In 2008, Texas Instruments (TI) saved $5.1 million through reducing energy use by 5% and water consumption by over 7%. As a result, TI reduced its worldwide carbon footprint to 2.07 million metric tons of CO2, which represents a 2.8% reduction in the company’s worldwide carbon footprint.

The company’s 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Report outlines the 159 distinct initiatives that were undertaken to realize the company-wide savings. Entitled, “Building a Better Future,” the new report organizes the company’s environmental performance into eight categories including air quality, climate change, energy use, alternative transportation, water use, materials usage & recycling, sustainable site policies and principles.

However, the most captivating elements of the report are the environmental performance highlights.

2008 indicators of success at Texas instruments include but are not limited to:
• Reduced total energy use by 5% from 2007.
• Reduced total water use by 7.3%.
• Recycled 1.4 billion U.S. gallons of water (16% of the company’s global water use).
• Recycled 88% of non-industrial waste.
• Recycled 91% of total waste.
• Constructed the first LEED Silver certified building in the Philippines.
• Set a goal of being LEED certified at all of their major existing buildings globally by 2011.

Of the 159 initiatives that TI embarked upon to accomplish these savings, the key projects include:
• A well-water cooling system in Germany, which leverages an underground aquifer to balance the site’s heating and cooling system. This system alone saved TI roughly $1 million in energy savings and reductions in annual water consumption by nearly 33 million gallons.
• Reusing 228 million gallons of water at a North Texas facility to scrub manufacturing exhaust enabled a savings of $937,000.
• In some instances, TI cut energy costs in half through targeting energy-intensive chillers and vacuum pumps and replacing the targeted system components with more efficient machinery and parts.
• TI avoided a 14% rise in employee commuting-related CO2 emissions through increasing the use of employee carpooling systems, mass transit and onsite shuttles.

Despite these accomplishments, the company still faces challenges in the years to come. The latest report identifies the challenges ahead, which include increased operating costs from greater regulatory assessments. Specifically, the company is concerned that increased regulations may result in a market in which necessary replacement materials for semiconductor manufacturing either won’t be available at cost-effective prices or, the materials won’t be available at all.

TI is currently exploring renewable energy sources and efficiency strategies as a means of determining a clear path to remaining profitable in a low-carbon economy. Given the company’s ability to achieve such significant savings in 2008 is a clear indicator that despite whatever challenges may lie ahead, the company is well-poised to create innovative and cost-effective solutions to maintaining it’s status as an industry leader while also reducing the environmental impact of doing business.

The field of competitors within the emerging field of energy management software now includes Microsoft. Earlier this week Microsoft launched Hohm, a home energy management application that delivers appliance specific energy consumption data to users through a web interface. The intention behind Hohm is to enable consumers to gauge their electricity usage and determine strategies for reducing consumption.

Microsoft’s entrance into the field comes only one month after Google released similar software, known as PowerMeter. Hohm is being launched with four utility partners including Puget Sound Energy, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Seattle City Light and Xcel Energy. At this time, it’s unclear as to whether or not Microsoft intends to deliver a similar offering for enterprise customers. What is certain is that Microsoft believes in the pivotal role that technology will play in addressing energy issues.

Detailed, fine-grain tracking capabilities of Hohm will only be available to residential customers who have opted into the program with Microsoft’s initial four utility partners. However, other U.S. consumers can use Hohm to gauge the efficiency of their homes and appliances. With a specific emphasis on heaters, air conditioners and lighting, the data behind the software was licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Department of Energy. Leveraging this data, users will also be able to estimate the overall CO2 emissions associated with their energy usage. To accomplish this, the Hohm backend examines the makeup of generation sources that service the customer’s region.

A key feature of the new offering is that in addition to delivering near-real time usage information, it also provides users with actionable strategies and recommendations for adjusting energy practices that save money and reduce environmental impacts.

Microsoft intends to expand the reach of this new application and is pursuing partnerships with a half dozen other utilities that they expect to sign on by the end of 2009. Although most utilities are just beginning their implementation of smart meters, there’s already a heated competition among companies to be the leading providers of the interface that communicates the energy usage data.

Hohm, however, has had a rocky start. Beta users who signed up this week have complained about being unable to log into the service and that they’re receiving internal server error messages. Microsoft is aware of the issues and is working on fixing problems caused by issues ranging from postal code discrepancies to incompatibilities among browser languages. Other users have complained that some of the manual data entry required is too laborious and that what’s really needed is a more automated system for capturing historical data.

Perhaps Microsoft was not quite ready to launch Hohm and, perhaps, they launched early as an attempt to keep pace with Google. Either way, consumers can rest assured that Microsoft will fix the known problems and that the evolution of home energy management software is now another arena in which Microsoft and Google’s fierce competition will drive innovation.

A major new player in the energy management software arena named, Hara began selling their software-as-a-service offering on Monday. With a $6 million investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Hara has launched with a promise to enable customers to reduce the cost of doing business through monitoring and managing their consumption of natural resources.

Started by alumni of SAP and Oracle, Hara launched with a number of municipal and corporate customers already on board, including Coca Cola Co. and the city of Palo Alto. Whether it’s through a cap-and-trade regime or a direct tax, if congress passes legislation to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, businesses will need this exact type of enterprise software for managing their carbon emissions.

Based out of Menlo Park, California, Hara’s software calculates how much energy and water a company is consuming as well as how much carbon and other waste are being generated. The customer is able to realize financial savings through acting upon the forecasting data that Hara’s software provides. Tracking progress towards goals, creating an audit trail and developing an environmental record are added benefits of Hara’s new energy management software.

The city of Palo Alto has been using all four available modules in Hara’s software and now expects to save roughly $600,000 per year through reductions in gas and electricity consumption. Although software pricing is not available at this time, the city of Palo Alto has indicated that they paid $24,000 for their annual subscription.

Through a pilot project, Coca-Cola has been working with Hara to leverage their software tools for tracking the greenhouse gas emissions for 1,000 facilities throughout the world. It is believed that the use of Hara’s software influenced Coca-Cola’s cost-driven decision to replace crude oil with natural gas at it’s facilities in South Africa. The Hara software has also been supporting Coca-Cola’s U.S. based work to revamp their lighting systems.

Although Hara has launched with an impressive offering, this is an already competitive space that is quickly gaining traction. Hara has plenty of competitors in this space including, ClearStandards, Adura Technologies and Enviance (there’s many others). Additionally, Cisco, IBM and SAP have all indicated plans to support enterprise solutions for energy and resource consumption accounting.

Despite the competition, a demanding market is growing. The likely passage of legislation, which places a price on carbon emissions, indicates that a company like Hara has an exciting future that we should all pay close attention to in the coming months.

Earlier this year, Google announced the development of a gadget called Google PowerMeter which delivers personal electricity usage data to consumers on their individual computers. This effort took a big step forward on Wednesday of this week when Google announced a list of eight initial electric utilities that will serve as partners.

United by a common interest in connecting their customers with personal consumption data, the diverse list of partners includes utilities from India, Canada and the United States. The partnering utilities range in size from small providers to ones with millions of customers.

The full list of partnering utilities is as follows:
* San Diego Gas & Electric® (California)
* TXU Energy (Texas)
* JEA (Florida)
* Reliance Energy (India)
* Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (Wisconsin)
* White River Valley Electric Cooperative (Missouri)
* Toronto Hydro–Electric System Limited (Canada)
* Glasgow EPB (Kentucky)

One of the larger utilities, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has been partnering with Google throughout the past year and now has plans to install over 200,000 smart meters this year. By 2011, SDG&E estimates that they will have their entire territory of 1.4 million customers equipped with smart meters. According to a New York Times post, San Diego Gas & Electric has indicated that their smart meter customers should be able to access their energy usage data via the Google PowerMeter before the end of this year.

Google is not the only tech company working hard to bring energy data to customers via the Internet. As a smart energy grid evolves, so will energy management applications the applications that deliver usage data into the hands of the customers. By doing so, it is estimated that customers can reduce their energy usage by 5% – 10%.

In addition to listing the eight utility partners, Google also announced their partnership with smart meter maker, Itron. Although Google and others in the field of home energy management have discussed whether or not they actually require partnerships with utilities and smart meters in order to deliver these data services, it certainly helps Google’s efforts to have solidified the partnerships. The Google partnership is helping Itron as well, as indicated by Itron shares being up about 3.7% on Wednesday.

There a number of players in this field and more will emerge as partnerships such as these are formed. However, as usual, Google appears to be taking the lead.

China’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Environmental Protection have requested research from a regional think-tank to develop preliminary proposals for a national carbon tax. The proposals, which are due for publication within the month, may one day become a part of the Chinese government’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

International governments have pressed Beijing to implement legislation to curtail their carbon dioxide emissions and the Chinese response has typically been a call for rich countries to lead by example in the development of CO2 regulation schemes. With the possibility of a US cap-and-trade regime being approved later this year, the Chinese government’s request for research on carbon tax policies may indicate that China will head off in it’s own direction.

Devising an agreement on an appropriate taxation cost for carbon is complex, as it is affected by a number of uncontrollable variables. Preliminary research by the World Bank and the Dutch and British governments has come up with a range of $70 to $280 per ton of CO2. Certainly, further research is necessary to refine the range of taxation and more importantly, to devise one that is appropriate to the practices and scale of a country as large as China.

Revenue from a carbon tax in China represents a significant financial stream when you consider that China is the world’s largest source of CO2 with roughly 80% of its electricity being generated by coal-fired power plants. China has a population of 1.3 billion people and the country produces roughly four metric tons of GHG emissions per person. Although China’s total emission count now exceeds that of the US, the US averages about 20 metric tons of GHG emissions per person.

The question remains, what is driving Chinese interest in pursuing the possibility of a carbon tax policy when for years, they have adamantly declared that developed nations who have caused the climate crisis should lead the way in mitigating climate change? It seems apparent that developed nations are now heading in the direction of a cap-and-trade regime versus a carbon tax. Perhaps, the Chinese government views a cap-and –trade system as being overly laborious on the regulation side. Or, perhaps China is making preparations in advance of the December climate talks in Copenhagen.

However, the more likely motivation is that China strives to become a leading nation in the reduction of carbon emissions.

With the increasing likelihood of a federally mandated system for regulating carbon emissions (aka “cap and trade”), it is becoming apparent that businesses will soon be required to implement accounting measures to report on their emissions of greenhouse gases. A cornerstone measurement to be required in this process will be the consumption of services and products that require the use of fossil fuels.

This type of consumption tracking is entirely new to many businesses and consumers. Steps taken now to develop in-house capabilities or forming outside partnerships to account for carbon emissions will ensure the long-term success of your organization assuming the new laws come into place.

Web-based consumption calculation has evolved since it first hit the scenes in 2006 in the form of carbon calculators. Traditionally, carbon calculators factored in annual data from numbers of miles driven, number of flights taken, number of household members and the average cost of monthly utilities. Today, we are seeing an emerging trend in online consumption calculation in which advanced calculations are taking place behind the scenes to provide a more robust measurement of the energy consumed to fuel our lifestyles.

Specifically, we see the units of measurement migrating from tons of carbon emitted per year to watts per person. A significant emerging trend that we are seeing in the online calculators is the functionality for business and consumers to create online profiles that store their data, which enables long-term monitoring and assessment, supporting the user in their efforts to reduce consumption. Forum applications on these sites provide businesses with a critical avenue for communication with an audience of new and existing customers.

Some of the leading applications for online calculation of consumption include WattzOn, The Almanac and Wattbot. For an emerging energy assessment tool with enterprise applications, be sure to keep your eye on the work of AMEE.

WattzOn: This free online tool is intended to be used for tracking the energy needs of all the many aspects of your lifestyle. From iPods to rolls of toilet paper, Wattzon provides a novel and detailed presentation of your total energy consumption.

The Almanac: Still in it’s beta stage, The Almanac enables users to record consumption and provides a snapshot of their energy footprint along with recommendations for reducing the environmental impact of your lifestyle.

Wattbot: Through combining an analysis of energy usage and recommended strategies for the adoption of renewable energy resources, Wattbot is a one-stop online shop which connects businesses and consumers with cost saving strategies that also reduce the environmental impact of doing business.

AMEE: Although they are more about enterprise solutions for mapping, measuring and tracking carbon and energy usage, AMEE provides a powerful API that businesses can leverage to develop and deliver their own online consumption calculators for customers and internal systems.

San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy just brought distributed solar generation closer to a large scale with their acquisition of a 350 MW solar project pipeline from UPC Solar. The recent acquisition represents a significant milestone in Recurrent’s focus on smaller utility-scale assets across the Continental US, Hawaii and Canada. Read more about this exciting development.

A quick link to a recent NYTimes article on municipal financing for residential renewable energy infrastructures:
Harnessing the Sun, With Help From Cities

GE’s amazing application renders a 3D digital hologram of smart grid technology right in your hands. There are a variety of amazing opportunities for leveraging this type of a tool to shape the public’s visualization of what a world would look like if we embraced renewable energy resources.

Identifying cost savings opportunities, ensuring long-term competitiveness, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are all benefits of evaluating a company’s energy usage.

In order to identify the cost savings opportunities that investing in energy efficiencies provide, a company must first analyze the energy flows and consumption patterns of electricity and gas.   Efficiency strategies are typically low-risk, high-payback measures that can free substantial amounts of money for more lucrative investments.  With payback periods as short as a fiscal quarter, companies can realize immediate improvements to their bottom line through reducing energy related operating costs such as lighting, HVAC, office equipment, water heating and vehicles.

Increased costs of electricity generation, volatile natural gas prices and a growing demand for energy are signs that future costs of doing business will rise. Improving the efficiency of energy usage enables the long-term viability of a company through reducing the current and future operating cost structure of the company.  Improved energy efficiency also enhances industrial productivity metrics such as product output, production reliability and improved working conditions.

The rising threat of global climate change due to increased GHG emissions such as carbon dioxide provides the basis for the likelihood of a GHG emissions regulatory structure which will impact the finances of a company.  A cap and trade scheme will create opportunities for companies to generate revenue through the sale of credits accumulated by reductions in GHG emissions.  Alternatively, a carbon tax scheme will require that companies minimize their emissions in order to maintain financially sustainable operating costs.