Info tech meets energy tech (images)

[vis~as]

Many people in the information technology business wonder if there's a Moore's Law for green technology--a way to rapidly speed up innovation and product performance. Clean-energy-related technologies do indeed improve with more investment in research and higher deployment. But the pace of change is much longer in energy because of the size of the industry, the money required to launch new technologies, and the dependence on government policies, which tend to move slowly.

Even with those big differences between IT and energy, the large IT and Web companies have been moving into different corners of energy, either investing directly in renewable energy or trying to develop products for sale to improve energy efficiency.

Intel is developing smart-grid technology to make the grid more efficient. Here is a prototype of a home energy control and management panel, where a person can monitor electricity consumption in detail, control networked appliances, and schedule heating and cooling. Intel, which released a reference design for the panel in October, is also trying to sell its chips to other companies making home energy management gadgets.

Photo by IDEO-Nicolas Zurcher

Caption by Martin LaMonica





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