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Modular Building Institute

Smart Grid Solutions Joins Honeywell’s Building Solutions Business Unit

July 3, 2012
Dedicated global team centralizes expertise to respond to rapid smart-grid growth, rise in peak-energy consumption

Honeywell has formed Smart Grid Solutions, a global enterprise that centralizes the company’s existing smart-grid resources and expertise to respond to the growing needs of both energy providers and users.

Part of Honeywell’s Building Solutions business unit, Smart Grid Solutions is designed to bring innovative offerings to market faster, and deliver end-to-end programs that connect utilities and their customers to solve a variety of energy challenges. These challenges include relieving stress and congestion on aging electrical infrastructure, leveraging intermittent renewable resources, and better managing the increased demand for energy, which is expected to grow 40 percent by 2035.

The creation of Smart Grid Solutions is a strategic reflection of the anticipated rise in worldwide energy consumption and the corresponding need for demand-side-management services. According to a recent report from Pike Research, revenue for demand response services in particular will grow from nearly $1.3 billion in 2011 year to $6.1 billion by 2016, with load-curtailment services representing nearly two-thirds of the total opportunity.

“Honeywell has a long history helping balance supply and demand through turnkey programs that provide benefits for utilities and end users,” Jeremy Eaton, vice president and general manager of Honeywell Smart Grid Solutions, said. “However, the scope and applicability of our work is expanding. Countries across the world are making significant investments to build a smarter, more robust grid. And we have the technology, services and relationships to help those investments pay dividends.”

Honeywell’s decades-long experience designing and implementing demand response and energy efficiency programs for utilities will serve as the foundation for Smart Grid Solutions. The team will draw from these capabilities as it works to address global energy concerns.

China, for example, is expected to spend 1.5 trillion yuan (about $230 billion) on its energy infrastructure during the 12th Five-Year Guideline period ending in 2015, with the long-term goal of having a dynamic smart grid throughout the country by 2020.

Honeywell is currently working with the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) to implement China’s first smart grid demand response project. As part of the project, Honeywell is installing its automated demand response (Auto DR) technology at select buildings within Tianjin, including government, commercia,l and industrial facilities. This will allow TEDA and network operator State Grid Corp. of China to automatically adjust energy use to reduce demand on the electrical grid, helping avoid potential brownouts and blackouts. Similar projects are underway in Australia, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Honeywell has also assisted utilities in gaining combined control of more than 1 gigawatt of peak electrical use through its residential demand response efforts—equivalent to the generation capacity of approximately 20 gas-fired peaking plants.

“The grid won’t be smart until it allows utilities and users to work together to reduce consumption and boost stability,” Paul Orzeske, president of Honeywell Building Solutions, said. “Honeywell is providing the applications and services that will make energy infrastructure smarter and enable it to deliver benefits from the power plant to the consumer.”