During the Consumers and Efficiency Panel, covering efficiency in the residential and commercial sectors, there were more than a few opinions expressed on how to speed adoption. Of course, this is the point of a panel: multiple opinions. As time went by, some ideas gained more prominence than others…
The most obvious solution to gaining a positive acceptance of smart grid tech from consumers is “money”. The invisible hand of economics hath built the empire of Wal-Mart, could it not also raise up smart utilities? For Gary Fromer, CEO of CPower, the key is to give incentives. Claiming that big box stores like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s have done more to propagate efficiency items than any other agency, Fromer suggests that adding incentives to energy efficient products at the point of sale could be the key to rapid adoption amongst consumers.
Of course, sloth is also a powerful motivator of sorts. Scott Hublou of EcoFactor contends that simple information reporting isn’t enough, that since people don’t desperately need to reduce costs they probably won’t reduce energy usage if left to their own devices. To make the power savings happen (instead of providing information on where / when they aren’t) his company’s HVAC control systems take charge and deliver 20-30% HVAC power savings. Considering that HVAC is 50 percent of a home’s power consumption, this tech could go a long, long ways.
Adrian Tuck of Tendril quips, “The question is being posed the wrong way.  If you pose the question ‘Do you want the utility company to control your AC?’ they’ll say ‘no’. If you ask them if you want utilities to control their AC, build a new power plant or have rolling blackouts, they’ll let you control their AC”.
So much for residential: some want to arrange for the invisible hand of economics to speed adoption, others want to goof-proof the process and automate the savings. During the residential section of the panel, nobody gave the home consumer a lot of credit for wanting to do the right thing no matter the cost. Which is just as well, since we’ve all made a mess of it so far.
During the open Q&A some were thinking big picture.  A man who self identified as the “Father of the Plug-In Hybrid” noted that plug in hybrids, with 100 percent adoption, could hold two weeks of reserve power for the U.S. With that in mind, he asked, what were intelligent utilities companies doing to promote plug-in hybrids?
In short, the answer was “We aren’t, exactly, because we don’t know what EVs are going to do to the grid”.
Mentioned earlier in the discussion, it was noted that EVs are likely to add load at night but might be able to help with peak shaving during high load times. Studies in the U.K. have shown that there are three peaks in the day, at 7 AM 5:45 PM and sometimes at 8:30 PM. Incidentally these are tea times when people use an electric kettle. Hypothetically, power generated during the night and stored in car batteries could be siphoned off to heat the kettles, without much affecting people’s lives – until they start paying less for power every month.
Overall there is still a lot of uncertainty as to what the confluence of EVs, more intelligent power distribution and renewable power is going to look like. The technologies are here or arriving soon; the business and practical sides are TBA.

[Photo Credit: Alexa Lee]
VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, today and tomorrow, Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.

During the Consumers and Efficiency Panel, covering efficiency in the residential and commercial sectors, there were more than a few opinions expressed on how to speed adoption. Of course, this is the point of a panel: multiple opinions. As time went by, some ideas gained more prominence than others…
The most obvious solution to gaining a positive acceptance of smart grid tech from consumers is “money”. The invisible hand of economics hath built the empire of Wal-Mart, could it not also raise up smart utilities? For Gary Fromer, CEO of CPower, the key is to give incentives. Claiming that big box stores like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s have done more to propagate efficiency items than any other agency, Fromer suggests that adding incentives to energy efficient products at the point of sale could be the key to rapid adoption amongst consumers.
Of course, sloth is also a powerful motivator of sorts. Scott Hublou of EcoFactor contends that simple information reporting isn’t enough, that since people don’t desperately need to reduce costs they probably won’t reduce energy usage if left to their own devices. To make the power savings happen (instead of providing information on where / when they aren’t) his company’s HVAC control systems take charge and deliver 20-30% HVAC power savings. Considering that HVAC is 50 percent of a home’s power consumption, this tech could go a long, long ways.
Adrian Tuck of Tendril quips, “The question is being posed the wrong way.  If you pose the question ‘Do you want the utility company to control your AC?’ they’ll say ‘no’. If you ask them if you want utilities to control their AC, build a new power plant or have rolling blackouts, they’ll let you control their AC”.
So much for residential: some want to arrange for the invisible hand of economics to speed adoption, others want to goof-proof the process and automate the savings. During the residential section of the panel, nobody gave the home consumer a lot of credit for wanting to do the right thing no matter the cost. Which is just as well, since we’ve all made a mess of it so far.
During the open Q&A some were thinking big picture.  A man who self identified as the “Father of the Plug-In Hybrid” noted that plug in hybrids, with 100 percent adoption, could hold two weeks of reserve power for the U.S. With that in mind, he asked, what were intelligent utilities companies doing to promote plug-in hybrids?
In short, the answer was “We aren’t, exactly, because we don’t know what EVs are going to do to the grid”.
Mentioned earlier in the discussion, it was noted that EVs are likely to add load at night but might be able to help with peak shaving during high load times. Studies in the U.K. have shown that there are three peaks in the day, at 7 AM 5:45 PM and sometimes at 8:30 PM. Incidentally these are tea times when people use an electric kettle. Hypothetically, power generated during the night and stored in car batteries could be siphoned off to heat the kettles, without much affecting people’s lives – until they start paying less for power every month.
Overall there is still a lot of uncertainty as to what the confluence of EVs, more intelligent power distribution and renewable power is going to look like. The technologies are here or arriving soon; the business and practical sides are TBA.

[Photo Credit: Alexa Lee]
VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, today and tomorrow, Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr. Register for your ticket today at GreenBeat2009.com.