Sioshansi F.P. Smart Grid: Integrating Renewable, Distributed & Efficient Energy
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feedback to customers, but customers have to take direct
action to better manage their usage.
These two devices offer the same core functional energy
monitoring and display capabilities; however, they perform
these functions in different ways. Which device will
customers desire? Which will be more engaging, stimulating
bigger changes in behavior? What's the business model for
devices like these? Can we assume that customers will pick
up their favorite device from the local hardware store, install
it, and make use of the information provided? Or, will a third
party have to offer a product that limits the customers' upfront
costs?
The answers to these questions remain to be seen. In this
chapter, we will discuss some likely paths for the evolution of
such technology. While devices are becoming more
user-friendly and less expensive, the full potential for
wide-scale mass deployments remains rather unclear.
Web-Based Energy Use Monitoring
In addition to physical in-home devices, less costly
web-based approaches to engaging customers about their
energy use have emerged and are evolving rapidly. These
tools began as online energy audits sold to utilities as part of
online portals. In these audits, the user was asked a number of
questions about their home and provided with
recommendations about actions that could be taken to reduce
energy usage. To get accurate results, these audits often had
to ask many questions, some of which required knowledge of
the home that's beyond the average homeowner. At their best
(such as the Nexus Software [now Aclara] audit) the
questions were designed to be intuitive and structured so that
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the level of detail was flexible. Using the thesis that people
don't understand traditional energy bills, Nexus redesigned
bills and displayed them online with links to factors such as
weather, usage, and the online audit results to provide
customers with some context for their energy use.
One challenge is that electric utilities appear to be far less
successful than other businesses in migrating customers to
online bill payments.
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There are a variety of reasons for this,
but at its core, this trend is reflective of the limited
relationships that utilities have traditionally maintained with
their customers. As a result, the web portal of utilities has
continued to not be a natural starting point for customers
interested in their energy use. The possibility created by
online energy audits and similar tools to engage customers is
hampered by this challenge. Utilities are beginning to realize
that the smart grid can help them transform the relationship
they have with their customers.
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See for example, Has the Growth of Electronic Bill Presentment &
Payment Reached a Plateau in the Utility Industry? Available at:
http://www.utilipoint.com/issuealert/article.asp?id=3041.
As utilities are struggling to redefine their relationship with
their customers, other models, including third-party software
platforms being promoted by consumer and environmental
organizations, are beginning to emerge. For example, Google
has developed the web-based PowerMeter, and other
companies are working on extensions of the basic audit
concept to develop more intensive behavioral change
programs.
One example of the latter is the company Efficiency 2.0. This
company has developed a consumer-focused Personal Energy
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Efficiency Rewards (PEER) program. PEER “is a
multi-channel energy efficiency program that generates
verified energy savings for utilities through best-practice
consumer marketing strategies.”
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Customers receive
personalized energy savings reports through either print or
email, gain access to a program website where they can set
goals and compare themselves to others with similar
characteristics, and even earn rewards points for saving
energy.
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EE 2.0.
Figure 16.3.
Efficiency 2.0 PEER comparisons.
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Efficiency 2.0's PEER program is a consumer-first approach
that uses a comprehensive strategy to generate energy
savings. In contrast to a technology-first approach, which
markets a specific product installation as a distinct program, a
consumer-first approach generates savings by “empowering
consumers to adopt a technology and conservation portfolio
optimized to meet their specific needs and incentive
requirements.”
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EE 2.0 Website.
OPower (www.opower.com) is another company that has
developed advanced energy efficiency software, and is
focusing on a consumer-first approach. Through a
patent-pending, customer-engagement approach, OPower
leverages behavioral science, customer data analytics, and
software to engage customers. The company uses targeted
messages to get customers' attention coupled with targeted
suggestions for discrete actions to stimulate increased
customer efficiency and price responsiveness. Again, the
focus on the customer is what's driving this technology. The
technology and approach are different, but the goals are the
same as those of Efficiency 2.0.
These new web-based developments offer the exciting
possibility of bringing the ideas of social networking to
energy use.
The introduction of third-party models is also a dramatic shift.
Consumer and environmental groups offer credibility on
efficiency and savings messages that utilities simply do not
have with many customers. The use of social media coupled
with the third-party business models could fundamentally
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change the way that energy messages are delivered. Utilities
have always maintained tight control over the messages they
send to customers, but the involvement of third parties and
the usage of social media channels are beginning to create a
much more decentralized messaging system.
New online tools are rapidly evolving, and today it is hard to
predict what is going to win out or which business model will
be most successful. It could be large players like Google or
small start-ups that carry the day, but at this point it's
impossible to predict a winner. However, it's likely that the
technology will continue to evolve rapidly and be
considerably more accurate over the next few years, as
increased evidence about customer motivations improves the
effectiveness of the messages. More experience with
decentralized messages delivered through social media by
third parties will also bring significant change to the
landscape. Overall, the online energy feedback mechanisms
appear to be the most interesting and exciting areas of
development for small customers in the short term.
The Future Evolution of Direct Feedback Mechanisms
The fundamentally attractive aspect of web-based energy
management tools is the lack of capital costs. The in-home
display devices mentioned above are also enticing because
some people like the physicality of them, but given the size of
the average household energy bill, the cost of the devices is a
barrier. By shifting information to the web, there are no
hardware costs. Instead, the challenge is to harness the
evolution of how people interact with the web. As the
mechanism for interacting with the web moves from the
computer to the smart phone, to perhaps other devices, such
as TVs with built-in web browsing, web tools can adapt to the
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devices that people turn to for other streams of information,
such as their smart phones.
A limiting factor in the development of more innovative
web-based residential energy management systems has been
the lack of quality energy use data, due to the fact that most
residential customers still only have watt-hour meters. Many
systems are being designed in anticipation of future increased
availability of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI)
systems that provide access to hourly or even more granular
energy use data. But, a clear expectation gap currently exists.
While large deployments are occurring, ubiquitous
availability of granular energy use data is still years away for
many households. Given this reality, the integration of direct
feedback mechanisms with appliance and other in-home
devices, further discussed below, may be even further away.
How households will use these new tools also remains to be
seen, as most households remain on flat rates where changes
in energy use during specific timeframes have a diluted value.
Many pilot programs have found that customer do change
energy usage when exposed to time-variant rates [3]. But the
number of residential households actually on such rates
continues to number in the thousands; 10,000 on critical-peak
pricing in Bakersfield, California, 23,000 on real-time pricing
in Illinois, and so on. While growth in these numbers is
expected, compared to the over 100 million households in the
United States, change will take time. Furthermore, the
experience in states with open access is that many customers
exposed to mandatory dynamic rates have elected to switch to
flat priced contracts, further complicating the debate. That
being said, GE, LG, and other manufacturers have begun to
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announce the launch of smart household appliances, a clear
sign that the appliance industry is preparing for this change.
Prices-to-Devices Technologies
The tools described above rely on active customer
engagement and a commitment to make changes. At the other
end of the spectrum are the customers who don't have time or
the inclination to actively monitor and change their energy
use. To reach these customers, another class of technologies
is developing. Sometime referred to as “prices-to-devices” or
the “set it and forget” model, technology is being developed
to automate response to prices and to save customers money
without requiring daily usage monitoring and significant
behavior change.
In 2007, in a project funded by the U.S. Department of
Energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories teamed up
with regional utilities and other industry partners to perform
the first significant tests of smart technology, on the customer
side of the meter. There were two separate, but related tests.
The Grid Friendly Appliance Project found that appliances
can automatically reduce their usage when it's necessary to
keep the grid balanced, while the Olympic Peninsula Project
found that homeowners were willing to allow devices in their
home to respond to price signals, based upon a set of defined
criteria.
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Together, these studies determined that there are
no technological barriers to the integration of such devices
into the electricity grid. Furthermore, the study found that
integrating these technologies into the grid could help avoid
about $70 billion in new generation, transmission, and
distribution systems in the coming decades.
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http://gridwise.pnnl.gov/docs/pnnl_gridwiseoverview.pdf.
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Id.
Still, the development of such devices around the country has
been slow. The reasons for this are too many to discuss in this
chapter; however, the fact remains that the increased
granularity of communications and the control enabled by
new smart technology have the potential to increase
penetration of these new technologies. The same basic
questions exist and are similarly unanswerable today: who
will provide the technology, which channels will be used to
provide it and what is the business model?
Two technologies for households are discussed below:
• Smart thermostats; and,
• Smart appliances.
Smart Thermostats
The smart thermostat
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market is evolving. Thermostats
control the largest peak-contributing load in most households
and businesses: air conditioning. The traditional business
model had been a thermostat provided by the utility to the
customer in exchange for participating in a program; these are
often called air-conditioning cycling programs, and there are
large programs like these in existence around the United
States. In these programs, the cost of the thermostat,
installation, and incentive payments would be put into the
utility rate base after approval by the state PUC. Customers
would have no choice about their thermostat model, and
utilities would sign multiyear contracts with vendors to
provide the thermostats. In some cases the vendors also
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provided the turnkey operations; in others the utilities
managed it themselves. Comverge, Cooper Power Systems,
Carrier, and Canon Technologies have been among the
market leaders in these programs.
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These thermostats should be distinguished from programmable
thermostats that many energy efficiency programs have promoted. A
programmable thermostat allows the user to set different temperature
points for different time periods. A smart thermostat is a thermostat that
in addition to the functionalities of a programmable thermostat can be
controlled remotely. This can be either a one-way signal to the
thermostat to change temperature for a set period of time, or a more
sophisticated two-way feedback loop.
The model of a utility-supplied thermostat has come under
pressure. California has some of the toughest building codes
in the country, and they periodically ratchet up in terms of
performance. In 2007 a proposal was developed to mandate
programmable communicating thermostats (PCTs) for all new
construction, and subsequently to phase them in over time for
existing buildings. These thermostats would receive a radio
signal from the utility to allow the utility to control load at
critical times. In effect this would have mandated
participation in demand response for new homes. In addition,
rather than the utility supplying the thermostat, they would be
sold through traditional retail channels. So the consumer
going to the hardware store to buy a new thermostat, or the
developer buying them in bulk for a new subdivision, would
buy a thermostat that had built-in demand response
functionality.
Days before the California Energy Commission was to have
voted on making these thermostats part of the California
energy code, news of the proposal found its way to the radio
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talk shows of controversial conservative commentators and
was strongly attacked as being a “Big Brother” proposal to
ration energy use and take choices away from consumers. The
outcry on consumer privacy issues that ensued forced the
Commission to shelve the proposal.
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http://www.turn.org/article.php?id=670.
The lesson learned from California is one of the challenges of
transformation. The proposal would have vastly increased
demand response, transforming it from a specialized utility
program, operated at often uneconomical costs, into an
embedded functionality of how homes and businesses work.
However, customers didn't see the need to change. Utilities
and policy makers didn't bring customers along.
Smart thermostats represent a significant opportunity to help
reduce usage and better manage costs, but the models to
deliver them to customers are still in flux, as we will discuss
in more detail.
Smart Appliances
The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)
released a Smart Grid White Paper in December of 2009
which defined the term “smart appliance” as referring to a
modernization of the electricity usage system of a home
appliance so that it monitors, protects, and automatically
adjusts its operation to the needs of its owner. AHAM lists the
following six key features that are associated with smart
appliances:
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