Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Intel: Moore's Law applies to the smart grid

By | March 17, 2010, 7:13am PDT

Summary: Intel wants to bring its microprocessing muscle and Moore’s Law to the smart grid, an executive at the Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference.

NEW YORK — Intel wants to bring its microprocessing muscle and Moore’s Law to the smart grid, an executive said yesterday.

Speaking yesterday at the 9th annual Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference in New York, the company’s general manager for eco-technology, Lorie Wigle, said the company best known for its computer chips is actually a top 5 player in the smart grid.

In a brief presentation, Wigle said smart grid progress required three things: flexible architecture, Internet Protocol standards and consumer empowerment through energy management.

Wigle highlighted the company’s Open Energy Initiative, which consists of four pillars: grid infrastructure, home energy management, smart (commercial) buildings and microgrids and communities.

Intel is internally aligning itself to achieve these goals, Wigle said, and is walking the talk by not only consuming green energy — Wigle said Intel is the No. 1 buyer of green energy, three years running — but by providing products for businesses and individuals.

That includes products such as wind turbines. Wigle said the average utility wind turbine contains up to 16 microprocessors, used for management and smart grid communication. There’s a growing opportunity for Intel in that space, she said.

Wigle also mentioned the 70 NIST standards, and stressed that Intel didn’t want to develop all-new processes if it wasn’t necessary.

“We do not want to reinvent things that are 90 percent there. We’d prefer to capitalize on prior investment,” she said, adding that Intel would like to use the IPv6 protocol “everywhere we can.”

Wigle also highlighted grid modeling and simulation, which Intel sees as a major opportunity for its computational power.

“Complete grid simulation is probably an access-scale computing problem,” she said, noting that such a computer requires more than 200 times the computing power as high-performance PCs on the market today.

For more of this story, read Intel: We want to bring Moore’s Law to the smart grid on Smart Planet.

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Andrew J. Nusca is associate editor of ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor at ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

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Intel: scary but could be good
Get-Smart Updated - 18th Mar 2010
Because of their association with Microsoft, I never much liked Intel, but they've been good at making usable products.

They are smart for gearing up for this. I think this is an excellent business opportunity for them and I believe the benefits of having some well-known players is an incentive to adhere to interoperability standards and that will foster a larger market.

Their production scale certainly can support affordable pricing. Besides function, that's the biggest obstacle to making the SmartGrid a reality.

As long as they focus on making better solutions instead of trying to smother competition (as they have tried in the past), let them go for it.
0 Votes
+ -
Moores Law
mick@... 17th Mar 2010
Is really only an hypothesis, even Phosphorous has only advanced to theorem status.

Mick
0 Votes
+ -
Intel: scary but could be good
Get-Smart Updated - 18th Mar 2010
Because of their association with Microsoft, I never much liked Intel, but they've been good at making usable products.

They are smart for gearing up for this. I think this is an excellent business opportunity for them and I believe the benefits of having some well-known players is an incentive to adhere to interoperability standards and that will foster a larger market.

Their production scale certainly can support affordable pricing. Besides function, that's the biggest obstacle to making the SmartGrid a reality.

As long as they focus on making better solutions instead of trying to smother competition (as they have tried in the past), let them go for it.

Join the conversation!

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