Sven is internationally renowned for his research and findings in Renewable Energy as an alternative to carbon-based energy sources. He is an engineer with more than 10 years' experience in Renewable Energy Technologies. Sven is currently drafting a report on ER solutions for the IPCC, articulating the way forward. His report encompasses ER solutions, technology, finance and policy.

Sven was in Bangalore recently. Prashanth Hebbar from CIOL caught up with him to talk about green IT and energy revolution. Excerpts:

CIOL: What specific areas can IT be leading in energy conservation efforts?

Sven: There are three different parts: one is sort of working within the energy efficiency sector to optimize processes, logistical processes, and to optimize manufacturing to save resources and energy.

Secondly, the IT sector desperately needs to manage the energy supply for the future because we are not talking about one power plant of, say, a 1,000-megawatt output to supply a big city. We are talking about a thousand power plants or even more, and they need to be interconnected as one power plant. There are two different ways of connecting them – one is, of course, physically by cables and we presently have this connection in between houses already.

What we need to do is optimize this connection. On top of that, a software which connects all those different demand curves with the production curve and weather forecast. The latter is a very important mechanism as it tells you the heating and cooling demands in advance. For example, in Bangalore over 48 hours, you have 35 degrees during noon, you know that there the air conditioning energy needed is fairly high and cooling demand is higher. Conversely, you have a rainy day and the temperature is hovering around just 20 degrees and hence, the cooling demand is lower. You know that with a good weather forecast several days ahead.

On the other side, you have solar radiation and wind speed. If you know the wind speed some 48 hours in advance, then you have to combine those different informations - where is the demand curve, the possible demand curve, and what is the production curve. Production curve viz fluctuating sources like wind and solar and how we mix that with more or less stable sources like biomass co-generation or generation due to thermal, solar thermal power plants or other sources.

So, basically, you have to do this dispatching and reading. This actually happens right now and will increase enormously. On top of that, there are different production times. Let's say you have high cooling demands on sunny days but you also have a high output on your solar panels. Very sophisticated markets like Europe and the US, and probably all over Asia in future, will have different terraces with different times. Basically, you need to resort to smart combinations of production and demand and this is basically a huge new area for IT.

CIOL: What happens in typically Indian companies is we try to replicate western climactic conditions. We erect glass buildings and then air-condition the whole thing. Why can't we look at dust-filtering technologies or innovative uses of building architecture and air-conditioning. Have you put any thoughts on this?

Sven: In this context, the problem is that some, especially international companies, have their same building designs replicated everywhere. They build it in Colorado in the mountains where it is cold for six months and replicate it in the tropic. That does not make sense.

I think we should combine modern technology like IT with traditional knowledge on housing because if you look at the traditional architecture, almost all countries around the world have their own style of building and that was always related to availability of the material in the region and secondly to the climate zone. Why can't we combine those two and add the weather forecast where you know what you have to do instead of making a bit better? This way, you can actually save a lot of energy. It is very innovative for the new industry, and last but not least, they will probably look nicer.

CIOL: Look at the massive data centers coming up. A lot of green initiatives are also being initiated. Do you see any technology or have you been discussing with any organization where servers can consume less power than they are now? That would be a leap-frog in going green.

Sven: We have got some information from different manufacturers that they could actually do this but nobody is really demanding it. So there is no real market demand. I think this is a great chance to initiate a conservative action where we have global standards and efficiency standards at the same time and the IT sector can actually deliver those servers. They have a new market and as I learned from our own IT department, we are also exchanging our servers every third of fourth year or so. So there is an exchange happening anyway.

With this normal exchange rate, you can actually phase in quite a lot of efficient servers rather quickly. We are not recommending to throw away the old servers just because of the energy demand but if you have to replace them anyway, it should be an efficient server with a huge potential because they have also base load demand 24x7. So you cannot manage them really.

CIOL: So you brought up a very important point that there is no demand out there. What do you think will be the roadblock you will face while talking to any of the companies?

Sven: What I am asking for is improved technical standards to increase efficiency. Because this can drive innovation without being cost-intensive. For example, there are programs in Europe where the utility pays you a 100 Euros if you buy a more energy-efficient washing machine. In Japan too, they have a top running model which means that the best equipment defines the standards and the worst is pushed out of the market. In other words, if a certain laptop needs 50 Watts and another consumes only 20 Watts, then 20 Watts becomes the standard within two or three years and the 50-Watt model would not be allowed into the market anymore.

CIOL: That is forced obsolescence.

Sven: Yeah, basically it is competition and if you know your competitor has a very unofficial model, you can actually push it out of the market by bringing something more efficient.