What if we all had RTP?

As a recipient of ARRA smart grid funds, Burbank Water and Power in California is set to automatically switch some of its largest residential customers to time-of-use rates. In all, BWP is installing 77,000 smart meters provided by Trilliant, a leading smart grid start up company. Households getting the new meters whose energy usage is greater than 250 kilowatts a month will be placed on time-of-use rates.

It will be essential for the program administrators to accurately educate their new crop of participants on how to take advantage of the potential benefits as well as limit any ideas that they are guaranteed. Initially, fear of the unknown will be a difficult hurdle to cross. However acceptance will come as soon as savings are understood and realized. This takes work from both engaged and educated participants to administrators who must be determined to figure out just how to engage and educate.

This initiative begs to ask the wider question, what if the rest of the country was automatically switched to real-time pricing?

Overall, it would be a great. One thing that Power Smart Pricing has shown is that participants with all types of housing size, hvac equipment, and usage have enjoyed savings. Some households would be better off than others, and surely there would be people who end up spending more, but in general America's bills would go down. The price curve would flatten and be less volatile as there would be more conservation during higher prices and more usage during lower priced hours.

Appliances would see a new era of innovation. Consumers would demand products that could react and shift to changing price demands. Products like the commercial-centric Ice Bear from Ice Energy that cools ice over night during cheaper evening prices to then use as an alternative to the expensive compressor during the peak afternoon periods would be more refined and aimed at homeowners.

This change would bring energy consumption closer to energy costs. The electricity market would be a vastly different stage. Again, we must commend our Power Smart Pricing participants as catalysts for more and more experimentation and confidence in the area of real-time pricing. Much of the consumer benefit of the expanded information with the smart grid depends on this pricing choice. The Burbank project will be closely watched.

11/21 Energy & Environment Links

Lesson Learned from the PG&E Smart Meter Suit: It’s a Communication Problem

We’ve yet to delve too deeply into all of the fisticuffs surrounding the suit filed by a Bakersfield, Calif. resident against utility PG&E for a smart meter that he says tripled his electricity bill.

Will consumers plug into home energy displays?

Dozens of home energy monitors are coming to market, but nobody knows whether only hybrid Prius owners will use them.

Wearable Technology Power Your Music Player With Your Running Pants

Talk about a dance, dance revolution: The Dancepants Kinetic Music Player, a shortlisted entry in Designboom’s Green Life competition, makes you work for tunes.

Introducing the $23 Billion for "Cash for Caulkers"

It appears that the success of "Cash for Clunkers" created enough buzz for a spin off. (However, this all  should be credited to the catchy Cash4Gold.com people.) Well either way, it is time for those programs to move aside for our personal favorite, "Cash for Caulkers."

The general goal of the program would be to pay homeowners to make energy efficient improvements on their homes. The potential value of such a program would be great because as we all know that cost effective home improvements bear savings month to month. The details need to be worked out, but this idea has achieved such high endorsements as former President Bill Clinton, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and John Doerr, an influential venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

Here is the general breakdown as of the proposed program (via The New York Times):

• The official name of the program would be Homestar, playing off the name Energy Star, a government program that promotes energy-efficient appliances.
  

• It would cost $23 billion over two years. Of that, $6 billion would go to incentives to people who did at least two significant weatherization projects — such as air sealing, insulation, new light bulbs and new appliances. Homestar would have a list of 10 such projects. Households that did at least two would be eligible for up to $2,000. Households that did four would be eligible for up to $3,500. The government money could not pay for more than half of any project.

• Another $12 billion would be set aside for households that undertook a weatherization project that reduced energy consumption by at least 20 percent. A 20 percent reduction would bring a $4,000 subsidy. Each additional 5 percent reduction would bring another $1,500. Again, government money could not pay for more than half of any project.

• Some portion of weatherization projects would be audited to ensure they had done what they were supposed to. These audits would be paid for with $2 billion for program administration.

• The remaining $3 billion for the program would pay for incentives to retailers, like Home Depot and Lowe’s, and contractors. “What you want to be able to do,” Mr. Doerr said, “is walk into Sears or Home Depot and see a great big Homestar logo and a Homestar sales representative."

Even more from the New York Times (including an interactive graphic).
More from Earth2Tech.

11/15 Energy & Environment Links

Streetlights of the Future to be Powered by Trash

It's an idea that just seems to make a certain amount of sense: cities need streetlights, and cities need places for people to throw away their trash. Streetlights, which must stay on all night (unless they're these nifty sensor controlled ones), are a pretty sizable energy drain. But what would happen if all those people could toss their garbage into bins attached to a new kind of streetlight that could use it as fuel? And that's what we have here today. Introducing: the trash-powered street lamp.

Setting Sail Into Space, Propelled by Sunshine

About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely more substantial. Then it will slowly rise on a sunbeam and move across the stars.

Microsoft Hohm: First Seattle City Light, Now Xcel Energy

Microsoft's Hohm home energy platform will soon be able to deliver monthly energy use data for all of Xcel Energy's 3.4 million customers across eight states, all without smart meters. The two companies plan to announce the news on Friday at an event at Microsoft's campus in Fargo, N.D., a Microsoft spokesperson said Thursday.

GE Introduces First "Smart Appliance"

The Smart Grid is coming! The Smart Grid is coming! Soon to follow are smart appliances. You can now (as in right now -however its not available in IL yet) buy the new Energy Star rated GE Hybrid Water Heater.

To create the next generation of water heaters, GE rethought every aspect of this appliance from the ground up. The result is a innovative new product that can reduce water heater operating cost up to 62% and save $320 per year.* That adds up to significant savings, and you won't have to give up a single drop of hot water.

The water heater is an excellent place to start. It is the biggest energy sucking appliance after your heating and cooling system. What makes this water heater smart is its ability to communicate to an outside system that can control what mode the water heater is in. During periods of high prices, the water heater can theoretically be shifted remotely by the utility the most energy efficient settings. This would be a similar program to an air conditioning cycling program.

An article from the New York Time's Green Inc. blog, relays that it is unfortunate that most consumers would not be able to see this added benefit.

There is no monetary incentive to program the water heater to go into energy-saving mode at 4 p.m., in other words — so the “smartness” has no immediate purpose.

Again as Power Smart Pricing customers, you all are on the front line to take advantage of the newest innovations in the energy cost savings world. It's so new that this feature is barely ever mentioned on GE's web page dedicated to the water heater. The real goal would be for the water heater to automatically adjust its settings based on how the consumer wants it to react to certain price points. For the time being, smart appliances and meters will be developed with the utility in mind.

Dynamic pricing programs like Power Smart Pricing are too few and far between for developers to aim their products at the consumer. Fortunately you all have proven that real-time pricing programs work for a wide variety of households and various levels of access to latest technologies.Your successes are paving the way towards wider acceptance of this pricing method and slowly but surely the products will change and advance with you in mind. Savings will follow.

For more from Green Inc on the smart appliance, click here.
To learn more (including multiple videos) about GE's Hybrid Electric Water Heater, click here.

PSP in the Quincy News (updated w/ video)

The article accompanying the video (yet to be posted online Update: Now with video!) features Power Smart Pricing participant David Edwards who has been a happy customer for the past 16 months. Thanks for the great coverage!

Check it out here.

More Winter Saving (online version)..

There is never a limit on savings... well maybe your total bill. Over CNet's GreenTech blog they have compiled a great guide to using the online tools that are available to everyone to get some personalized energy saving advice. In most of these cases, the software will ask you to profile your home to specify some places to target for energy and money savings.

Unfortunately, Power Smart Pricing customers won't be given time specific advice to help manage some of the higher winter prices. (Keep in mind that prices are generally lower than the flat 24 hours a day, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a pattern featuring higher priced times.)

To check out their guide to energy saving webware (their word, not mine) click here.

Home Energy Saving is Relaxing, Stylish and Tasty

Sealing air leaks in windows, door and electric outlets are a common solution. So is adding insulation and raising your blinds in the middle of the day to allow for passive solar heating. But ultimately, saving energy and money is something that we do everyday without even noticing. It comes in all forms, and it has all kinds of benefits. For Power Smart Pricing customers, combining your schedule and energy saving techniques is your best choice to increase savings and lower your bills.

For example, if you are an avid runner you could run in the evening to avoid the high electricity prices between 6-8 during cooler months (even better if you have electric heat...). Maybe running isn't your thing. Do you have a dog? Put on some layers and go for a walk. Who knew that energy saving could be so relaxing?

There are so many ways to conserve energy that most of the time you don't even have to think about it. Like that ever so desirable Snuggie, one impulse buy off QVC and you got yourself some energy savings. That Snuggie might even pay for itself... if it weren't for the shipping and handling. Who knew such a "smart" purchase could look so "stylish?"

It's getting cold, and now we get to battle everyday to stay warm. How about some tea? Coffee? Warm apple cider? Hot chocolate (with marshmallows of course)? Not sure if there is a better excuse to enjoy a warm drink than energy savings... well maybe that's just me.

Energy saving isn't all that hard. The key is finding those things that you enjoy to do and actually do them. If you believe me, plan a time to run this week and come home to a Snuggie and some hot chocolate. I bet you would let your thermostat drop without even checking it. Who knew energy saving could be so relaxing, stylish, and tasty all at the same time?

11/1 Energy & Environment Links

A place known for mustard shows fine taste for conservation

The Elithis Tower, its builder says, is an office building like no other, an oval-shaped showcase for how to help save the planet on a reasonable budget.

Very Promising! Zinc-Air Battery Could Hold 300% More Energy Than Lithium-Ion

Not quite as impressive on paper as the lithium-air battery we wrote about (which claimed 10x more energy storage than regular lithium-ion), but it might turn out to be easier to take out of the lab and bring to market. ReVolt Technology, a company based in Staefa, Switzerland, claims that its Zinc-air battery can "store three times the energy of lithium ion batteries, by volume, while costing only half as much."

Microgrids: $2.1B Market by 2015

The idea behind microgrids – islands of renewable power generation, energy storage, building control systems, and a localized electricity distribution grid that can manage it all, whether connected to the grid at large or not.