NYC Pedal Powered Ball Drop

Tonight when we're dancing and cheering in the new year with eyes glued to New York City's famous Time Square ball drop (an anticlimactic hour early here in the Midwest..) we'll have to thank the many people who made that celebratory glow possible. For the past month, people were invited to take a turn on a Duracell Power Rover and charge batteries through pedal power. Come the countdown to a new decade, the numbers lighting up 2010 will all come from human power.

So exciting!

Learn more from Duracell here.

Top 5 Energy Display Devices Coming to CES 2010

The Consumer Electronics Show is on the horizon (Jan 7-10, 2010) and will feature some new in home displays and wired appliances that will usher in a new era of home networking. Luckily for you faithful readers, the PSP blog will be on hand to cover all the exciting developments.

Here is list (in no particular order) of the most anticipated exhibitions:

Tendril:
As a leader in home energy management, Tendril will be showing the Tendril Tree. It's an entire "ecosystem" of products that offer a variety of automated energy efficiency services (Demand Response, Energy Efficiency and pricing). The products are consumer-centric, but are designed to seamlessly work with utilities over an open and standards-based platform.

Whirpool Corporation:
The appliance manufacturer has been very outspoken over the past year in its support of smart grid initiatives. It's vision of a connected grid comes with a new era of "smart" appliances that will help consumers take advantage of new rates (like Power Smart Pricing) that will automate energy efficiency and cost saving modes based on the current price of electricity.

Control4:
This is an interesting addition to the field because Control4 is more about lighting, audio, and security controls from a central management display. It's only because of consumer demand that they are adding energy management functionality. The amount that Control4 dedicates to it will provide some interesting insight as to how hard this demand is pushing.

Embertec:
As a energy management startup, Embertec is receiving a lot of positive press for its innovative line of computer chips that automatically reduce energy waste in your appliances. The chips are designed to learn and adapt the way an appliance consumes power while in standby mode. This allows any appliance to quickly reduce its consumption of vampire power.

4Home, Inc:
This company has received innovation awards from CES and other trade shows for the past few years. They provide a portal to manage and connect devices in the home. With an eye towards energy savings, 4Home has developed a series of tools that will be on display.

With a competitive and crowded field, the need for continual improvement will determine which company will come out ahead. This year's Consumer Electronics Show will provide a great snapshot to compare their various advancement. As the show nears there will be more to come...

Energy Efficient Traffic Lights Can't Melt Snow

Cold weather states are reporting that their LED traffic lights cannot melt snow and are becoming obstructed. They have been indicated as the reason for traffic accidents, however traffic experts claim that most drivers end up treating them as stop signs. It turns out that the energy efficient LED bulbs are not keeping up with their inefficient incandescent ancestors which gave off waste heat.

The new traffic lights are said to be 90% more efficient and last significantly longer than incandescent.

Wisconsin, which has put LED bulbs at hundreds of intersections, saves about $750,000 per year in energy costs, said Dave Vieth of the state Transportation Department. LEDs installed seven years ago are still burning, while most incandescent bulbs have to be replaced every 12 to 18 months, he said.

The snow won't obstruct a traffic light in all winter storms. The wind and snowfall has to be just right, but in those cases the current solution is to manually remove it. States and traffic authorities are experimenting with weather shields and other tech fixes.

To learn more about it check out the AP Story.

12/13 Energy & Environment Links

Control the Climate at Your Desk, Save Energy

Ever wish you could micromanage the heating and cooling of your workplace down to the area around your desk? Turns out, not only would it make you more comfortable, but it would also save energy.

Millions of homes to get energy efficiency displays

Driven by consumer interest in energy and utility smart-grid programs, home energy information displays are poised to enter people's kitchens and living rooms in large numbers over the next few years, Pike Research forecast in a report on Thursday.

NYC Passes Landmark Greener Greater Buildings Plan!

Just last night, the New York City Council voted overwhelmingly to pass the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan – a package of bills aiming to reduce New York City’s carbon emissions by almost 5%, create more than 17,000 jobs, and save New Yorkers $700 million dollars a year in energy costs (via Campaign for New York’s Future).

Batteries to Become Important Part of the Grid

The electric grid is a complex machine that has been developed since its inception to become more and more reliable. One way utilities have been able to uphold this standard is by getting energy from power plants that churn out a consistent and predictable level of electricity. However, emerging renewable energy technologies do not. Sometimes the wind blows, sometimes the sun shines.

Utility sized battery storage is becoming an increasingly sought after piece to America's energy puzzle. Large scale grid storage would allow utilities to "smooth" energy fluctuations. The poles and wires of the grid can neither have too much electricity or too little. The batteries would allow an opportunity for grid operator to store excess energy or use the stored power to cover any spikes in demand.

The question going forward is not if, but how it is going to look. Two options have begun to emerge with pilot projects testing their respective feasibility. One option is to build a large scale battery (generally made from a lot of smaller batteries) like A123's 8 MW battery. The other is a distributed network of batteries that could cover a single neighborhood which would create a much more nimble and faster acting more customized problem averting system.

Utilities in Illinois purchase their electricity on a real-time market similar to what you'll see for Power Smart Pricing customers. Just like our program, one way to lower your costs for electricity is to take advantage of lower priced hours. Putting batteries onto the grid would create a cost saving opportunity to recharge a battery at night when prices are the lowest, then that stored energy could underbid any of the electric generation that is occurring during a demand peak.

To learn more A123's massive battery, click here.
To learn more about the distributed battery model click here.

In Home Display Review from Engadget

The writers over at Engadget spent some time with three energy consumption monitoring devices. They reviewed and compared Google's PowerMeter online gadget, the TED 5000, and the kit from AlertMe Energy. Overall, it's great to see advancement from start-up companies emerging across genres.

They came to some conclusions about everything from installation to the device's ultimate practicality. Check it out. It's an interesting perspective from people who know more about gadgets than they do about the smart grid.

The Engadget review can be found here.

12/5 Energy & Environment Links

Lockheed Expands Its Smart Grid Wings

Lockheed Martin, which has been expanding into smart grid and alternative energy for the past year, said today that it will work with a series of utilities – including PPL Electric Utilities, Rappahannock Electric Cooperative and Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative – on implementing security solutions for the grid.

Solar Plant in Space Gets Go-Ahead

California regulators on Thursday went where no regulators have gone before — approving a utility contract for the nation’s first space-based solar power plant.

SmartSynch Launches Universal Smart Grid Router

Is it “the Rosetta Stone of the smart grid?” Well, that’s a tall order, but smart grid network company SmartSynch says it’s launching a “universal” router for the smart grid, dubbed GridRouter, that can connect various networks, products and languages to help create an open ecosystem for the next-generation version of the digital power grid. The Internet Protocol-based GridRouter can act as a bridge between proprietary smart grid devices from companies, says SmartSynch.

How much is your home costing you?

So you get the bill at the end of the month, you look at, and it pretty much means nothing past "when and how much." The consumer centric information coming with smart grid advances is just that... coming. Even then it will require some more digging if you are truly interested to see just how the bill stacks up. An analogy that has often been made has compared electricity billing to going to the grocery store, picking out all your items, and then getting a total at the end of the month without knowing what each item cost you.

Well, consumer demand is changing rapidly. People are more and more interested in just how their money is getting spent. This demand is pushing appliance manufacturers, utilities, and the media to pay attention and innovate. A recent story in the Chicago Tribune by Cara Davis directly addresses this need. It's simple. It's to the point, and it really makes you wonder how this information has been so hidden for so long.

The article is titled "How much is your home costing you?" with the simplest of pictures featuring a kitchen with common appliances and their costs. It makes you think just long enough to look at your refrigerator a little differently the next time you open the door for 10 minutes figuring out what's for dinner.

Reduction in energy consumption will come from folks doing and spending the money they want on the things they want to do and buy with additional consumer demand and education on their lifetime costs. Looking at dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators and all things being equal, most people will buy the one that costs less to plug in. The speed of this change is a function of the demand which is all dependent on how much people know. Making these costs more transparent is the key to lowering the energy demand, but don't worry it won't spoil your Chinese food leftovers.


How much is your home costing you? (the print version contained the image above)