Key advances

Geothermal energy

Geothermal power is produced using the internal heat of the planet, converted to electricity. There are two categories of geothermal power installations : one recovers heated fluids close to the magma of our planet, for large scale usage. A similar small scale approach can be used to simply recover heat stored in shallow grounds, for households or small factory heating needs.

One of the benefits of geothermal energy is that small scale installations may be used to directly address one of the most important challenges of energy economy : heating. One of the problems of geothermal energy is that it must be deployed with caution, and might need carbon capture to prevent pollution, as large scale plants may cause a small amount of vapors to be released into the atmosphere. See National Geographic : Underground power and Wikipedia : Geothermal power for more information.

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Smart energy grids

Smart grids are the "Internet of Energy". Through a system of smart meters, which make the energy consumption of any home appliance visible to the grid provider, and to special electronic devices, the goal of such systems is to evenly use all available energy on a network. Smart grids route and dispatch electricity according to needs and usage.

This includes domestic energy (produced by domestic users, for example using idle solar panels, or wind or water turbines), as well as many larger power plants - mostly using sustainable and clean energy sources.

The vision, being actively developed, is an abstract and uniform "energy cloud" rather than households connected to limited "batteries". Any and all energy sources can then be plugged back into that cloud to refuel it.

The drawback is complete transparency for energy and grid providers, since the whole network is aware of energy consumption at device level. Clearly, users should be cautious about the conditions set forth by their preferred providers and demand an even cost, based on volumes, never on device types or other specific details.

Types of renewable energies used on smart grids :

1. Geothermal power - Read more about small scale geothermal power
2. Wind power - Read more about small scale wind power
3. Water power - Read more about micro-hydro energy
4. Solar power - Read more about small scale solar power

See also the European Supersmart grid and the American Smart Grid initiative, for examples of continental policies on the development of smart grids.

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LED lighting

LED light allows huge savings while increasing the overall quality of lighting, for companies and households alike. Thanks to the investments and efforts of many organizations, LED technology, still slightly expensive for the public today, will be available at low prices a few months from now.

A variation of LED, using separate red and blue components, allows indoor growth of vegetables and plants, with performances superior, for a 90W installation, to a regular 400W sodium lamp.

Many companies already use LED systems to reduce their costs for large scale lighting, and the technology further extends to television and monitors, promising important savings on electricity consumption for the years to come. See the Philips Color Kinetics showcase for more information.