Pecan Street Project Goes Live with First Phase of Smart Grid Deployment

Pecan Street Project Inc. announced that it has completed systems installation and has gone live with the first phase of its smart grid demonstration project in Austin’s Mueller community.

Deployed by Austin-based Incenergy LLC, the home smart grid systems capture minute-to-minute energy usage for the whole home and six major appliances or systems. The project achieved an installed cost per home of $341 ($241 for equipment plus $100 for installation).

The systems are deployed in 100 homes at Mueller, all of which are green built and 11 of which have rooftop solar PV systems. This spring, Pecan Street Project will deploy Incenergy systems in a second group of 100 homes outside Mueller that are at least 10 years old. All participants in both groups are volunteers.

During the 12-month first phase, project researchers will learn about how homeowners use electricity, gas and specific appliances during the course of the day. This will mark only the second publicly-reported research on the daily energy profiles of Sunbelt homes (the other is a 1999 University of Central Florida study) and the first to incorporate data on output from rooftop solar panels and on the homes’ energy efficiency attributes.

For the complete article, please click here.

Control4 Selected to Deploy Home Energy Management Solution

Control4, a leader in affordable IP-based home control systems, announced that they have been chosen by AEP Ohio, a unit of American Electric Power, to pilot customer experiences with home energy management.

The selection of Control4 is part of AEP Ohio's gridSMART® Demonstration Project, funded in part by a Smart Grid Demonstration Grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The $150 million project is being deployed in northeast central Ohio. The project is designed to demonstrate the full benefits of installing a comprehensive distribution smart grid for consumers and the utility and includes approximately 110,000 advanced electricity meters, new distribution grid technology, distributed energy sources, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, smart appliances, and consumer systems and products to help customers manage electricity use and costs.

Control4’s in-home devices will increase awareness of the cost and impact of energy consumption for AEP Ohio customers. AEP Ohio plans to implement the Control4® Energy Management System (EMS 100) solution, equipping a select group of 1,000 customers with Control4® EC-100 energy controllers; 200 of those customers will also be able to use the EC-100 for automated load control via Control4® WT-100 thermostats. Beyond basic feedback of daily electricity use or cost, AEP Ohio consumers with Control4 devices will be given more ways to engage in home energy management with features like HAN management, automated device control, and the delivery of utility signals over broadband to trigger energy use decisions and actions in the home.


For the complete article, please click here.