Groundwater Grid: The Electric Smart Grid Offers Lessons Learned and Avoidable Pitfalls When Monitoring Groundwater

Presented on Monday, April 29, 2013
Nicholas Hayes, President, Co-Founder and Marian Singer, CEO, Co-founder, WellIntel, Milwaukee, WI

Smart Grid pilot programs demonstrate that the key to effectively lowering energy consumption and gaining new capacity from a limited supply is not the remote control of energy consuming devices. Instead, conservation is a consequence of putting useful usage and cost information into the hands of the people who pay or are stewards of systems that depend on it. A Wyoming 2010 Smart Grid program proved that with in-home energy insights, 50% of homeowners reduced power consumption by 30% within one year, saving their own money and reducing system risk.

Water policy-makers and advocates would be well-served to consider groundwater monitoring systems that learn lessons and avoid pitfalls unearthed by Smart Grid advocates. Groundwater information systems must meet local needs first, since consumers and the well-drillers they trust for services have an economic stake in the resource itself. Moreover, a groundwater information-sharing platform must have the ability to do more than just spot-check or land in time-stamped studies. Groundwater monitoring must be designed to allow anyone with a well to see not just their own impact on the resource, but the bigger picture too: resource health, trends, factors that contribute to risk.

Finally, a groundwater grid should enable smart policy; not be based on top-down supposition and estimates or feel like big brother, but share bottom-up facts, netting sensible agreements for stakeholders.

A Groundwater Grid can, as the Smart Grid sometimes does, relieve heavy pressures on a finite resource. Unlike electricity, groundwater renews without massive spending. So groundwater monitoring systems are a worthy, albeit a necessarily carefully planned, investment.

This presentation will explain how useful, democratized water information, at the right price and in the hands of the right stakeholders, is key to sustainable groundwater practices; and when focused on the consumer, will pay large groundwater returns.



Nicholas Hayes, President, Co-Founder
WellIntel, Milwaukee, WI
25 year career as a strategy consultant, researcher and market innovator in the water and energy sectors, serving the Fortune 250, Hayes has led client R&D projects for safer water supply, simpler water treatment, smarter power generation, greener building design, friendlier energy, chemical, food and paper production, smarter machines, sustainable irrigation, and a simpler, more secure smart-grid. President and Co-founder of WellIntel, a milwaukee-based water technology company that is developing simple sensing and sharing technologies to help people learn about and care for their groundwater.
Marian Singer, CEO, Co-founder
WellIntel, Milwaukee, WI
Strategy consultant and researcher in the industrial, power and water markets for clients like Bucyrus, Falk, PCC, JCI and others. Past Director of Marketing at Seaquist Closures LLC/AptarGroup, the leading supplier of dispensing products to the packaging industry. Now, CEO of WellIntel, a water technology company focused on smart, simple solutions that answer critical groundwater issues. MBA - Strategy and Marketing, Booth School of Business, UChicago.  BS - Accounting and Finance, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
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