Last night, when describing his vision for America, President Obama told the story of Jackie Bray, a single mom from Charlotte, N.C. who was laid off from her job. Then someone stepped up in her community and opened a gas turbine factory, started a job training program at the local college, paid her tuition — and hired her to work in their plant.
That company was Siemens. I’ve never been prouder to work for any company (which I’ve now done for all of two weeks, since Siemens acquired eMeter).
However the President missed a key opportunity to state a clear vision for the smart grid…
I’m not sure why President Obama mentioned Siemens, but I do know that Siemens is a leader in education, employment, and clean energy.
Siemens has helped not only Ms. Bray; this company also sponsors one of the largest U.S. college scholarship programs (for students who earn high marks in science and math Advanced Placement exams). Furthermore, SiemensUSA is this nation’s largest foreign-owned employer, with over 60,000 U.S. workers in healthcare technology, energy management, electrical equipment, smart cities — and smart meters and smart grids. (That’s where eMeter, now a Siemens business unit, comes in).
In fact, Siemens has more U.S. employees than some other stellar, industry-leading companies — including Apple Computer, Google, Intel and Microsoft.
Although I knew Siemens was a world-class technology company, I wasn’t aware of its leadership and vision in promoting education, job skills, and a better life — including sustainability and clean energy. In the U.S. Siemens builds wind turbines, solar plants and grid devices. They also develop software that makes our electricity network more reliable, efficient and environmentally friendly.
Siemens is helping to realize President Obama’s vision of an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy — a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.” Siemens also has a large energy management business for commercial buildings, which President Obama said will help save our nation $100 billion over the next decade.
However, unlike his specific call to action for building energy management, last night President Obama only briefly mentioned smart meters and the smart grid. “[We have] a power grid that wastes too much energy,” he observed.
President Obama missed the chance to explain what the smart grid will mean; to set forth a vision that Americans can get behind.
In the big picture, the smart grid will not only reduce energy waste in the U.S. power grid — it also will increase reliability, enable even more energy savings, require fewer power plants to meet peak demand, allow the grid to handle more wind and solar generation, and make it more economical for Americans to drive electric vehicles.
The smart grid will achieve these goals by empowering U.S. consumers.
First, consumers will get timely feedback about their energy consumption so they can understand and better how they use energy — including buying more efficient appliances.
Also, the smart grid will support time-of-use and other pricing options for electricity, so Americans can save money by using low-cost power during off-peak hours. This also promotes the use of off-peak wind energy. Right now, U.S. wind power faces a big problem: every day, U.S. utilities waste precious wind energy resources by turning off wind turbines. This is because the wind tends to blow strongest at night, when power use typically is lower, and it’s not possible to store “excess” wind power.
Finally, automation of home appliances via “set-and-forget” devices (especially smart thermostats) will allow consumers to respond to energy price changes without even thinking about it. This will make it easy and convenient for anyone to save money and energy.
Siemens is working to make this grand smart grid vision a reality. I, and the 60,000 other U.S. employees of Siemens, are blessed to live in a great country — and to work for a great company.