The Utility and Energy industry is one space where "Green IT" is really creating "Green" end results in terms of customer usage and efficiencies. We have had utility customers for years solving software integration problems at the service- and message bus level, better validating and testing customer provisioning and billing apps. So that makes for some traditional software efficiencies.
But what are some of today's more unique challenges where we can apply the entire concept of Service Virtualization - to remove resource costs and constraints - and make the software development lifecycle "Greener" by creating efficiencies at the very source of our power?
Article in IBM developerWorks Cloud Zone:
Service virtualization and validation practices for the utility industry
Eliminating software constraints and mitigating IT risk to modernize energy delivery
I recently worked with LISA product manager/EMEA solutions director Chris Kraus on this interesting article - out today, that covers this for IBM's DeveloperWorks community of more than 4 million IT professionals. Thanks Aimee and the team at DW for the editorial help - we hope it offers some useful advice on how Service Virtualization, when applied to Utility IT problems, takes on a very real quality.
For one thing, think about Advanced Metering Systems (AMS), and the enabling software that sits atop a new Smart Grid architecture. We are literally seeing millions of new devices being added to the grid, every month. Across the global energy industry, there is a push to optimize energy infrastructure both at a network and customer level. Governments have mandated efficiency initiatives that are funded both by customer billing and subsidy ($3.4 Billion in government grant funds for Smart Grid projects in US, $21.4 Billion allocated worldwide in 2009).
Another cool area? Take a look at what's going on in Europe right now - but instead of smart meters, it's smart cars. Electric fuel points for electric cars have a similar value prop to smart metering - and pilots are going on in Germany, Netherlands and France. To get there, they not only need to set up the plug-in fuel stations, they need to anticipate the demands of a moving and growing customer base for electric fuel, and the metering and billing complexities that go with it.
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