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Energy management: red light, green light
November 18, 2009 - by Lisa Sibley, Cleantech Group
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What is it going to take to get consumers and businesses to engage in their utility bills and pay attention to saving energy? And why isn’t it happening yet on a broad basis in the United States?
The average consumer doesn't know what they pay per watt, only how big their bill is every month.
Other countries, especially in Europe, are leaps and bounds ahead of America when it comes to energy management and smart metering, and being more aggressive at trying to understand the future impact of electric vehicles, for example, on the grid.
Even Canada is farther along than the United States regarding smart meters. Toronto has been implementing such technologies, and the local utility Toronto Hydro expects the majority of its residential customers will be on smart meters with time-of-use pricing within the next month.
Todd Gurela, vice president of business development, transmission and distribution with Siemens Energy, pointed out at the Dow Jones Alternative Energy Innovations conference today in Redwood City, Calif. that energy efficiency and monitoring products such as San Mateo, Calif.-based eMeter’s Energy Engage and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft’s Hohm portal solution are out there.
But they aren’t being adopted fast enough by end users, and they don’t seem to be products that utilities are ready and willing to buy.
EMeter's software can be used to provide detailed interval usage data, remote meter reading and connecting capabilities, and outage reports. The technology is billed as being able to save utilities money on operating costs, as well as allowing them to react more quickly to problems in the grid (see Watch out Microsoft: Sequoia leads $32M round for eMeter).
In June, Microsoft unveiled its Hohm online energy management application that allows U.S. utility customers to better understand their electricity and gas usage (see Microsoft enters energy management with Hohm app).
Hohm is unique in that it is free to utilities, but of the initial 1.2 million potential customers, only 600 signed up after six months, Gurela said.
Microsoft didn't launch a pilot program. Instead, all users in two Washington state-based service territories could participate in the application with their participating utilities. Not many utilities were initially invited because Microsoft said at the time it was still working out the system’s kinks.
“What is the driving force that is going to get customers to sign up?” Gurela questioned.
He said current technologies are too interaction based, and not reaching consumers at the subconscious level.
"Until it comes to red light, green light kind of technology, how much adoption are you going to get?” he asked.
Matt Jones, a partner with San Francisco-based venture capital firm Nth Power, suggested the trend is moving toward customers making decisions based on pricing signals. When pricing signals take a greater effect, he said there will likely be more adoption of smart metering by consumers.
“Two thirds of customers aren’t getting what they want from their utility. The consumer is more savvy than most utilities give them credit for,” said Allan Schurr, IBM’s vice president of strategy and development, global energy and utilities industry.
Keep an eye on Prius owners. He suggested they’ll serve as early adopters of energy management technology.
Copyright © 2009 Cleantech Group LLC. All rights reserved, including right of redistribution.
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Comments
Microsoft Hohm statement
Submitted on November 18th, 2009 by Lisa SibleyAfter covering the conference, the Cleantech Group was contacted by a Microsoft spokesman who said the company actually has more than four million potential Hohm customers since the beta program was launched in June, and it is available to any of 125 million households in the United States. He also said it has also exceeded Microsoft’s expectations in terms of registered users, without disclosing specific figures.
Last week, Microsoft’s utility partner Minneapolis, Minn.-based Xcel Energy began offering its customers the ability to automatically upload their energy usage data to Hohm. And tomorrow, Microsoft and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California plan to make a similar announcement, he said.
Lisa Sibley
Cleantech Group, reporter
Microsoft Hohm statement...clarification
Submitted on November 20th, 2009 by Todd Gurela (not verified)Lisa thank you for your coverage of the Dow Jones event. Just to clarify my comment on consumer engagement. I referenced that one utility with approximately 1.2M connected customers provided me feedback that they had done a 6 month promotion directing their customers to Microsoft's Hohm energy management portal and in that period only 600 of that utilities customers signed up. This is one utilities extreme example demonstrating how consumer engagement in their personal energy consumption needs to become passive...ie. Red light Green light.
Watt versus watt-hour
Submitted on November 19th, 2009 by Brendan (not verified)I find a bit of irony in the statement, "The average consumer doesn't know what they pay per watt..." Unless concerned with the difference in monthly connection fees for different size services (which, to be clear, isn't the concern), I think we should be discussing watt-hours, or better yet kilowatt-hours. This just speaks to the lack of understanding of power and energy, even amongst people who discuss it on a daily basis. I've met several smart, highly educated, science-minded people who still cannot make this connection.
Even if you do get the difference between power and energy across, you need to approach the subject differently to different audiences. The coupon cutting crowd sees the financial incentive of turning off a 100-watts worth of lights for an hour, even though it'll only save them roughly a penny. The eat-out every night because it's convenient crowd will never buy into this, no matter how much information they have. Flipping that switch just isn't worth a penny to them. Often times, sadly, many of the people in this crowd are the ones who also stand to benefit the most from a lower power bill. I'm not sure there's a one-size-fits-all solution, which seems to be the current path when it comes to these gadgets. As neat as I personally find the ability to go over my energy use with a fine toothed comb, I think the makers of these products will continue to be disappointed unless they make the products more automated still and push to increase the level of eduction about energy. Even giving the best tools to the masses is not going to make up for the current lack of understanding on the subject.
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