efficient fashion, using new
metering technologies.
On the consumption side, commercial and residential building waste
a tremendous amount of energy because building owners don't know how
much energy they are using in real-time, and lack any kind of feedback
loops or digital controls to optimize their energy use.
``Smart Grid''
The ``smart grid'' aims to solve all those problems. By harnessing
microprocessors, wireless communications, the Internet, and other
technologies, we can not only integrate these new renewable energy
sources, but reduce energy waste, and give consumers more information
about how they're using power.
Examples of ``Smart Grid'' Intelligence
There are a number of integrated microprocessor applications. For
example, a modern wind turbine needs as many as 16 embedded
microprocessors to control various motor functions, and to enable the
turbine to exchange data and operational status with the grid. In the
grid itself, embedded processors are being used in grid substations,
which locally monitor and manage electricity flow. In smart buildings,
low power and embedded processors are being designed into energy
management systems and interactive touch screen displays, to help
building owners monitor and control their energy use. As the smart grid
communications network develops, electricity meters, smart buildings,
and utility data centers all must continuously exchange data and
communicate with each other over great distances, which can be well
served by Broadband technologies such as WiMAX.
The Need for Standards
The most critical element is in a word: Interoperability. An issue
facing smart grids is the absence of an agreed upon specification
prescribing how all grid components should be architected and made to
communicate with each other.
There are many competing standards and proprietary protocols. To
help address this interoperability challenge, Intel recommends that
grid systems and consumer-side systems should be designed as ``open''
platforms and that they make use of Internet protocol. In other words,
they should be designed to flexibly support a variety of standard
software components and secure interfaces. In June, Intel hosted an
IEEE meeting in Santa Clara that brought in energy industry experts to
discuss creation of open smart grid standards. And we are actively
participating in the process that NIST is leading.
An open grid system will also be ``future-ready'', supporting new
innovations and the integration of future applications and service.
Home Energy Management Systems
Consumers are looking for ways to reduce their energy costs and
carbon footprints, by employing microprocessor-based ``smart home''
technologies. Intel is developing technology for ``Home Energy
Management Systems'', which visually show the consumer their real-time
energy use, and enable them to control their energy use, through a
``dashboard'' which is viewable on any screen: whether it be their Home
PC, or on a dedicated Touch Screen Display in their home, or on their
Internet-connected TV. Studies have shown that by providing consumers
with these types of dashboards and control tools, they are able to
reduce their peak home energy use by as much as 40 percent.\10\
Empowered by such computer-based dashboards, home area networks, and
social networks, consumers are taking control of their personal energy
use, and collaborating with others to reduce their carbon footprints.
The rise of the ``Personal Smart Grid'', in which a consumer is able to
monitor and control the behavior of their personal energy assets,
spanning rooftop solar panels, smart appliances, and plug-in hybrid/
electric vehicles, while taking advantage of the wider smart grid, is
imminent if not already upon us.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ The Brattle Group ``The Power of 5 Percent'', The Electricity
Journal, October, 2007.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is Missing?
While the ACEEE study shows the historic role ICT has played in
reducing the energy- and carbon-intensiveness of the U.S. economy, the
Smart 2020 analyses demonstrate that even greater benefits are
possible. Going forward, the question must be asked: What is missing?
What is needed to realize the full energy efficiency potential of ICT?
Realizing this full potential will require aggressive public
policies to correct market failures, remove implementation barriers and
provide ICT-adoption incentives. Barriers to overcome include:
Lack of information and understanding about the energy
efficiency benefits of ICT.
Perceived high up-front purchase costs and lack of
understanding of lower life-cycle costs.
``Principal/agent'' issues where people occupying a space or
operating a business don't pay the energy bill.
The perception that many energy efficiency gains are too
small to bother with individually when, in fact, they have a
major impact when implemented throughout a region or country.
Policies to Realize the Potential of ICT
Governments can take many actions to encourage ICT adoption. While
policies will vary depending on national circumstances and cultures,
potential actions include:
Establishing a national strategy or roadmap for the use of
ICT to improve energy efficiency and reduce CO2.
Leading by example at all levels, governments--the largest
employers, landlords, fleet operators, etc., in the country--
demonstrate that the benefits of telecommuting, smart building
technologies, teleconferencing and other solutions can help
drive better understanding in the private sector of the
benefits of ICT.
Expanding the availability of broadband throughout society
to take advantage of telecommuting, video conferencing, smart
grids and the many energy efficiencies possible through
intelligent connected devices.
Establishing tax and other incentives for businesses and
consumers to accelerate their purchase and deployment of ICT
devices.
Changing electricity utility regulation to permit utilities
to earn money from energy-efficiency (``negawatts''), not just
from the sale of electricity.
Helping create agreed-upon protocols/approaches for
measuring the energy-efficiency and climate impacts of ICT in
other economic sectors.
Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC)
To begin addressing some of the barriers to the realization of the
full macro story potential of ICT, Intel and other high-tech companies
founded and Intel co-chairs a relatively new organization called the
Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC). DESC is a coalition of ICT
companies, allied with NGO's and trade associations, dedicated to
promoting the adoption of public policies, such as those I have just
enumerated, that will enable ICT to realize its full potential to
improve societal energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint.
DESC member companies, in addition to Intel, include AMD, APC,
AT&T, Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, Infineon, Johnson Controls, Microsoft,
National Semiconductor, Nokia, Opto 22, Sony, Texas Instruments, and
Verizon. In addition, a number of non-governmental organizations and
associations are affiliated with DESC, including ACEEE, the Alliance to
Save Energy, The Climate Group, the Information Technology Industry
Council, ITS America, CompTIA, the Semiconductor Industry Association,
TechNet, the Technology CEO Council, and the Telework Coalition.
``ICT and Greening the Federal Government
Intel commends the Obama Administration for the October ``Executive
Order focused on Federal Leadership in environmental, energy, and
economic performance.'' It represents in concrete form the DESC policy
principle of the Federal Government leading by example. We understand
that the Executive Branch is very busy figuring out the best way to
measure existing performance to provide a baseline for assessing future
progress. As it pertains to ICT, the Executive Order clearly
encompasses both the micro and macro stories. But we recognize that is
perhaps easier to focus on the micro--the Federal Government purchasing
more efficient ICT equipment--than it is to focus on how that equipment
might be used to improve the energy and environmental footprint of the
overall operations of Federal agencies. Intel and DESC stand ready to
work with the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the
Federal Environmental Executive to explore best practices in bringing
ICT to bear in reducing that footprint.''
In the End It Is All About the 100-Percent Solution
Successfully addressing the three challenges of climate change,
energy security and economic growth will require attention to both the
micro story (improving the energy efficiency of ICT devices) and the
macro story (promoting the enabling energy efficiency role of ICT in
other sectors). The ICT industry needs to continue to design and
produce more energy efficient devices. And policymakers need to
implement programs that address the full energy efficiency potential of
deploying such devices and the ICT systems they enable. The Green IT
Promotion Council in Japan speaks of both the ``green of IT'' (micro)
and ``green by IT'' (macro). The goal clearly should be to ``minimize
the `micro' and maximize the `macro.' ''
Key Initiatives to Advance the Micro Story
In addition to each individual company in the industry driving the
energy efficiency and minimizing the environmental impact from their
products, we're also collaborating to drive systemic efficiencies
together. Two groups are playing a critical role here: The Green Grid
and Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Intel is a founding member of
both.
The Green Grid
The Green Grid is a global consortium of IT companies and
professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in data centers and
business computing ecosystems around the globe. The organization seeks
to unite global industry efforts to standardize on a common set of
metrics, processes, methods and new technologies. The participating
companies contribute technical resources to develop and disseminate
these metrics and best practices in order for IT departments to
optimize their operations.
Climate Savers Computing Initiative
Climate Savers Computing Initiative is focused on improving the
energy efficiency of individual computers by improving power delivery
(largely through power supply technology) and driving the adoption of
power management (PCs going into low-power states when not in use).
When the organization was founded in June 2007, the goal was taken to
reduce CO2 emissions from computing by 50 percent or 54
million tons. To-date the savings from these two focus areas are on the
order of cents$36 million tons. More than 550 companies
have joined the organization and committed to purchasing energy-
efficient PCs and servers for new IT purchases, and to broadly
deploying power management.
Conclusion
The ICT industry is aggressively pursuing efficiency at both the
micro and macro level and we are eager to collaborate with the
Committee to further the policy agenda that supports these efforts.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. Wigle. Appreciate
that.
Ms. Winkler.
STATEMENT OF KATHRIN WINKLER,
CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, EMC CORPORATION
Ms. Winkler. Thank you, Chairman Kerry and Members of the
Subcommittee, for this opportunity to discuss the role of ICT
in an energy efficient economy.
My name is Kathrin Winkler. I'm Chief Sustainability
Officer for EMC Corporation, a Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based
Fortune 500 technology company. EMC specializes in building
information infrastructure. This is the digital foundation for
storing, protecting, and getting the maximum value from
information assets. This morning, I'd like to convey three
points--I think you've heard them; it's always hard to be
last----
[Laughter.]
Ms. Winkler.--but they all warrant repetition--that ICT is
driving efficiency aggressively within our industry, that ICT
is central to unlocking increased energy efficiency and
reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout our economy, and
that Congress has a role to play in working with industry to
realize ICT's full potential.
Looking first at information technology's use of energy,
the industry has dramatically increased performance per
kilowatt in virtually every generation of our products. Our
customers expect us to reduce their operating costs and help
them defer or avoid the capital costs of data-center expansion.
Our stakeholders are asking us to reduce our carbon footprint.
And our technology culture has efficiency as a core design
principle of good engineering.
For these reasons, the industry finds itself competing on
three levels--on the energy efficiency of our products, in how
we're reducing the carbon footprint of our operations and of
our supply chains, and, most importantly, in the market for
products and services that make ICT operations more efficient.
Efficient operations are important because the greatest
opportunity for reducing energy consumption in ICT comes not
from the products themselves, but from how they're reused, from
consolidating underutilized equipment and eliminating over-
provisioning resources.
One of the most game-changing technologies in this arena is
server virtualization, software that enables a single physical
system to run multiple operating systems at one time. Without
virtualization, most servers are being used at only 5 to 15
percent of capacity. With it, companies can consolidate
hundreds servers down to a few dozen. Server virtualization
initiatives based on software from one company, VMware, have
measured aggregate power savings estimated to be greater than
the electricity consumed annually in all of New England for
heating, ventilation, and cooling.
With the amount of data growing 60 percent per year, other
breakthroughs focus on efficiency of the data storage
infrastructure. Solid-state drives, for example, consume 38
percent less power than their predecessors for capacity and 98
percent less for performance. Data de-duplication eliminates
redundant data, reducing the amount of hardware, and thus,
energy used to manage it.
``Cloud computing,'' referred to in the President's budget
as essential, quote, ``to achieve efficient IT and effective
IT,'' is a model that delivers ICT as a service. It offers even
greater consolidation and can offload peak demand, thus
reducing over-provisioning in corporate data centers. EMC uses
these technologies in our own ICT infrastructure, which has
contributed to our reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by
nearly 20 percent per dollar of revenue in the last 3 years.
ICT firms are also cooperating. In organizations such as
the Green Grid, we bring together end users, vendors, and
service providers to develop metrics, build tools, educate
data-center operators, and collaborate with government and
industry organizations around the globe. Yet, this is only one-
fiftieth of the story. As we've heard, it's estimated ICT
generates 2 to 2\1/2\ percent of global greenhouse gas
emissions. But, of the other 98 percent, studies have shown
that by 2020 ICT could abate as much as five times the
emissions as it generates. This phenomenon is already apparent
in our home State of Massachusetts, historically a leader in
information technology and now a State whose energy
productivity is one of the highest in the Nation.
We see ICT's potential in the energy sector with emerging
smart grid technology, where ICT will provide the information
and tools for utilities and consumers to make more informed
decisions. We see ICT's potential in the transportation sector.
Where does the engine for reducing fuel use through
optimization of routing and of freight packing, as well as
aggregating fleet performance data to evaluate vehicle
technologies, fuel choices, and even driving styles?
There are many other examples, but there are barriers, too.
Congress can help us overcome obstacles to reducing the 2
percent by demanding that Federal Government lead by example,
implementing best practices in technologies in what is the
largest ICT infrastructure in the world, bridging split
incentives in the Federal infrastructure through institution of
appropriate reporting mechanisms, continuing investment in
cloud computing and next- generation ICT research and standards
development at NIST, and collaborating with industry to promote
the development of metrics and tools. To leverage the potential
of ICT for the other 98 percent, Congress should expand the
availability of broadband, as we have heard, to connect cities
and rural areas, and collaborate with industry to develop a
national strategy for the use of ICT to improve energy
efficiency and reduce CO2 in the economy.
To summarize, ICT industry is in a race to the top. We are
investing in technology and business-model innovation. We are
collaborating to drive standards and competing to drive the
market. Investments in research and innovation will be
critical, but we needn't wait. The means to realize huge
efficiencies in ICT and across a broad range of industry
sectors are available today. Through its actions, Congress can
accelerate our transformation to an energy efficient economy.
EMC is passionate about the current and future
contributions being made by the ICT industry. We thank you,
Chairman Kerry and Members of the Subcommittee, for this
opportunity to share our perspective.
And I ask that my full statement be made part of the
record.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Winkler follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathrin Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer,
EMC Corporation
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Ensign, and the member of
the Subcommittee for this opportunity to discuss the role of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in enabling a more
energy-efficient economy. My name is Kathrin Winkler and I am the Chief
Sustainability Officer for EMC Corporation. EMC is a Fortune 500
technology company headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. We
specialize in building information infrastructure, the digital
foundation that enables the applications and information that nearly
every organization needs to be effective.
EMC commends this committee for seeking ways to fully marshal the
power of ICT as a foundation for realizing the potential of energy
efficiency, the ultimate renewable resource.
This morning, I'd like to focus on three major subjects:
1. How the ICT industry is delivering efficiencies in its own
use of energy;
2. Why ICT is central to unlocking increased energy efficiency
and reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout our economy;
and
3. How government and industry can work together to unleash
untapped opportunities with technologies and techniques
available today.
It is well known that ICT has been a key driver of economic
productivity in this Nation for the past half-century. What is less
well-known is that, as the American Council for an Energy Efficient
Economy (ACEEE) demonstrated in its 2007 report,\1\ ICT has also been a
key driver of energy productivity.
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\1\ http://www.aceee.org/press/e081pr.htm.
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Technology pervades and to a large extent enables every aspect of
our economy and our lives. The web has become the world's dominant
commercial infrastructure. It supports everything--transportation, the
electric grid, supply chains, telephony, education, entertainment, and
so on. And the digital information that courses through it is
dematerializing more and more of human activity, allowing us to create
economic value while reducing our use of physical resources. When you
realize that only 20 percent of humanity has access to the web, you get
a sense of how much upside remains unrealized.
ICT and the 2%
Let us look first at the ICT industry's direct impact on energy
use. The ICT industry has dramatically increased the energy efficiency
of its own products and services, improving performance per kilowatt-
hour in virtually every generation of product. There have been a number
of compelling drivers for this. First is the principle of good
engineering requires efficiency to be considered in every design. This
has been a core value at EMC since its inception 30 years ago.
Second, there is the constant drive to reduce operational cost for
our customers. A continual improvement in price/performance of
information technology combined with rising electricity prices means
that costs for power and cooling are actually overtaking the costs for
hardware.
Third, there is an effort to avoid capital costs. Data centers can
cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build new. Capital projects
like data center construction or expansion can the delay implementation
of business-critical applications by months or years. Businesses that
do not have the capital to build out new data centers may miss new
growth opportunities as a result.
And fourth, there is the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
from the use of fossil fuels upon which we still depend for so much of
our grid energy.
The Competition for Efficiency
Energy efficiency is a compelling issue for our customers. Data
centers can consume as much as 100 times the energy per square foot as
a typical office building. As a result, the ICT industry finds itself
competing on three levels. First, with regard to the energy efficiency
of our own products, we offer more efficient power and cooling
architectures and features that allow products to adjust dynamically to
the loads placed on them.
Second, we compete to reduce our carbon footprint within our own
operations and throughout our supply chains.
And third, we compete in the market for products that enable
efficient ICT infrastructure, because the most significant and
immediate opportunities for energy reduction come not from the products
themselves, but from how they are used. The greatest energy waste comes
from powering underutilized ICT assets and from inefficient use of ICT
resources.
Technological Advancement
I'd like to share some examples of how EMC and our industry peers
are addressing this market.
EMC offers products and services that help our customers manage
their information assets with the same rigor with which they manage
their other critical corporate assets and without compromising quality,
reliability, or business performance.
For example, EMC is majority owner of the Palo Alto, CA-based
company VMware. VMware provides a software tool called virtualization
that has dramatically changed the technology landscape and ushered in
an exciting new phase of ICT consolidation through server
virtualization. Server virtualization enables a single physical server
to run multiple operating systems at one time. Without virtualization,
most servers use at only 5 to 15 percent of their capacity while still
drawing most of their power load. With virtualization software, loads
can be consolidated onto fewer physical systems for huge energy
savings. A typical server virtualization initiative can result in
hundreds of underutilized servers being consolidated down to several
dozen. Gartner Group estimates that 1.2 million workloads currently run
in VMware virtual machines; this represents an aggregate power savings
of about 8.5 billion kWh--more electricity than is consumed annually in
all of New England for heating, ventilation and cooling.\2\
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\2\ http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/green-it/.
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With data volume growing at 60 percent per year, additional
technological breakthroughs have focused on the efficiency of the
storage infrastructure. Solid state drives, also known as flash drives,
have no moving parts, and consume 38 percent less power as their
predecessors for same capacity and 98 percent less for same
performance. Where spinning disks continue to be utilized, technology
exists to ``spin down'' the disks when they are not being accessed.
Additionally, data de-duplication technology transparently combines
redundant copies of data--including all 20 slightly different versions
of your last slide presentation--reducing the amount of hardware
required to backup all those copies.
Cloud Computing, the concept of delivering ICT as a service, much
as electricity or telephony are delivered, holds the promise of even
more efficient use of ICT resources. Compute clouds can further
consolidate systems for greater efficiency and faster deployment. And
by using cloud resources to serve peak demand, ICT managers can avoid
over-provisioning their own data centers. The President's budget refers
to cloud computing as essential ``to achieve efficient and effective
ICT'' and describes the Administration's plans to offer limited cloud
computing options throughout the Federal enterprise.
EMC is using these technologies in our own data centers, and by
doing so, has saved $4.3M over a four-year period and reduced our
carbon footprint by over 60 million tons of CO2. Energy
efficiency in our data centers and throughout our corporate facilities
allowed us to grow our revenue by more than 50 percent from 2005 to
2008 while reducing our emissions per dollar of revenue by 19 percent.
And, by engaging our employees in finding new efficiency opportunities,
we are on track to achieve an additional 30 percent reduction in energy
intensity over 2005 by 2012.
Coopetition
While ICT firms are competing with one another, we are also
cooperating to accelerate implementation of best practices, establish
standards for interoperability, and identify new opportunities for
efficiency. Organizations such as The Green Grid bring together end
users, vendors, and service providers to develop metrics, build tools,
educate the community on how to save energy, and collaborate with
government and industry organizations around the globe to share
knowledge and create a common lexicon for ICT efficiency.
The Other 98%
Yet, this is only 1/50th of the story. It is estimated that ICT
accounts for 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. What about
the other 98 percent? McKinsey tells us that investments in energy
efficiency alone could deliver up to half of the emission abatement
required to cap greenhouse gas concentrations at 450 parts per
million.\3\ Further, they tell us that applying information technology
for efficiency in five categories of investment could eliminate nearly
8 metric gigatons of greenhouse gases by 2020--five times more than it
will generate.
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\3\ http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/
How_IT_can_cut_carbon_emissions_2221.
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The analysis by the American Council on an Energy Efficient Economy
shows that during the last two decades, ICT has already produced
between six and fourteen kWh of savings for every kWh it has consumed.
This phenomenon is apparent in our home state of Massachusetts,
historically a leader in information technology, and now a state whose
energy productivity is one of the highest in the Nation.\4\
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\4\ http://www.mass.gov/Eoeea/docs/doer/pub_info/
Giudice%20FCC%Testimony%201130
2009.pdf.
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We must take care not to implement policies that would have the
perverse effect of inhibiting investment in technologies that will
consume some energy, but can abate much more. We do not want to be
kilowatt-wise and megawatt-foolish.
ICT in the Broader Economy
I would like to cite just a few of the many examples of how
information technology is driving energy efficiency across the broader
economy.
The emerging smart grid not only uses information technology to
transmit rate, usage, and control data, but it will have the
information for accurate forecasting and provisioning of electricity,
and for responding quickly to external influences such as weather
events or unanticipated demand. Consumers will have the information
they need to understand the cost implications of their day-to-day
choices, enabling them to adjust their behavior accordingly. And it is
ICT security technology that will give consumers the confidence they
need to participate in what must be an ``all hands on deck'' effort.
In transportation, ICT is the engine for reducing fuel use through
optimization of routing and of freight packing. And our customers in
this segment tell us it is doing much more. Aggregating information
from their fleets enables them to understand the impact of fuel
choices, vehicle technologies, and even driving styles to further
remove energy waste.
These same capabilities applied to other dimensions of our
infrastructure--buildings, transportation, agriculture--will create
systems that are not only automated, but that adjust to demand and
other influences such as outside temperatures to generate further
efficiencies.
Nor should we overlook the role of ICT in research and development,
where high performance computer modeling is accelerating design of new
materials and technologies for clean energy and energy storage.
And of course virtual meeting technologies such as web conferencing
and TelePresence are having a real and immediate impact. In EMC, our
investments in eConferencing have reduced our carbon footprint, saved
travel expense, and increased our productivity--a classic win-win-win.
These are but a few of the many examples of ICT as an enabler of
energy efficiency. Organizations such as the Digital Energy Solutions
Campaign, disseminate information to and collaborate with stakeholders
to find, encourage, and measure ICT-enabled energy reduction and carbon
abatement.
Implementation Obstacles
But there are barriers in both the 2 percent and the 98 percent.
There is still a significant population of stranded and
underutilized ICT assets, particularly in smaller data centers that
don't have the expertise or capital to invest in improvements. The body
of knowledge still resides in the hands of a relatively small number of
practitioners. And many data centers and businesses simply haven't
taken advantage of the technology and best practices that are available
to be deployed today.
In fact, these smaller data centers are proliferating in the
national government. The EPA Report to Congress on Server and Data
Center Energy Efficiency estimated that the Federal Government's
electricity cost for its servers and data centers was $450 million in
2006 and was doubling every 5 years, putting the cost for 2011 at
nearly $900 million. A 1998 survey of Federal agencies identified 432
agency data centers. In September 2009, agencies reported that the
number of Federal data centers had grown to 1,100. This trend runs
counter to the well-established best practice of consolidating to fewer
data centers to reduce costs, energy consumption, and environmental
impacts, while improving service and performance.
Role of Congress
Congress has a role to play in removing the barriers to reducing
ICT's 2 percent. Congress should focus on four key areas:
1. Demand the Federal Government lead by example to drive
energy-efficiency throughout its ICT enterprise by aggressively
pursuing virtualization, and ICT/data center consolidation.--
Congress, through its various Committees, has oversight
responsibility for the largest ICT infrastructure in the world;
the President's FY 2011 budget requests $79.3 Billion for
information technology. OMB included in the FY 2011 budget a
plan to drive ICT consolidation: ``OMB will work with agencies
to develop a Government-wide strategy and agency plans to
reduce the number and cost of Federal data centers. This will
reduce energy consumption, space usage and en-vironmental
impacts, while increasing the utilization and efficiency of IT
assets . . .'' Congress should request and review these
strategic plans as part of the annual appropriation process and
provide the resources necessary to accelerate OMB's ICT
consolidation plans.
2. Bridge split financial incentives in Federal data centers.--
In many government data centers, those responsible for
purchasing and operating the ICT equipment report to the CIO
while those responsible for the power and cooling
infrastructure typically pay the utility bills. This leads to a
split incentive, in which those who are most able to control
the energy use of the ICT equipment (and therefore the data
center) have little incentive to do so or even insight into
their own usage. This could be remedied by Congress requiring
that agency CIO's report on data center energy consumption and
provide a baseline to Congress for future comparison.
3. Continued investment in cloud computing and next
generational ICT research at NIST.--Government has become an
early adopter of cloud computing. As with the deployment of
other promising technologies like smart grid and electronic
health records, cloud computing will not be fully realized
without open interoperability, data portability, and security
standards. Congress should fully fund NIST's Cloud Computing
Standards Effort.
4. Collaborate with industry to promote the development of
measurement tools for government and private sector data center
operators.--Industry continues to struggle to develop
acceptable models to measure data center efficiency. Without
reliable efficiency methodologies on which to base rebate
programs, it is difficult and expensive for utilities to
conduct tests themselves and many simply forego rebate
programs. With an estimated 1200 regulated utility service
areas in the United States, there is tremendous potential for
replication of successful programs. With Energy Efficiency
Resource Standards mandates in more than 19 states, Congress
should assist in providing useful measurement tools for the
state PUCs to incentivize energy conservation in data centers.
Similar barriers exist across the other 98 percent. Split
incentives discourage ICT investment in leased facilities by both
landlords and tenants. Capital investments in efficiency, while showing
attractive returns, may still be prohibitive, particularly for small
and medium businesses. There is a shortage of expertise and tools for
applying best practices in disciplines that could have a substantial
impact. And there are many places that simply do not have
infrastructure such as broadband on which to build next generation ICT
solutions.
Congress can act right away in three key areas.
1. Expand the availability of broadband. EMC strongly supports
Congressional programs that expand the reach and quality of
broadband in this country. Broadband is vitally needed to take
advantage of telecommuting, video conferencing, and the many
energy efficiencies possible through intelligent connected
devices. Moreover, connected cities and rural areas are vital
to the success of the Administration's drive to digitize health
records, enable the energy Internet, and connect rural schools.
While, each of these programs will increase the energy demand
for ICT systems, they will provide much greater efficiencies to
the broader economy.
2. Call for a national strategy for the use of ICT to improve
energy efficiency and reduce CO2 in the economy. A
major barrier is an agreed-upon protocol or approach for
measuring the energy-efficiency and climate impacts of ICT in
other economic sectors. Congress should encourage the Executive
Branch to develop a national strategy or roadmap for the use of
ICT to improve energy efficiency and reduce our greenhouse gas
emissions.
3. Expand public-private partnership. The transformation to an
energy-efficient economy will be accelerated through
complementary actions in public policy, open standards, and
technological innovation that can only be achieved through
collaboration across segments, and between government and
private industry.
Conclusion
To summarize, the ICT industry is in a race to the top. We are
investing in technology and business model innovation. We are
collaborating to drive standards and competing to drive the market.
Technology and best practices already exist and are in use today;
they could have an even greater impact if we conquer the implementation
barriers. While we need to continue to invest in innovation, we must
also accelerate deployment, and strengthen the public-private
partnership to provide both the incentives and the means for economy-
wide energy efficiency and reduction of carbon emissions. And we must
not focus only on the ICT industry itself--but also on how it enables
the other 98 percent, lest we save ICT kilowatts at the expense of
economic megawatts.
Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web. Its
inventor, Tim Berners-Lee was asked recently where the web could take
us tomorrow. He spoke of the emergence of a web of data that people can
share and mash up and use at will, saying ``I think when we have a lot
of data available on the web about the world, including social data,
ecological data, meteorological data, and financial data, we'll be able
to make much better models from which to draw conclusions.''
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Ensign, and the member of
the Subcommittee for this opportunity to share our perspective. EMC is
passionate about the current and future contributions being made by the
ICT Industry in enabling energy efficiency, the ultimate renewable
resource.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Winkler.
And, without objection, it will be made part of the record.
All of your statements will be made part of the record as if
read in full.
Let me begin by asking Mr. Chopra--you talk about the smart
grid--a number of you have mentioned the smart grid--and we all
hear the virtues of a smart grid, and obviously I am supportive
of that, but I get a little frustrated, in a sense, talking
about a smart grid, when we don't really have an American grid.
I mean, we just don't have a grid. And it's one thing to talk
about it being smart, when we can't even sell energy produced
in Arizona to New England, et cetera.
So, what are we going to do about getting a grid in
America? Because we've got an East Coast grid, a West Coast
grid, a Texas grid, and this tiny line up north in Chicago,
North Dakota, et cetera. That's it. A gaping hole in the center
of our Nation which prohibits investment because you can't get
a return on investment, based on the size of the market, et
cetera, for the kind of energy you produce in one place. Help
me with that, can you?
Mr. Chopra. Yes. Well, Mr. Chairman, you--you've put your
finger on a very important component to this, which is ensuring
we have the market conditions that would spur investment, that
would essentially connect the pieces that you're describing.
That's why the President has been committed to working with
Congress on enacting and implementing a comprehensive market-
based policy. And the goal, obviously, is to achieve a great
deal of efficiencies in the system, but also to address the
greenhouse gas emissions challenge.
The Chairman. Let me stop you for a minute. Have I missed
something? Am I--is there a proposal on the table for the
national buildout of a grid which has preemption so we don't
spend the next 20 years with one State fighting with the other
over where the connection goes?
Mr. Chopra. No. But, I appreciate the--there is a task
force that is clearly focused on this issue and will clearly
look forward to working with the localities on how we address
the jurisdictional issues around the transmission networks, the
research and development capacities to ensure that we have the
right storage capabilities so that the energy that's produced
in one location can be efficiently transmitted and stored----
The Chairman. Well----
Mr. Chopra.--so that then----
The Chairman.--I have to----
Mr. Chopra.--it can----
The Chairman.--tell you, I----
Mr. Chopra.--be deployed----
The Chairman.--I mean, I'm not often--you know, I don't
often express frustrations publicly about things, but this--on
the Administration--but this is one where I just--I don't get
it. I don't understand why this was an issue, almost number
one. You want to get the economy moving, way back, last
January. This--it seems to me, you've got to build out
America's grid. And nothing will do more to excite capital flow
to some of these other things than the idea that you've got
this enormous national market of--accessible to you.
Mr. Chopra. Mr. Chairman, we absolutely concur with that.
That's why we put over $3.5 billion, from the Recovery Act,
dedicated toward--with your support and Congress's action--to
invest in the components that would be enabling of that vision.
So, you need to look at the ability to produce renewable
energy. You need to look at the transmission issues, both from
a policy standpoint and from a technology standpoint. You've
got to address the storage issues. And so, we have
comprehensive activities in each of these domains.
But, perhaps I misunderstood your question. To the extent
that there--there are, basically, movements on all of these
fronts, Mr. Chairman, that are taking place now, as we speak,
called for over the last year, since we've been working on
these issues.
The Chairman. Does FERC need to be overhauled to make it
happen?
Mr. Chopra. Well, Mr. Chairman, I--with all due respect,
that is not my area of expertise, and it would----
The Chairman. Fair enough.
Mr. Chopra.--frankly, welcome the----
The Chairman. Fair enough.
Mr. Chopra.--the ability to----
The Chairman. No, that's fair.
Let me ask you, Mr. Hesse--and you might comment on this,
any of you--but, you mentioned, I think, Mr. Tuck, that the
market is--you know, the market of technology in 1990s, et
cetera, was a big market. This is much bigger. In fact, I think
the market of the 1990s was about a trillion-dollar market with
a billion users. The energy market is a $6- to $10-trillion
market, with potential of 6 billion-plus users.
It's hard for me to understand why your company, or Sprint
or someone else, are, sort of, you know, the exception rather
than the rule. Where is American enterprise in understanding
that the transformation of the American economy is in energy
efficiency--alternative, renewable, et cetera--rather than
watching China, India, South Korea, Germany, France--all of
them are rated well ahead of us, in terms of, you know, their
ability to be low-carbon-intensity economies. Can you help me
understand that?
Mr. Hesse. Well, I can't speak for all other companies, Mr.
Chairman; I can speak for Sprint's point of view. I mean, we're
moving aggressively in this area, because it's just--it's good
business.
Number one, I think, customers like doing business with
companies that share the same values. And when you do the
research about what customers are looking for, I think that's--
you know, that's number one.
Number two, there has to be a good return on investment as
you invest in these new technologies. And we have found that to
be the case, in terms of reducing our energy expenses----
The Chairman. Let me just----
Mr. Hesse.--reducing paper----
The Chairman.--ask you----
Mr. Hesse.--expenses----
The Chairman.--to comment--and you could also--as you all
have--answer this question--To what degree is the pricing of
carbon a critical element of exciting that investment and
providing a certainty or a signal in the marketplace for people
to invest?
Mr. Hesse. Well, you know, we just do the--you know, the--
if you will, the financial analysis of what the capital costs
are, what the investments are. Because generally there's an up-
front investment to almost every green or new technology; and
then, of course, we compare it to the cost of carbon and the
cost of energy, and you figure out your payback. And it is very
much an economically driven decision.
The Chairman. But, you're seeing it as an--economically-
driven on the plus side?
Mr. Hesse. Yes, we are. We're seeing these as good
investments to make.
The Chairman. How----
Mr. Hesse. For----
The Chairman.--do you----
Mr. Hesse.--two reasons. It stimulates demand for our
products and it--number two, it reduces our costs.
The Chairman. And maybe you can help us just understand how
it pays to take back 19 million devices.
Mr. Hesse. Well, actually, because--the reason is because
there are valuable materials, as we mentioned--you know, even
though the Olympics only come along once every 4 years, there
are lots of other uses for the materials. And what we have
found is--what we have done historically is, when customers
return devices, a number of them, the phones----
The Chairman. We're not going to tell----
Mr. Hesse.--can be----
The Chairman.--the athletes that they are recycled.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. We're going to tell them that they're
innovatively produced.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Hesse. That's correct. But, a number of--one of the
reasons we take them back is, a number of phones can be put
back into the system and sold as ``used,'' either in the United
States or around the world, and that is good, in terms of
getting as much maximum life out of these devices as possible.
Other devices, they don't have a use in the market, but there
are materials, like gold and silver, that the value is in
excess of the cost--because there is a cost of environmentally
recycling this. And what we have done historically is, whatever
that difference is, we donate that additional profit to an
organization called For Net Safety, which keeps the Internet
safe for children. But, it still has not stimulated--you know,
``We'll take your phone,'' that hasn't stimulated enough return
or recycling of phones, and that's why we are now adding an
additional financial incentive to do that. But, net-net, there
is value in these devices, and it just makes no sense for
consumers to throw them away.
The Chairman. Does anybody else want to comment? And that's
my last question.
Mr. Tuck. You asked why we were falling behind to other
parts of the world, related to things like the smart grid, and
you talked about the size of the market. I don't think it is a
market yet. It's a great opportunity, but--I think the one
thing that the U.S. taught the world, in the telecoms market,
was that the role of government was to create a level playing
field and allow private companies to compete in the space, by
giving access to information and ensuring things like the price
of carbon. In our case, now the price of carbon is a well
understood thing. And neither of those things yet exist enough
to make this market move.
So, I can't compete in lots of places, because I don't have
access to data that I need of the systems. So, I don't need
money, I don't need a check from the government; I need a
marketplace. And, really, regulation can provide me with access
to consumers, with their permission, consumption information so
that I can provide innovative services to them to help them
save money. And I don't have that level playing field at this
point.
The Chairman. Senator Johanns.
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE JOHANNS,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEBRASKA
Senator Johanns. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
I want to compliment the panel. I have found this to be
very, very fascinating testimony.
Let me, if I might, zero in maybe a little more on the
micro level, Mr. Tuck. And I'm going to start with you, because
I want to understand what we can do, from a policy standpoint,
to follow up on your last comment.
Let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say that I own a
commercial building, or maybe I own just my home, and I want to
get a better idea of, minute by minute, how much energy is
consumed. You know, somewhere out there, there is a gas meter
and there is an electric meter, but, quite honestly, it doesn't
do me a lot of good. It does the utility company a lot of good,
because they send me a bill every month. How do I interface
with that so, literally, if I wanted to call this up on a
laptop or some other device, I could look at what's going on
with our energy use and try to get a handle on how better to
manage that? Tell me the impediments to making that happen
today.
Mr. Tuck. So--thank you, Senator. There are two parts to
that. One is technical and one is procedural.
The technological one is that about half the homes in North
America are already equipped with a meter that, with a very
simple piece of self-installed technology, you would be able to
get access to your gas, water, and electricity meter in your
home, and then view via a website or on a dedicated device or
on your smart phone. So, the other half of the homes need to be
fitted with something; and I don't know, you know, whether your
home would fit. But, the more important piece is that you don't
yet have rights to that information. And so, the ability to
access that information in realtime as a consumer of the energy
consumption in your home is not currently a right that's
afforded to you by all utilities. And so, getting clarity, at
the Federal level, about what the rights should be for
consumers to get access to that information, is critical.
Senator Johanns. Are the utilities against that?
Mr. Tuck. I don't think so, sir.
Senator Johanns. OK.
Mr. Tuck. The temptation here is to demonize the utility. I
don't think that's the case. I think they just have a lot on
their plate. Utilities do what regulators tell them to do, and
regulators haven't told them to do this yet.
Senator Johanns. How best would you go about accomplishing
that technical step, if you will?
Mr. Tuck. I think the technical piece of fitting homes with
smart meters is well underway. There's a NIST process, which
has defined a set of standards, and----
Senator Johanns. OK.
Mr. Tuck.--and the stimulus dollars are moving forward,
which will help get meters into people's homes. But, for the
people who already have them, or at least a type of meter that
would work, I think some sort of best-practices model that
States could follow would be an important piece of work that
could be done.
Senator Johanns. OK.
Mr. Chopra, let me ask you about the grid issue, because
that's a puzzling issue, I think, for everybody involved. And
yet, I think the Chairman makes a good point, that's kind of an
entry point for a lot of issues here.
What would it take to make that happen where we would have
better connectivity? For example I represent the State of
Nebraska. As you know, we're a 100-percent public power State.
It's worked well for our State. But, it's the only one in the
country, and sometimes we feel like, when the debates occur on
grid and smart grid, et cetera, that nobody connects with that
fact. Help me think through that. What steps are necessary to
create the smart grid that you always hear about?
Mr. Chopra. Well, I would say it starts with a set of data
standards and energy standards that would allow different
inputs, if you will--supplies--whether it be a solar panel on
your roof or a small micro plant, if you will, that can
commute--that can produce power for your neighborhood. How can
that supply connect into a system that can meet the needs of
your home, your neighborhood and ensure that the utility has
the right control systems in place so that the energy is
reliable in delivering a certain amount of output?
So, you need to understand how do you input energy to the
system. You then need a mechanism to transmit that energy. And
that's where I said earlier to the Chairman, the notion of
storage as one of the technological innovations that could be
helpful in enabling this so that if, for example, you have a
wind--a modest capability to capture wind, but it only--it's
only producing enough energy during certain times of the day,
which, by the way, don't coincide with the times of the day
when we're at peak demand.
Senator Johanns. Yes.
Mr. Chopra. So, having storage, an ability to capture that
energy, and then to be able to distribute that and use it when
there are otherwise periods of peak demand, that's an
innovation--a technological innovation that we need to work on
as a society. Storage helps on solar, wind, and almost all
nature of renewables. They all have the same need.
There's this information component, that Mr. Tuck so kindly
and thoughtfully described, which is, What is the standard by
which I should--do I want to log into
www.checkhereformyenergystatistics
.com?
Senator Johanns. Yes.
Mr. Chopra. That's probably a little silly, in the sense
that you wouldn't even know what to do with the long string of
numbers. Today, you and I get a bill once a month.
Senator Johanns. Yes.
Mr. Chopra. So, if there's a data standard--an open
standard, where an entrepreneur in your State knows the
protocol, can build an interesting application that can consume
that data that Mr. Tuck is going to help release through some
of his devices, then maybe someone comes up with an interesting
text-messaging system that alerts you, so you can make
judgments about your usage.
So, one of the challenges on smart grid is, we--it's
defined very broadly. There are policy barriers. I think the
Chairman very thoughtfully described this notion of: How do you
deal with the transmission issues across the country? There are
capital issues: How do we fund the equipment necessary to
produce the energy, to transmit it, and to manage the
information components of this? And there are a set of these
technological standards and technological innovations, as I
alluded to.
I hope that was moderately helpful.
Senator Johanns. It's helpful. My time is up, but I want to
wrap up with this thought. You know, we go through these
agonizing arm-wrestling debates on cap-and-trade et cetera, et
cetera, but it seems to me like there is so much potential
here, if we could just figure out how to bridge that. And you
know what? It's something that would get a tremendous amount of
support. We want to do more wind energy in Nebraska. We have a
lot of wind. The wind blows----
[Laughter.]
Senator Johanns.--the wind just--we see that as a great
potential and an opportunity, and we want to develop that.
We're big supporters of that. So, my hope is that maybe this
hearing spurs some discussion about some of those things. I see
this as kind of low hanging fruit, to be honest with you. And
it sure seems to me there has got to be a way to figure out
some of these issues. It really does have the potential to be a
win-win for a lot of people.
Mr. Chopra. Just rest assured, we would be very keen to
work with you on this issue. We deeply believe there's value
here to be unlocked, and the private sector has been a
phenomenal partner in driving innovations, here. So the
opportunity here is rich, and we would be keen to work
together.
Senator Johanns. Great.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Brownback.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate
that, and a good panel. I appreciate that, as well.
If I could just build on the wind comment, because we've
got a lot of it in Kansas----
[Laughter.]
Senator Brownback. We've got a new concept now, we call
``stranded wind.'' So, we now have wind farms that are built in
the western part of the State that we cannot get the wind
energy out of. Mr. Hesse, you guys are buying wind off of a
wind farm. Most of our transmission lines are built to take it
from, generally, power plants in the eastern part of the State,
and move it west. The wind farms are in the west, and there's
just not the capacity.
We're trying to get, through the Southwest power pool now,
a big V-line that has the 765 voltage, the big voltage to carry
the wind out, and we're getting mixed reviews from some of the
other States, on whether they want to help us to pay for this,
or not. They're saying, ``Well, look, we want to sell our wind.
We've got it, too.'' I understand. And they do. But, my point
in saying all this is that the transmission issue is critical
and you have been a big help on that.
We do have an energy bill that's out of committee, it's a
bipartisan bill, I think there were only five or six votes
against it; it has some transmission pieces in it, not as
robust as some would like. But, I hope we can get that to the
floor and move it, because transmission is the critical
component on this.
Mr. Hesse, how did you guys, you run off of wind power, how
do you get it there? Or did you just say, ``We're going to buy
so much wind off of this farm to help in the development of
that wind farm operation?''
Mr. Hesse. Well, I first have to give credit to my
predecessors at Sprint for making that decision when the Sprint
campus was built. We were one of the anchor tenants, working
with KCP&L to really justify their investment and build off
that wind farm.
But, what we're doing to take it further, we're testing
wind turbines on campus today to see if, in addition to
hydrogen fuel cells, we can use other technologies, like wind,
to power cell sites. Because our network really is--it's our
big use of power in our industry. It's not headquarters so
much. To run a network, to run servers, computers, cell sites,
and what have you, that--you know, that takes a lot of power
consumption. We're using solar--we're testing solar in places
like California that don't have as much wind, but may have more
sun. But, basically, just a very good--you know, very close
level of cooperation with our power company, KCP&L. And we
planned the building, if you will, of this wind farm, together
with other companies. We--you know, we came together to get it
built.
Senator Brownback. Because what I'm finding for a number of
wind developers, they have to have an anchor buyer----
Mr. Hesse. That's exactly----
Senator Brownback.--for the wind. But, if they can get
that, they'll build it, because they've got to be able to cover
their investment. I really appreciate you guys doing that.
Mr. Chopra, in the Ag sector, and Mr. Hesse held up his
phone; part of it's made out of corn. They've got a series of
different new products, and this is a movement that started 15
years ago. I remember a guy came in once, years ago, when I was
Ag Secretary in Kansas, and he had a skeet made out of
cornstarch. You know, that's kind of a simple little thing, but
it's normally petroleum-based. But what a great little simple
idea. It would be very easy to kind of double back with some of
these guys and say, ``What is it you want to do?'' Mr. Hesse, I
just had in my office some Johnson County Community College
people that want to build a green home in Johnson County, with
Pittsburgh State University. They've developed a foam rubber
that's used in Mustang cars now, it's made out of soy beans, so
it's recyclable; or if you get stuck in a snowstorm, it's
edible.
[Laughter.]
Senator Brownback. I'm not exactly sure about that, but
it's made out soy, anyway. But, they've got a green concrete
they're working on, and they want to build a green house,
literally ``green'' house in the area, and I thought it is a
great innovative idea, and yours would be a great company for
them to work with on this. And I hope that they can work with
you, and move that on forward.
Mr. Tuck, are you suggesting that you have a national piece
of legislation on the ``right to know''? Is that what it would
take, because I hear you saying that half the homes have this
information readily available, but they don't have a right to
get it.
Mr. Tuck. To be honest, sir, I'm not expert enough to know
where the policy needs to sit. I can just identify that
something needs to be done, because there are some States that
are moving ahead, and others that aren't. And what I hear from
State regulators is that, at a minimum, they'd like to see some
guidelines, some sort of best-practices template put together
that people could follow. I don't know if it extends all the
way through to national legislation.
Senator Brownback. But, you have three States that have
enacted legislation like this, if----
Mr. Tuck. Yes.
Senator Brownback.--I heard you right?
Mr. Tuck. Yes.
Senator Brownback. Is there a cost associated with that?
Mr. Tuck. I don't believe so, sir, no.
Senator Brownback. So that they've been able to do that,
and just that information has to be readily available to the
consumer.
Mr. Tuck. That's correct.
Senator Brownback. Those things have always impressed me,
that when I know what's going on and I react accordingly. One
of my daughters has a Prius car; and that dial, I'm always kind
of playing a game with it: How efficient can I be?
[Laughter.]
Senator Brownback. And then I can measure how much they've
been really going fast. I have daughters that drive
differently, and they get different performances out of those
cars. But, I think it's a good way for us to be able to go.
I really appreciate it, and particularly want to say the
Sprint company, Mr. Chairman, and others, have done an
outstanding job. They have the premier sporting facility in
Kansas City, the indoor sporting facility. They've done it in a
very ecologically sound fashion. The things that they do are, I
think, phenomenal, and I think they present a real case study
of how a company can step up and do the right things. It
doesn't cost more, and it actually creates markets to be able
to do that. I didn't realize the medals were recycled at the
Olympics; I appreciate understanding that.
I close on this comment. Years ago, I had a chance to carry
the bill for Congress to give Mother Teresa the Congressional
Gold Medal, and she and her group asked to recycle it and melt
it down, to sell the gold to give to poor. They were going to
do it in another fashion, and we said, ``Why don't you not do
that. Just auction it off, you'll get more money for it.'' But,
I think that's a really interesting way for us to highlight and
to showcase the great things that we can do that help us as a
society, costs nothing, and really show the right way.
Appreciate your leadership.
Thank you, Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Brownback.
Senator Klobuchar.
STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I've decided to stay away from wind, I learned long ago
that 20 States, including my own, claim themselves to be the
Saudi Arabia of wind.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. But, I thought I would focus more on
some of these energy efficiency issues and, really, first off,
the marketing piece of this, because I did a series of energy
efficiency forums across my State and found that we were doing
some interesting things. Some of--even some of our smaller
utilities--I mean, obviously, we're home of Excel, and we also
have 3M and Best Buy. We believe in giving consumers
information, and that they're going to make the right
decisions. But, one of the things I found was that some of the
experiments they'd done in certain neighborhoods, when
consumers found out how much their neighbors were expending,
that it got them more interested in saving that energy.
So, could--well, maybe you want to start, Mr. Chopra. Could
one or two of you just address that piece of this, how you get
people to see that it's not just the base price, but it's also
how much you can save in the future, and what's the best way to
do that.
Mr. Chopra. Senator, I just--I so concur with your view.
And frankly, we wanted to tap into the innovative spirit of the
American people. That is why we launched the Smart Grid Forum
today. We have a great deal of conversation that takes place in
Washington, but the premise was, How do we take this
conversation all across the country so that consumers,
suppliers, utilities, other stakeholders can share what they
want to see coming out of the data effort here, the consumer
access to that data, so that, basically, more and more of those
applications can thrive? I'd love the language Mr. Tuck used
about a ``marketplace.'' And there's a great deal we can do in
the here and the now to push. That's why this online forum over
the next several weeks is going to surface those ideas, allow
the American people to talk about which ones are more or less
intriguing. And frankly, the bottom line is, if we can tap into
the information--that's what the smart grid grants, in part,
are doing; they're putting resources into communities to
connect them to those modest technology capabilities to free
the data, if you will. And now, if we can start to get folks to
build innovative games or apps or other programs so that it
would help people--you know, I might be more interested in
looking at my neighbors' usage; someone else might be more
interested in a price signal; one might want to infer a price
signal, assuming we had a time-of-use pricing deployed. So,
there could be lots of motivations, and we just want a
marketplace that can grow off of the raw material----
Senator Klobuchar. OK.
Mr. Chopra.--which is the data.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. Anyone aware of what works
best with consumers to try to get them interested in this and
how to save money in their own households?
Ms. Wigle. One of the things----
Senator Klobuchar. Why----
Ms. Wigle. If I might. One of the things that we've
realized is, it's really important to engage consumers as they
evolve. So, a lot of utilities have done experiments where they
provide usage information--or energy usage information to
consumers. And what happens is, it's very, very interesting to
them for a couple of weeks, and then they lose interest in it.
So, what we believe is, you actually need to provide
solutions that can evolve as they are becoming more and more
mature with regard to their interaction with their usage. So,
it might start with just understanding it, but then being able
to take action, set policy, do comparisons, and set goals for
themselves. It would be really cool to have utility programs
that assign points when you are hitting your targets, and
actually introduce----
Senator Klobuchar. Yes----
Ms. Wigle.--an element of achievement.
Senator Klobuchar.--what they told me was just finding out
how much it costs you if you leave the lights on or if you
don't leave the lights on----
Ms. Wigle. Exactly.
Senator Klobuchar.--in your own home.
Ms. Wigle. Action oriented.
Mr. Tuck. So, we are very much involved in projects in
several states, when we did exactly that. We gave consumers the
ability to look at their own consumption in isolation and then
start to share information about themselves and see comparisons
of other people in 3,000-square-foot homes, and so on.
Senator Klobuchar. They like to compete with their
neighbors.
Mr. Tuck. Yes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Tuck. We found that that was the biggest driver. So, we
tested----
Senator Klobuchar. OK.
Mr. Tuck.--three drivers: saving money, saving the planet,
and beating your neighbors. And beating your neighbors trumped
everything else.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. Of course. I would have guessed it.
Ms. Winkler. Senator----
Senator Klobuchar. OK.
Ms. Winkler. Senator----
Senator Klobuchar. Yes.
Ms. Winkler.--I'd just like to add one thing, though. I
think it's important to recall the issue, also, of split
incentives. And so that while having--you know, turning your
energy down when you go to sleep at night or when you're away
from the home is very important, but a huge amount of saving
can come from investing in that, as well.
And we do have the problem that, a lot of cases, the
capital investment needs to be made by somebody other than
the----
Senator Klobuchar. I----
Ms. Winkler.--party----
Senator Klobuchar.--understand.
Ms. Winkler.--that's paying for the energy.
Senator Klobuchar. OK. And I'm--maybe I'll--you can--we can
correspond about this. I just want to move on to one other
topic. And that is e-waste. And I appreciated, Mr. Hesse, what
you said about the--recycling the cell phones. But, I have a
bill, actually, the Electronic Device Research and Development
Act, because we've seen this huge increase--2 billion
computers, televisions, wireless devices, printers, gaming
systems, and other devices have been sold since 1980,
generating 2 million tons of electronic devices. Best Buy has
worked on this, of getting incentives for people to bring back
theirs so it can be recycled.
I guess this one is for Mr. Chopra, just quickly. What do
you see as the future of this?
Mr. Chopra. Well it's--there are multiple dimensions. So,
there are communities where they've built programs, where
school districts will accept old computers, have the kids learn
how to refurbish those computers, and then make them available
to help them close the digital divide. That's not a
technological innovation as much a sort of an interesting
programming effort.
On innovations in materials and design, we continue to see
research and development, through a number of programs that we
fund in the National Science Foundation and others, to look at
next-generation information technologies. We have a
coordinating program called----
Senator Klobuchar. Right, and that's what this bill is
focused on trying to get that research----
Mr. Chopra. R&D.
Senator Klobuchar.--going so that we can develop
technologies that create less waste and can be more easily
recyclable.
Mr. Chopra. Well, as always, we'd be keen to work with
you----
Senator Klobuchar. OK.
Mr. Chopra.--on any and all of those ideas.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
One last thing, Mr. Hesse, I do appreciate the work that
Sprint is doing, but do remember, as much as we want to compete
on green and compete on new technologies, if people are locked
in on early termination----
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar.--you're not going to be able to compete,
because they're not going to be able to pick another product,
because of whatever desire they have, if they're locked in with
an outrageous early termination fee.
Mr. Hesse. Senator, if I might make a comment on that
point. Customers have a choice of--they can go prepaid--and
they have three choices with Sprint. They have Boost, Virgin,
or Assurance Wireless. And we believe we have the most
consumer-friendly pro-rated fees in the industry. And, as you
know, there are significant subsidies that come along with
these phones, and we don't want customers switching back and
forth too often, because it just adds to the e-waste problem or
issue.
One other thing I will say, what's called--in terms of the
question, Senator, you asked earlier--one of the advantages of
this industry is what's called dematerialization. So, I was
just talking to a few people walking in, they no longer carry
watches, calculators, alarm clocks, cameras, and other devices
because they're all included in here. So, that's one of the
other benefits of the wireless----
Senator Klobuchar. OK.
Mr. Hesse.--industry.
Senator Klobuchar. Very good. But, do remember, you could
do these fees, as long as they're prorated and as long as they
are--make sense with the difference between the actual cost and
the discount. And, as you know, I've been much more focused on
Verizon's fees lately. So, thank you very much.
Mr. Hesse. Well noted, Senator.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Senator DeMint.
STATEMENT OF HON. JIM DeMINT,
U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
Senator DeMint. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for
being late and missing a lot of the testimony, but I am very
interested in this.
I won't make you rehash a lot of what you've already talked
about. But, just on the energy efficiency front of how to use
technology communication, I'm just curious about the consumer
demand at this point. What are you seeing in the products
you're making, the concepts you're discussing? Do you sense
that consumers, on their own, are looking to buy, to use the
technologies that are available, and in development? Do you see
this as something where the market will actually drive more
innovation and development? Really any of you? What are you
seeing on the wireless front, Mr. Hesse?
Mr. Hesse. Well, we have been extremely pleased, Senator,
with the success of this particular device. But, the--you know,
the early research, when we launched it, told us that it was
risky. Consumers, at the end of the day--and in my comments
earlier, I talked about recycling--if there's a financial
incentive----
Senator DeMint. Right.
Mr. Hesse.--customers are very interested. That really
drives them. And the key to the success of this phone is that
we--Senator, is that we cut no corners. It's a full 3G phone,
full QWERTY, Blue---you know, stereo Bluetooth; it had to have
all the features and be at the same, or better, price
performance than the other products on the market. So, our
challenge is that consumers--when all things are equal,
consumers will go green. But, if it's more expensive or if the
consumer needs to give something up, we're still not at the
point--they're--of course, they're a small segment of the
consumer base that will be looking for green, but it's still a
fairly small segment. So----
Senator DeMint. So, we're at the early adopter stage,
really, in using a technology to reduce an energy footprint.
Mr. Hesse. Yes, Senator. But, what I will say is that
there--we in the industry--and one of the reasons that we've--
we announced, today, these design principles for the
manufacturers--we have the ability to lead the carriers, the
manufacturers by--there are a lot of technologies that we could
choose to deploy that would make devices both perform very well
and be at a good cost and be greener. So, I think there's an
opportunity for us just to show more leadership, as well. And
when you do that, consumers will buy it.
Senator DeMint. Any other thoughts on----
Mr. Tuck. Yes, Senator, I'd say that studies have shown
that there are sections of society that are willing to pay
quite a reasonable amount of money to put systems into their
homes in order to make them more efficient, but they are
dwarfed by the people who aren't. That said, what we're seeing
is, in our work with partners like GE, what we're able to do is
create new appliances, where the cost of the new appliance is
no more than the one that it would replace, and yet it's
significantly more energy efficient. So, fridges that can talk
to the grid and decide to make ice at night rather than during
the day, when there's plenty of wind around, and those kind of
things, are the kind of appliances where consumers will buy
them because they consume 30 to 50 percent less energy and
don't cost any more at the point where they replace their
appliances. But, it's not going to trigger them to go out and
swap their existing fridge.
Senator DeMint. All right.
Yes.
Ms. Winkler. I think it's--this also goes back to the issue
of information. The way it works today, when you get your
electricity bill--and you see what happened over last month--
you have no idea what the specific actions were that you took
that generated that. That linkage is nonexistent between your
behavior and the bill that you get.
Senator DeMint. Right.
Ms. Winkler. So, it's going to be the availability of
information that's going to allow consumers to act on that.
Senator DeMint. Yes.
Ms. Wigle. And I would also just add, with regard to
computers themselves, we see huge interest in energy
efficiency, particularly in two areas. One is data centers,
where often it's not the cost of the energy, it's the fact that
they're running out of power and cooling capacity in a
facility, so they're looking at having to build a whole new
data center if they can't get more energy efficient equipment.
The other is, we are--have been able to realize incredible
efficiency gains because of battery powered devices and
optimizing energy efficiency so we maximize battery life. And
we're able to take those technologies then and apply them to
other computing platforms, which is a very important area of
innovation.
Senator DeMint. That's very helpful.
Mr. Chopra. I'll just make one observation. Beyond the
consumer, the enterprises, whether it be government agencies or
companies, are increasingly incorporating, as part of their
requirements, energy efficient technology solutions when they
compete for certain activities. So, more and more of the
private sector is adopting principles to spur this activity.
The young lady at the end, on cloud computing, is an
example. More and more of organizations that are looking at
modernization in their information technology infrastructure
are essentially demanding solutions that have that energy
efficiency as part of the equation.
Senator DeMint. That's encouraging.
Again, thank you all for your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator DeMint.
Mr. Tuck, before we sort of wrap up here--a number of you,
I want to try to clarify a few things. First of all, your
company, is it highly focused on, or exclusively focused on,
the relationship between the home and the energy provider? Is
that the information that your--or----
Mr. Tuck. Sir, it has been, up until now. We believe that
that variable pricing is coming to the electricity market, and
that's going to be a big driver of consumer change. So,
people's appliances will move. We do intend, this year, to
market test with our partners, such as Best Buy, models where
the consumer can buy energy efficiency technology from us,
independent of the utility, to understand what the likely
takeup of that technology will be. But, up until now, it's been
solely through the utility.
The Chairman. And are you looking at, sort of, home
management in a home-contained system that would control
various appliances and different things within the home, or
not?
Mr. Tuck. We are, sir. We're working with appliance
manufacturers to make sure their new appliances are compatible
with our system and the grid's--the standards that NIST is
bringing out. But, we're starting by focusing on the
thermostats. So, the thermostat consumes about 40 percent of
the energy in a typical home in North America. And we believe
that, essentially, the thermostat is in the same place that the
VCR was; nobody knows how to program it. And----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Tuck.--and, if we can do to the thermostat what TiVo
did to the VCR--make it very, very simple and intuitive for
people to understand it--we can see dramatic savings from that,
and it will have a significant impact on a homeowner's
consumption.
The Chairman. Boy, the simpler you can make it. Menu-
driven.
Mr. Tuck. Yes.
The Chairman. It makes a difference.
Decoupling, I assume, is pretty critical. I mean, if we--
you know, we have this absurdity where the more you--energy you
use, the more you--you know, we just don't have the right
incentive in the system. I assume you would all agree that we
could take a step to try to build the proper incentive into the
system. Is that correct?
Mr. Tuck. That is correct, sir, yes. I think that's right.
I think that the biggest impedance to roll out is the fact that
utilities don't really have a business model yet, in many
States, in order to continue to support their shareholders and
meet the national priorities associated----
The Chairman. So, if----
Mr. Tuck.--with them.
The Chairman.--they could actually earn money by using less
energy, it would be effective.
Mr. Tuck. It would be effective, sir, yes.
The Chairman. Right.
Ms. Wigle you, in your testimony, talk about energy
efficiency measures in not only effective, but, in many cases,
have, quote, ``negative marginal cost,'' meaning they create
wealth for society overall. Can you just sort of fill that out
for the Committee a little bit?
Ms. Wigle. Yes. The observation is, actually, by making the
investment, we save money. It's--you know, sometimes we use the
trite expression of ``doing well by doing good.'' But, if you
look at things like smart buildings, as an example, making that
up-front investment, if you look holistically at the lifecycle
of the building, we actually realize economic benefit.
The Chairman. You know--so, that strikes me--I mean, the
level--McKinsey & Company has done an analysis--I think they
call it the carbon cost abatement curve--and they begin----
Ms. Wigle. That's right.
The Chairman.--with the least, sort of, thing to do--a
light bulb, whatever--and they progress through all the
complicated things that we can consider. The first 20 or 30
years of the reduction of emissions in the United States
actually pay for themselves.
Ms. Wigle. That's right.
The Chairman. They're free, because of the efficiencies
that you get when you put them in place. I know companies,
Hewlett Packard, IBM, Cisco Systems--I mean, you could run a
list--Dupont, Dow Chemical--all of them have reduced their
emissions already--10, 20, 30, 50 percent, in some cases--and
they're making money doing it.
Ms. Wigle. And growing.
The Chairman. And growing. And growing globally. Why are
we--have such trouble getting people to understand this? I
mean, here we are, falling behind China, India, South Korea,
Germany, France, other countries. We're--we need to kick our
economy into gear, and we have this--sort of, excuse me, but
kind of knee- jerk, somewhat ideological resistance to the
notion that moving in this direction with the right incentive
is somehow going to upset the apple cart. Do any of you believe
it is? Why are we having this problem, in your judgment,
getting people to understand the economic benefit of what so
many companies are understanding for themselves?
Mr. Tuck. I think, at the residential level, people don't
have the information, sir. I think that's the challenge.
The Chairman. Well, what about at the corporate level? I'm
talking----
Mr. Tuck. Right.
The Chairman.--smart corporate leaders. I mean, there's a
reason Lou Hay, down at Florida Power & Light, and there's a
reason that, you know, General Electric, Jeff Immelt, is moving
in these directions, right? Why don't more people see----
I'll give you an example. You know, because I am New
England trained, I was walking around this building during the
snowstorm when nobody was here. The escalators were turning 24/
7, just burning. Nobody was on them. You go to Europe, you go
to Asia, that doesn't happen. They have an infrared light, it
shuts off when nobody's on it, saves energy. We are the most
profligate energy wasters in world, are we not? Why, still?
Ms. Wigle. Well, I think part it comes to norms and
behavior. We talked a little bit about that in the setting of
the home. I mean, today the societal norms don't value energy
efficiency. And that's something that we need to work on over
time, to showcase companies--and I would actually put Intel in
the list of companies you listed who have embraced energy
efficiency, reducing----
The Chairman. Intel----
Ms. Wigle.--our----
The Chairman.--was one, correct.
Ms. Wigle.--our CO2 emissions, our footprint
overall while we grow, and setting those goals. I mentioned in
my testimony, both verbal and written, you know, the idea of
laying out a national roadmap. You know, I think that the
government could do some things to put the framework in place,
put goals in place. One of the things that we did with the
nonprofit that I lead--Climate Savers Computing Initiative--is,
we took a goal, of reducing CO2 emissions from
computing by very specific amount of 54 million tons, and then
we're measuring ourselves against that. You know, we need to do
that across some sectors, and make those--the progress toward
those goals visible. I think that could help a lot.
The Chairman. Now, if you----
Ms. Wigle. But----
The Chairman.--have done that, and you had met a goal that
had been set by the government, let's say, of what you ought to
reduce, and you'd more than met the goal, would you like to be
able to sell your surplus to someone else who needs it?
Ms. Wigle. Of course.
The Chairman. Would any of you want to refuse that option?
[No Response.]
The Chairman. Makes sense, doesn't it? I think it's called
capitalism.
Yes. Ms.----
Ms. Winkler. Well, I just want to add--you know, you said
that much energy efficiency is free--I want to add that it's
often actually a driver of productivity. So, a very simple case
that was mentioned earlier by Mr. Chopra about--if we talk
about teleworking or virtual meetings, for example--that
actually not only, you know, saves money and saves emissions
and saves energy, but also gives us more time to be more
productive.
I do think that there's an element of leadership, that we
want to highlight the companies here. I also believe that EMC
is a leader in this space and would like--highlight them
further, but also the Federal Government can do, as well. If we
look at the data centers, for example, the home of some 1,100
data centers, there's a lot of----
Voice. 1,200.
Ms. Winkler.--opportunity to stand up and show--1,200,
excuse me----
[Laughter.]
Ms. Winkler.--wow, it grew a hundred--and stand up and
really show----
The Chairman. Let----
Ms. Winkler.--through----
The Chairman.--me ask you a question. How long has EMC had
a chief sustainability officer?
Ms. Winkler. Eighteen months. But, we have had very
aggressive energy efficiency programs in place since--pretty
much since 1997.
The Chairman. Well, I'm a--I congratulate you on it. I
mean, I don't think that, a number of years ago, we'd have had
a company with a chief sustainability officer. I think it's a
terrific concept.
Share with us a little bit more how EMC is providing either
the clean energy jobs or information that's helping people to
reduce their energy use?
Ms. Winkler. Well, the way we look at our impact or our
role in the world, we look first in our own operation,
obviously. So, reducing energy consumption, reducing emissions
from everything we do within the facility, and, beyond, that
through our entire value chain, so working with our suppliers.
But, where we believe, and where we know, we have the biggest
impact is helping our customers reduce energy consumption in
their data centers and beyond, in their businesses.
We're actually investing, more than we ever have
historically, in research and development in the areas, for
example, of cloud computing--in particular, of cloud computing.
Which is really----
The Chairman. Explain cloud----
Ms. Winkler.--the next----
The Chairman.--computing to the layperson.
Ms. Winkler. Cloud computing is, effectively, where you
have pooled resources so that you can very dynamically access
the resources that are needed and then make them available for
other use. Cloud computing can occur within a data center or
within an IT infrastructure, such as the Federal IT
infrastructure, that allows you to share those resources when
they're needed, but still retain the control, still retain the
security, still retain the trust that people expect to have
from their own data center. And through our investment in that,
we are in R&D, which is largely through engineers. We have a
huge, and growing, engineering population, over 8,000 of whom
are, in fact, in our home State, and as well in our services
organization, which is working with our customers to help them
then get energy efficiency in their data centers and their
businesses, and turn those investments to growing their
businesses instead of paying for electricity.
The Chairman. Mr. Hesse, share with us a sense of how
Fortune 500 companies and large Federal agencies are, sort of,
keeping up with the demand for information services today, or
for--as a provider of information services, what's your sense
of the demand curve?
Mr. Hesse. Well, the demand curve for--if we were to use
data usage on wireless networks as a proxy for the demand for
information services, because--when we would talk about
information to one person, it's information; to another person,
it might be entertainment. But, it is growing at an
unprecedented rate, and it will continue to grow at even a
faster and faster rate. And that's why we're working with the
FCC and the government, as well as, you know, the marketplace
to bring 4G services, fourth generation.
And actually, you know, if you take a look at wireless
technology--and we're talking about where the U.S. is with
respect to the rest of world in energy efficiency--in wireless
technology--you know, wireless was invented in the United
States. In what was called first generation or analog, we were
the leaders. In second generation, which is digital, which made
text messaging possible, Europe became the leader. In third
generation, which is, kind of, high-speed data--not super fast,
not quite as fast as your cable modem, but fast enough--that's
3G, that's kind of the market today--Asia, in essence, became
the first and the leader. In 4G, the U.S. has the opportunity
to be first again.
And in terms of the utilization of mobile technology, not
only for commuting, but GPS, location-based services, all sorts
of information that can be transferred to these devices--the
reading of the meters--smart meters, smart grid could be done
over wireless networks so you don't need technicians, you don't
need truck rolls. The opportunity for this industry to use
information, and the information that will be increasing and go
over wireless networks, to improve our carbon footprint is
enormous.
The Chairman. You mentioned 3G/4G. I thought I might ask
you to play referee and tell us whether Luke Wilson is telling
the truth about the----
[Laughing.]
Mr. Hesse. I'm sorry, I missed that----
[Laughing.]
Mr. Hesse.--the end of it.
Mr. Chopra. The ads that Verizon----
Mr. Hesse. Oh.
The Chairman. You can't have missed the ad.
Mr. Hesse. Yes, I love them. We're just ducking underneath
the fire of that one.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Senator DeMint, do you have any more
questions?
Senator DeMint. No, sir.
The Chairman. We're going to leave the record open for--til
the end of the week, in case other colleagues want to try to
submit some questions.
Is there any--let me ask you one last question before I do
that. What are--give me, sort of, your one, two, three--or one
or two or whatever it is--priority that we have to do soon--and
sooner rather than later--to empower this transformation? What
do we need to do? What are the government policies that would
make the greatest differences to each of you?
Why don't we leave you, Mr. Chopra, to respond at the end.
Why don't you begin, Ms. Winkler?
Ms. Winkler. OK. Certainly I would say the promotion of
broadband, which you spoke about at the beginning. We really
need to extend broadband, which is in addition to wireless and
infrastructure that's going enable all of this. And
particularly--and I think Ms. Wigle brought this up, which is
building a national roadmap or national strategy so that we can
educate the rest of the Federal Government, as well as private
industry, on how they can harness energy efficiency.
The Chairman. OK.
Ms. Wigle. Yes. I would echo those two, and maybe elaborate
the second one a little bit, in terms of having clear metrics,
being able to measure the progress that we're making, and
making that very visible, because that goes to changing
attitudes and behaviors.
The Chairman. Mr. Tuck.
Mr. Tuck. Open access to energy information, a blueprint
for utilities to make money in an energy efficient world, and
an encouragement of time-of-use-type pricing, variable pricing,
as a model, going forward.
The Chairman. Mr. Hesse.
Mr. Hesse. Mr. Chairman, I would echo broadband as being
important. The second, I give the government credit for, in the
Economic Recovery Act, which I mentioned earlier, providing
grants--the Department of Energy--in areas that will allow us
to mitigate the very large investment cost to--and research
cost--associated with researching and deploying new forms of
energy efficient technology. So, the DOE grants have been very
helpful.
Mr. Chopra. Mr. Chairman----
The Chairman. Do you want respond to any of those?
Mr. Chopra. Just to the--all of the ideas that were
referenced were very, very bullish on opportunities. And we
clearly look forward to working with you on establishing the
policy framework to unlock this really huge job creation
potential, investment potential. And so, we look forward----
The Chairman. Well, we----
Mr. Chopra.--to working you, sir.
The Chairman.--really appreciate that. And we sure want to
do it. I think we're very committed to that, and the
Committee's going to work hard to see how we can accelerate it,
and work with the Administration to do that.
A huge future out there, and a lot competition, a lot of
hungry people in other countries, so we need to get our act
together. And I hope we will, rapidly.
We're very grateful to all of you for taking time to be
here today. Thank you very, very much.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:26 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]