IBM’s Vice President of Energy and Utilities — Making a Difference in Electric Transportation

Here’s another quick note from San Diego, where I’m spending the day at the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Infrastructure USA 2012.

I just had a great conversation with Allan Schurr, IBM’s Vice President of Energy and Utilities. I performed quite a few projects for IBM over the 30 years that I functioned as a marketing consultant for the tech sector, and thus they’ll always occupy a warm spot in my heart — even if they did achieve their dominance in the late 20th century with the borderline abusive business tactics for which they were well known at the time.

Nowadays, we have a kinder, gentler — and I would say smarter IBM, a company dedicated to adding true value with its level of innovation, business strategy, and industry expertise. I’m delighted to see that IBM embraces electric transportation, and focuses on integrating its many information-related pieces, e.g., smart-grid. IBM’s done a great deal of work in early-adopter Denmark, where, for instance, an EV comes home at the end of a workday, gets plugged in, and waits patiently for the wind speed to cross a certain threshold, at which its charger switches on, thus minimizing the use of fossil fuels and maximizing the penetration of wind into the Danish grid-mix.

Great stuff, guys. Keep up the good work.