Entergy Selects Sensus Technologies for Home Area Network Pilot

Entergy New Orleans, Inc. has selected Sensus to provide its FlexNet™ Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system, electric AMI meters, in-home displays and programmable thermostats to support a Home Area Networking pilot program. The pilot program is partially funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and is designed to encourage energy conservation by providing information to consumers about their electricity usage and their associated costs.

Starting in June, for a period of 24 months, Entergy New Orleans will track and analyze the consumption behaviors of four specific customer control groups within the city of New Orleans. Customers in the first group will receive a smart meter; the second group will receive a smart meter and an in-home display; the third group will receive a smart meter and programmable thermostat, and they will also be offered a rebate if they participate in a program to minimize their air conditioning usage during summer peak periods; and the fourth group will have access to an Internet portal that will show close to real-time information about electricity usage and associated costs.

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HAI, Entergy New Orleans join forces on energy management

HAI Smart Grid Solutions has been selected for a partnership with Entergy New Orleans to facilitate the SmartView Energy Management program. HAI will provide nearly 5,000 Home Area Network (HAN) devices for demand response, energy display and comfort control.

Co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and Entergy New Orleans, homeowners receive tools and training from Entergy that assists with tracking electricity usage, assists with reducing costs, and in some cases, provides credits on electrical bills. HAI devices are being provided at no cost to users thanks to a Smart Grid Investment Grant program. Enrollment begins now and the official rollout is April 1, 2011.

All 7,000 participants receive a smart meter installed at no charge. A total of 4,400 homes will receive HAI's In-Home Energy Display and 400 homes will receive HAI's Omnistat2 programmable communicating thermostats. On both devices, homeowners can view exact bill to date, projected monthly bill, and see the instantaneous demand plus energy trend of the past hour.

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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.

Calico Energy Solution to Enable Chicago Suburb to Realize a City- wide, Energy-efficient Smart Grid

Calico Energy Services today announced it has executed contractual agreements with the City of Naperville, IL and its Department of Public Utility-Electric to deploy an advanced energy management platform.

As part of the City of Naperville’s smart grid deployment, Calico is providing their award-winning Energy Intelligence Suite™ (EIS) energy management platform and hardware from Schneider Electric. In addition, Calico’s platform connects to the city’s new Elster AMI meters.

Calico’s EIS™ platform gives Naperville’s Public Utility complete command-and-control over its smart grid data system, allowing the utility to manage demand, improve reliability, reduce costs, and quantify the impact of energy management programs through integrated analytics. The platform also gives utility customers the ability to view and control their energy use through energy management portals, on-premise displays, energy management devices, and electric vehicle charging (EV) systems.

Naperville’s smart grid program represents one of the broadest deployments of an integrated energy management platform at a municipality to date, and includes Calico’s EIS OpCenter™ for load control management, HomeSMART™ for home automation, BusinessSMART™ for small commercial automation, and EIS Mobile™ energy management module.

The combined solution helps automate the City’s electric, water, and natural gas systems, boost energy efficiency, and manage energy demand. In addition, residents will be able to purchase a variety of home automation devices through local retailers to manage their energy use, including: in-home displays, programmable/controllable thermostats, electricity load control devices, and on-premise electricity storage units. The complete smart grid solution is scheduled to be rolled out in Q3 2011.

The City’s smart grid project will empower customers with expanded choices about how they consume energy, education about how to conserve energy and automate savings, and the ability to view water, natural gas, and electricity usage and costs. The program will also ensure greater reliability of energy through demand response, and provide a variety of electricity rate structures that enable customer cost- savings. The combined technologies provided by Calico, Schneider Electric, and Elster will expand the City’s communications network by installing an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and smart meters, automating its distribution grid, and implementing Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) to increase power quality.

Honeywell UtilityPRO Becomes Fastest-Selling Demand Response Thermostat

Honeywell announced that UtilityPRO™ has become the fastest-selling thermostat for utility-sponsored demand response programs. Since the technology was introduced in 2008, Honeywell has shipped more than 350,000 of the touchscreen programmable thermostats, which give utilities control over peak consumption while helping homeowners cut energy costs.

Thirty-three utilities in the United States and Canada have already selected the thermostat for their demand response efforts. By 2011, Honeywell expects UtilityPRO will give these utilities combined control of more than 500 megawatts of peak energy use — equivalent to the generation capacity of approximately 10 gas-fired peaking plants.

Utilities and end users access UtilityPRO through a built-in communication module. In addition, utilities can communicate directly with customers by sending customized text messages — an industry first. Specifically, they can send information like weather forecasts, and updates on other efficiency and conservation programs.

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Comverge Strengthens Management Team With Addition of Energy Industry Veteran

Comverge, Inc., the leading provider of Intelligent Energy Management solutions for Residential and Commercial & Industrial customers, announced it has appointed Jeff Bladen as vice president of regulatory, markets and government affairs. Bladen has more than 15 years of management experience in the energy sector and before joining Comverge.

He joins Comverge during a very successful 2010. In August, the company announced a contract extension to support the TXU Energy iThermostat program through to 2012, which includes the installation of 100,000 residential and commercial energy management devices. Earlier in the year, Comverge signed a new agreement with PECO to install 145,000 residential and commercial energy management devices and also extended a long-standing and successful agreement with NV Energy to enable the industry's largest smart grid ready residential program.

In addition, Comverge secured more than $74 million in expected future contracted revenues in the PJM Interconnection market as a result of the 2013/2014 Reliability Pricing Model Base Residual Auction. The award extends Comverge's recent growth in the C+I market, following an increase of more than 456 megawatts (MW) under management in the first half of 2010.

Honeywell Survey Shows That Americans Chose Comfort Over Saving Money and 'Going Green' This Summer

Most people agree that saving money and being "green" are important — until 100 degree temperatures are involved. Survey findings released today by Honeywell following one of the hottest summers on record found nearly two thirds of American consumers chose comfort over cost savings and conserving energy when temperatures spiked.

Sixty percent of those polled saw their energy bills increase compared to summers past, but those cost increases did not stop respondents from pursuing comfort. In fact, 30 percent of consumers who saw their bills climb said it was well worth the higher costs to stay comfortable.

Honeywell is reminding homeowners of five simple ways to stay cost conscious and environmentally sound, without impacting comfort:

1. Invest in a programmable thermostat: Twenty-five percent of consumers polled stated that they turned off their air conditioning when they were not at home this summer as a way to limit expenses. What consumers may not know is that the amount of energy used to turn cooling and heating equipment on and off can actually cost more than keeping it running at a low level around the clock. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), for every degree homeowners raise or lower (depending on the season) the set-points on their thermostats over an eight-hour period, they can save one percent on their household utility costs.

2. Think of your energy bill as a debit card, not a credit card: Avoid the buy now, pay later mentality. According to the DOE, heating and cooling costs make up almost 50 percent of a homeowner's average annual utility bill ($1,500 on average). The costs add up, so consider moderate energy use throughout the year. Some homes may soon be equipped with energy meters that can gauge energy costs in real-time, cutting down on the "binge now, regret later" experience.

3. Use high-powered appliances after 10 p.m.: Like long distance telephone calls, electricity prices during specific times of the day can be more expensive than others. Powering on high-powered appliances like dishwashers, washers and dryers during off hours can offset the price of increased heat or air-conditioning use.

4. Take advantage of the energy-saving programs from your utility: Power providers nationwide offer a variety of ways to help their customers better manage energy consumption. This includes everything from home energy audits and lighting retrofits to appliance rebates and demand response programs, which give consumers incentives for automatically cycling air conditioners on and off during the hottest days of the summer. The impact on comfort is negligible, but the opportunity to cut costs is significant.

5. Stay informed: Technological advancements like home energy managers and smart-grid-ready appliances are expected to deliver more in-depth energy information and offer substantial savings.

For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywellnow.com.

Energy management networks forecasted to be in over 9 million US households by 2014

Parks Associates' report Residential Energy Management: Forecasts for the Deployment of AMI and the Adoption of Energy-saving Products and Services finds over 80% of U.S. consumers are interested in reducing expenditures on energy consumption and willing to pay for cost-saving solutions. Cost-saving products and services that generate consumer interest include programmable thermostats, energy monitors and systems enhanced with energy-management capabilities, smart appliances, and energy-efficient CE systems.

However, the amount consumers are willing to spend does not cover the costs of required systems, creating a need for innovative business models that will enable a new energy management service industry.

Utility-based home area networks (HANs) are only one of several options for these solutions and services to enter the consumer market. By 2013, iREMs will outnumber utility-based HANs. By 2014, the vast majority of the nine million U.S. households with an energy management system will have an iREM. Engaging consumers is critical to success in this market. Business strategies must be developed that comprehend the magnitude of consumer education and support required for offerings in this arena.

Residential Control Systems Supports SES 2010

Parks Associates welcomes Residential Control Systems as a Smart Energy Summit sponsor in 2010.

Residential Control Systems (RCS) designs and manufactures networked Thermostats, HVAC controls and Energy Management products for residential, hospitality and light commercial buildings.

Since 1993, RCS products have enabled comfort and energy usage to be monitored, measured, controlled and managed. RCS products communicate via a wide range of wired and wireless protocols including ZigBee, Z-Wave, WiFi, Ethernet and Power Line Carrier.

Integrated with Web based services and Utility pricing programs, RCS products provide optimal energy and cost conservation while affording the user enhanced environmental control and connectivity. In all, RCS’s suite of smart connected products enables intelligent control of the space, with maximum efficiency, at minimum cost.

RCS is headquartered in California with offices in Sacramento and San Diego.

For more information on Residential Control Systems, please visit http://www.resconsys.com/.