Electric Co-op Today

FORT MYERS, Fla.—Everyone calls it the “NET” Conference, but it’s an acronym for new and emerging technologies.

Jack Uldrich told NET 2012 that co-ops need to be aware of up and coming technologies. (Photo By: Michael W. Kahn)

So to hear about what’s on the horizon, Touchstone Energy® brought in Jack Uldrich, a futurist and author, to speak at the premier conference for electric cooperatives to meet with their local, regional and national business members.

No stranger to NET veterans—he spoke at the 2004 event—Uldrich looked at some of the technology expected to soon come of age, and urged the audience not to shrug it off as crystal ball-gazing.

“Some of these technologies,” Uldrich said, “are not yet here in 2012. But they’re coming in 2013 or 2014, and it is your obligation, it is your responsibility, to begin thinking about how to implement these technologies.”

One technology that he said everyone should “put on their radar screen” is solid state transformers.

“It has some wonderful applications to make the grid much more efficient,” Uldrich said. “It’s going to make the transfer of electrons bi-directional. So suddenly, people who are creating their own electricity are going to be able to more effectively get it back into the grid.”

To that end, one concept that Uldrich said co-ops will have to “embrace in spades” is the idea of members also being competitors.

“Consumers having low-cost solar cells, micro wind turbines, better battery storage—all of this technology is, in fact, coming,” he said, urging co-ops to “find new business models that recognize this future.”

Ever heard of “frozen smoke”? You will.

“It has eight times the thermal and acoustic insulating properties of anything on the market, but it’s made out of 95 percent air,” Uldrich said in his Feb. 1 presentation. “It has the potential to make battery density significantly better, and there are a handful of companies exploring this technology to make grid-capable batteries.” Uldrich is convinced it will happen.

Robots have come a long way from Rosie on “The Jetsons.”

“The number of robots being deployed is doubling every year, so that means we’re going to go from thousands of robots to millions,” Uldrich said.

One application for electric co-ops is the small robots that can go on the transmission grid and inspect wires. “They can even do some repairs,” Uldrich said. “This technology is just going to get better, faster and cheaper.”

In the end, Uldrich said, there’s really one very important bit of advice he urged co-ops to take to heart: “Keep an open mind, because the future has a way of delivering things that sound impossible.”

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Tags: Emerging Technologies, NET Conference, R&D, Touchstone Energy