Washington Innovation Summit in Tacoma Revealed State’s Strengths, Weaknesses

The annual innovation summit organized by the Washington Technology Center was recently held in Tacoma. It covered a range of industries from aerospace and materials to renewable energy and education.

If you missed this great meeting, you can still catch up by watching videos and presentations here:

https://www.watechcenter.org/index.php?p=Program&s=1687

One of the key areas of focus was energy: Several speakers discussed the importance of improving the quality of our electric grid to make it less vulnerable to attack and also enable utilties to manage the load on the system.

“If we ever get into a conflict with China, they will bring down our power grid,” said Scott Hamilton, a consultant with Leeham Company, underscoring the importance of smart grid work being done at PNNL and elsewhere in the state.There is a growing cluster of research efforts in Washington State around this technology, including work on a self-aware electronic grid that uses a sophisticated sensor network to make the grid “self-healing.” Already being tested are systems that allow utilities to charge consumers based on the load on the power grid. Consumers would be encouraged to run their dishwashers, for example, late at night when demand for electricity is low. Also in the works,

Several speakers noted that while low energy prices make it difficult to sell energy savings technology in this state, Washington can still be a testbed for energy-saving technology.