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we have seen many companies trying to take on the energy management challenge from the user’s end. Home energy management products that control appliances at consumers’ homes to save energy, reduce cost and increase reliability and transparency is an integral part of smart-grid strategy.
"Every utility will have its own version of the iTunes App Store,” said Austin Energy, CIO of Austin Energy, during this morning’s utility panel at GreenBeat 2009 in San Mateo, Calif. — essentially, every major utility, in order to be at the cutting edge of the Smart Grid, will need to have a full portfolio of applications that can help their customers trim their energy use and their monthly bills."
"While respectable utilities have signed on with both Google and Microsoft, some of the larger players have chosen to go a different way entirely. Pacific Gas & Electric, for example, said in July that it will wait for a less commercial, standardized interface that passes muster with the Open Smart Grid Goup. This is a common complaint among utilities: They want to make sure whatever home energy monitor they choose communicates seamlessly with other Smart Grid equipment."
"In the same way we can look up an hourly weather forecast online, energy traders and power companies will be able to look up wind power potential with the WindCast IQ."
"Energy Dashboards Are The Next Major Tool for Energy Efficiency
In a panel on connecting smart buildings to the smart grid, the main focus was on how the end user of electricity can participate in energy efficiency. Andrew Tang, Senior Director, Smart Energy Web at Pacific Gas & Electric stated that we're a short 12 to 24 months away from power meters being a commonplace item on shore shelves that people pick up regularly to install in their homes and monitor their energy consumption.
It is becoming part of the American mindset, but as that mindset becomes more sophisticated, detailed energy dashboards need to take the place of simple power monitors. Seconding this, Google PowerMeter's Michael Terrell said that the number one thing that green builders can do to make their buildings more energy efficient is give the building inhabitants access to their energy consumption data, since studies have shown that just knowing what one's energy consumption is can reduce that consumption by around 15%."
Since the move toward a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid picked up speed last year, it’s been a land grab for goliaths like General Electric, IBM, Intel and Cisco Systems. Today, there’s a new player on the field: Major appliance maker Whirlpool is promising to deliver 1 million Smart Grid-compatible clothes dryers by 2011.
Let's hope the standards-based wars end sooner than later though.
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"Cisco Systems has announced its own consortium of companies adopting common IP-based communications standards. In doing so, the company hopes to network Smart Grid stakeholders into a completely interoperable ecosystem for sending and receiving energy consumption data."
Founder of the Dearing Group LLC., a consultancy focused on communications and sustainability.
George can be reached via email at george@dearinggroup.com or on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed. Subscribe to this site via RSS here.
Note: All content on this site is the personal opinion of George Dearing and doesn't represent the views of my past, current or future employers or their clients.
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