Companies have new focus on managing consumers’ electricity usage

Today there are 1.9 million homes with energy management networks. We are entering a period of pervasive growth. … We estimate there will be 16.2 million by 2015.

Parks Associates hosted the Smart Energy Summit in Austin last week. It focused on ways to find customers for such services. The three-day affair showed enthusiasm is high among corporations and entrepreneurs, who sense an emerging market. Parks Associates' Director of Research, Bill Ablondi said there were about 75 companies in the market last year, but now there are as many as 250, including such big names as GE, Intel, Verizon and AT&T.

Consumers, however, remain largely in the dark about the possibilities. Smart grid technologies promise to provide big gains in efficiency for electricity generators, transmitters and consumers. That means cost savings, less pollution and fewer power plants.

Integrating information technology into the electric power grid should also make it far easier to connect renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

The technologies should also make it possible to manage a fleet of electric cars so that they can be fueled without putting crushing demands on the system and double as available storage devices for power when parked.

But with electricity prices flat or falling (they were down 11.5 percent last year in Dallas), consumers are not motivated to jump in.

Oncor and other Texas electricity transmission companies have installed more than 3 million smart meters across the state under a mandate from the state government. The meters are providing an ocean of data to the utilities about electricity consumption, but consumers have seen little advantage.

Reliant and TXU Energy can also use the smart meter data to send e-mail alerts to consumers when their electricity usage starts to balloon, along with recommendations on ways to conserve.

A thermostat equipped with wireless radio communications, however, can be configured remotely. TXU Energy offers thermostats that can be programmed from a smart phone.

Parks Associates said energy management systems independent of smart meters would outsell the utility plans for several more years. He estimated that wireless thermostats would grow into a $1.1 billion market by 2015, and that remote-control lighting systems would equal that market.

Speaker after speaker at the conference said the key to this market, however, is raising consumer awareness of the cost savings such systems can bring — without sacrificing comfort or demanding a lot of skill.

To view the full Dallas Morning News Article, click here.

Parks Associates presents new consumer data at CEDIA Expo

Parks Associates’ Director of Home Systems Research, Bill Ablondi will lead and moderate the keynote panel session “The Future of Energy Management” during the CEDIA Expo on Friday, September 24 in Atlanta, GA. Leaders in consumer technology, energy management, and smart grid technology will deliver the state of the union as it relates to energy management and the electronic systems industry during this keynote panel. Speakers include: Control4 Energy Systems, Direct Energy, GlobalSmartEnergy, Home Automation, Inc. (HAI), and Intel Corp.

Bill will present findings from Parks Associates’ Residential Energy Management project, including consumer research, new opportunities for manufacturers and service providers to deliver energy solutions, and strategies for companies to communicate the benefits of smart grid technologies and successfully engage consumers.

In the new white paper “Consumer Attitudes and the Benefits of Smart Grid Technologies,” Parks Associates reports more than 80% of U.S. broadband households are interested in learning about ways to cut energy expenditures, but utilities and their partners will be challenged in designing solutions to meet consumers’ varying needs and budgets.

Grid Net Announces Cisco Investment, accelerates market development

Grid Net, a global leader of real-time Smart Grid and Smart Home software platforms for utilities, their partners and their customers, announced that Cisco has made an equity investment in the company.

Grid Net intends to use the proceeds from this investment to promote its real-time, all-IP, secure, reliable, extensible, end-to-end Smart Grid network infrastructure solutions. In addition, the investment highlights the two companies’ shared vision of creating an energy infrastructure for the 21st century that is built on open standards and helps utilities scale for more effective, efficient electricity transmission and distribution.

The financing will be used to accelerate its cooperative efforts around product development, marketing, customer engagement, industry standards, and regulatory Smart Grid initiatives. Improved coordination and integration of advanced communications and smart grid networking technologies will foster solutions that remove the inherent risks and uncertainties associated with deploying single-vendor proprietary technologies.

Grid Net has built an ecosystem of partners that include GE, Intel, Motorola, Clearwire and others to develop and deploy market-leading Smart Grid solutions worldwide.

Landmark “Pecan Street Project” Brings Together City of Austin To Design Energy System of the Future

Representatives from the City of Austin, Austin Energy, The University of Texas’ Austin Technology Incubator, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) unveiled details of the Pecan Street Project, a bold effort to design a new, clean energy infrastructure, business model and proving ground for tomorrow’s energy technology. Corporate partnerships with Dell, GE Energy, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Freescale Semiconductor and GridPoint were also announced.

Austin is not the only city embarking on a “utility redesign” or “smart grid” project. But because Texas has its own grid, modifications to the power system do not require federal approval. And because the City Council is Austin Energy’s board of directors, Austin is in a unique position to implement technology changes more quickly and offer its electric grid as a real-world proving ground for tomorrow’s clean energy technology.

The project scope includes designing a system that: delivers plentiful, reliable and affordable energy to Austin’s growing citizenry; is responsible with Texas’ most precious natural resources, like air and water; can eliminate the need for more polluting power plants; produces a power plant’s worth of energy, generated within the city limits via renewable resources, and that;
Austin intends to share with cities across America and around the world. This project will help cities map out the creation of the infrastructure it will take to power their economies and preserve the environment.

Corporate partners will assist the project team by providing staff resources and strategic guidance within their areas of expertise. Partners will also help the project team identify technologies that can be pilot-tested on the local electrical grid once the initial phase of the project is completed.

For more information about the Pecan Street Project, visit www.pecanstreetproject.org.