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.
5 comments:
They should definitely invest is what is probably the most energy consuming appliance: Air Conditioning.
The demand pattern of AC is terrible, because it depends on the weather and therefore it is likely that all AC systems start running together, causing huge peaks in demand.
Making AC systems responding to energy price in a smart way would smooth out these peaks. See here. It's a simple solution (they just turn off AC when energy is expensive) but gives the idea.
these are available in IL, the company i work for has them in the warehouse!! Come and get 'em...for a fee of course.
The point of any DR (Demand Response) Program is to prevent the load curve during any time on a particular day from intersecting the pricing curve at that same time and day, that would requiring the purchase of market power. Now, a utility's business is selling kWh, so naturally, while attempting to prevent demand from peaking, it is critical that the utility should not loose kWh sales while doing so. Actually, to be most efficient, it is in the system’s best interest to fill in the valleys with kWh deferred from the peak. The flattest daily usage pattern will give the most efficiency system wide. If you are aware of RTP costs increasing toward a peak, you should pre-cool your house, say to 70 degrees, (increasing load during the non peaking periods – filling in a valley) then during the peaking period, allow your AC to coast, (shaving a peak) thereby giving the demand relief, and after the peaking period, recover to 74, or where you normally set the thermostat. We get the best of both worlds, we get kWh rate relief by being on RTP, the utility gets to stay below predefined peaks, AND sell kWh, which keeps us both financially healthy.
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