IBM to help Beijing haze hidden ambitions

"Haze governance" has become a big business.

July 10, Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau released the air quality report for the first half of this year, saying that the average concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing dropped by 10% year-on-year in the first half of the year, but still not enough to respond to the public's cry for rising clean air.

In the next five years, the Beijing municipal government will co-ordinate 47.8 billion yuan, specifically for use in related fields to prevent air pollution, but whether the "burn-money" pollution control can still get rid of blue sky and white clouds is still full of uncertainty.

It is precisely this dilemma that has prompted the unprecedented combination of high technology and pollution control. Recently, IBM, the world's largest information technology company, announced that it will integrate R & D capabilities of its global laboratories with the launch of a Green Horizon initiative to promote China's environmental governance and energy consumption restructuring, Beijing haze impact became the first stop of the project.

However, pollution control using new technologies or just a vision. The news that IBM launched the "Green Horizons" plan came into question after it was heard. Some netizens think that the crux of the problem lies in whether the government is willing to give up economic benefits in exchange for blue sky and white clouds. The so-called establishment of an accurate climate model is only a gimmick.

Greenpeace also pointed out that environmental protection organizations, cloud computing and other services need to consume a lot of energy in the process of promoting pollution control in turn produce new pollution in disguise, in fact, may outweigh the benefits.

However, at present, the concept of cloud is in the ascendant. In the long run, new technologies such as cloud computing will still make a difference in the field of pollution control. Investment adviser Guo Fanli, director of research in an interview with reporters are also optimistic about the future cloud computing pollution control prospects, so the use of cloud computing, big data pollution control is still valid for time.

New technology into haze weapon

On July 7, IBM announced that it will integrate research and development efforts of global laboratories to launch a program called "Green Horizon" to support China in environmental governance and energy transformation so as to enhance people's health protection and achieve the sustainable development goals .

According to the plan, "Green Horizon" will utilize the advantages of IBM Cognitive Computing, Big Data Analysis and IoT technologies to analyze the real-time data flows transmitted by air monitoring stations and meteorological satellites. With self-learning capabilities and supercomputing capabilities, Provide high-precision air quality forecast for the next 72 hours and realize real-time monitoring of the sources and distribution of pollutants in Beijing.

In addition, the program will be led by the IBM China Research Institute to integrate the best technical resources from 12 institutes worldwide to help China's air pollution physics. Such a huge lineup shows the degree of attention of both sides of this cooperation.

It is noteworthy that the "Green Horizons" is actually the "renewal frontier" between the Beijing municipal government and IBM. As early as 2007, in order to meet the requirements of the 2008 Olympic Games in terms of meticulous weather forecasting, Beijing Meteorological Administration introduced IBM's high performance computer to establish a forecasting system that supports the entire Olympic weather.

In fact, such as the "Green Horizons" such as the use of cloud computing technology to promote pollution control is not isolated. In June this year, a mobile application called Pollution Map developed by the Public Environmental Research Center and Alibaba Cloud subsidiary Alibaba officially launched. Users can not only view the online monitoring data of 190 cities, but also query and Share real-time monitoring data of key air pollution sources around you.

Investment adviser Guo Fan Li, director of research told the Times Weekly reporter pointed out that in recent years with the "smart city" development, many areas already have a lot of things networking experience, but also erected a special network lines, terminal equipment and other infrastructure. "Haze monitoring and data collection is based on the 'Smart City', with real-time and comprehensive air data collected through a large number of sensors used to monitor air quality, rather than simply drawing conclusions from meteorological observatories "Guo Fan Li said.

During the "12th Five-Year Plan", China will basically accomplish the task of building more than 320 "smart cities," with an estimated total investment of 500 billion yuan. According to industry estimates, the construction of smart city in the future will bring about 2 trillion yuan of industrial opportunities. The new technology pollution-polluting industrial chain represented by cloud computing is becoming increasingly clear.

The concept of cloud pollution accused of serious energy consumption

Behind the big data and cloud computing incarnation of pollution control devices is the dilemma of deteriorating natural environment in Beijing and the country as a whole. In addition, the sense of smell of the major companies competing to run into the cloud service market jumped directly into the outbreak of related industries into the "cloud concept" temporary Luoyang paper expensive.

With the cloud service industry entering a phase of rapid development, the price war has quietly started. July 15, Alibaba announced four free trial cloud entry products for six months, which is the first time in nearly six months Alibaba lower cloud service prices. In foreign countries, Microsoft, Amazon and other cloud services giant has taken the lead in the world down the price, of which Google is a one-time price cut 30%, cloud services industry or usher in a new round of reshuffle.

However, using cloud computing as the representative of high technology to promote pollution control has been questioned by environmental groups, because the data center consumes a very large amount of energy, blindly follow the trend of cloud computing pollution control, may be "clever and clever clever." Zhang Guobao, former director of the National Energy Administration, also said data centers are extremely energy-hungry as the physical basis for "cloud computing."

According to Gartner, an environmental group that is Greenpeace and the world's authority, data storage is becoming a big drain on energy consumption, which is also evident in China. This reporter has learned that in 2011 China's data center total electricity consumption of 700 billion kwh, accounting for 1.5% of the total electricity consumption, equivalent to the total electricity consumption in Tianjin year.

However, some insiders believe that after the adoption of cloud computing technology, the energy consumption per unit of information processing capacity has dropped significantly. With the improvement of technologies and the development of new energy sources, the energy consumption of cloud computing will be solved. Guo Fanli also holds the same view. "In general, the power consumption of cloud computing in the future will be more from renewable energy sources."

Giant eat smart grid "cake"

Compared with direct investigation of pollution sources, improving the current unreasonable structure of energy consumption or the real remedy. With the great leap forward development of new energy sources, how to cope with the instability of wind power and photovoltaic power generation has become the core issue, and the construction of smart grid has thus risen to a national strategic level.

It is reported that at the recent sixth round of the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue on Climate Conference held in Beijing, the smart grid has become the focus of climate cooperation between the two sides. Insiders told reporters that China has more technological advantages over the United States in long-distance transmission, but China is not as powerful in terms of information technology, smart meter system and power distribution technology as the United States, so China and the United States can complement each other in technology. .

"Up to 56% of the resources of the traditional power grids are wasted in the process of power generation and transmission." Guo Fanli told reporters that the application of smart grids enables two-way interaction between power plants and users, and the feedback of data through the network can enable Power plants master the user's spending habits, so as to reasonably regulate the power generation, to achieve the purpose of improving resource utilization.

State Grid announced in 2009 "strong smart grid" plan, means that China has also begun to integrate into the tide of the global smart grid. It is understood that the "strong smart grid" program will be divided into three stages of development, from the initial planning stage to the "12th Five-Year" period of comprehensive construction, and then "13th Five-Year" period to lead the upgrade phase, the industry The estimated total investment in smart grid construction is about 4 trillion yuan. In addition, 2011-2015 will be the overall construction phase of the plan, with an investment of about 2 trillion yuan during this phase and an investment of 1.7 trillion yuan during the basic completion phase of the smart grid in 2016-2020.

The Global Smart Grid Technology and High Growth Markets 2013-2020 report that the global smart grid market is projected to surpass $ 400 billion by 2020 and that China will become the world's largest smart grid market accounting for more than 24% of the global market .

In the face of this big cake, in addition to GE, ABB, Siemens and other traditional power equipment manufacturers, including Google, Microsoft and other Internet companies have also invested in smart grid related businesses. Among them, Siemens aims to occupy 20% of the global smart grid market by 2014, while IBM is involved in multinational smart grid projects around the world.

Shen Xiaowei, president of IBM China Research Institute, said in an interview that IBM's new energy forecasting technology has been extended to 30 wind, solar and hydroelectric power stations around the world. Phase I of the Zhangbei County Landscape Storage and Transportation Demonstration Project in China Is the beneficiary of this technology.

Zhangbei County scenery storage and transportation demonstration project is currently the country's largest renewable energy projects. According to statistics, with the help of new energy power forecasting technology, this project not only solved the problem of all kinds of new energy sources being incorporated into the power grid, but also realized the "four in one" new energy platform of wind power, photovoltaic power generation, energy storage and smart grid, On the basis of an increase of 10% of the amount of new energy grid.

In addition, Hebei's wind power forecasting accuracy is as high as 90%, making it one of the most accurate energy forecasting systems in the world. An official from Hebei Electric Power Company told reporters that IBM is an important participant in the first phase of Zhangbei County Scenery Storage and Transportation Demonstration Project. The next two phases of the project will continue to maintain cooperative relations with IBM to jointly promote the construction of smart grid.

In fact, IBM not only in advance layout in the Chinese market, but also attempt to participate in the construction of smart grid standards in the country, as the game's rule makers. Guo Fan Li believes that IBM has access to China's smart grid market with technological advantages, the future is likely to dominate.