New PSP Pricing Gadgets

We have been approached a couple times over the past few weeks from developers of new electricity pricing gadgets compatible with Power Smart Pricing. Hopefully one of the options will match what your eye is looking for and make it easy for you to get the information you want.

Power Stoplight

The Power Stoplight shows the current price of electricity as well as the upcoming hours. It also incorporates the very glanceable feature of a stop light that changes color based on the price. You can also find the application in the Apple iTunes store for the iPhone which adds the bonus of checking the prices on the go!! The Power Stoplight is also in development to be available on your Blackberry. To learn more, go to http://www.powerstoplight.com/

Power Smart Pricing Monitor
The Power Smart Pricing Monitor is made specifically for Power Smart Pricing. This application runs on the desktop of compatible Windows computers. It shows the current price of electricity with a background color that indicates if the price is low, moderate or high. It also displays a message about the hour with the highest price as well as when the price will come back down. This is a great tool to find the cheapest time to do some of your electricity demanding chores. To download this program to learn more go to http://sites.google.com/site/radioetcetera/home/power-smart-pricing-monitor

These two programs are a great example of the passion of the participants for Power Smart Pricing. It also shows what happens when creativity meets new opportunities. We are very proud of our customers and all we ask is keep saving and keep up the good work!

Free E-Smart Thermostat Coverage is Expanding

There has been tremendous interest among Power Smart Pricing customers for the free E-Smart Thermostat. For more information you can find our previous post here. The rollout of the new device has not quite matched the demand, but we recently received word that Ameren is widely expanding the eligible customer geography to the following zip codes:

Peoria - 61525, 61615, 61614, 61528, 61523, 61548, 61571, 61550, 61603, 61604, 61554, 61568, 61535, 61606, 61536, 61547, 61607, 61568, 61616, 61611, 61564, 61539, 61552

Champaign -  61815, 61853, 61878, 61873, 61802, 61821, 61820, 61801, 61874, 61880, 61822, 61875, 61884, 61856, 61830, 61855, 62501, 62554, 61818, 62535, 62501, 62573, 62521, 62526, 62521, 62522, 62537, 62551, 62514, 62532, 61925, 62549


Bloomington -   61701, 61702, 61704, 61705, 61761, 61772, 61736, 61732, 61745, 61748, 61776, 61725






Metro East -  62001, 62002, 62010, 62012, 62024, 62025, 62034, 62035, 62040, 62046, 62049, 62059, 62060, 62062, 62087, 62088, 62095, 62201, 62202, 62203, 62205, 62206, 62207, 62208, ,62214, 62215, 62216, 62218, 62219, 62220, 62221, 62222, 62223, 62225, 62226, 62230, 62231, ,62232, 62234, 62236, 62239, 62240, 62242, 62243, 62244, 62245, 62248, 62249, 62254, 62255, ,62256, 62257, 62258, 62260, 62262, 62263, 62264, 62265, 62269, 62275, 62277, 62278, 62279, ,62281, 62282, 62285, 62289, 62293, 62294, 62295, 62298

Please keep in mind that the rollout of this device has to do with ensuring that the technology receives the pager signal required for the thermostat to work properly.

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.

Google PowerMeter Annouces Partnership with TED

Google's online energy management software, PowerMeter, will now be compatible with The Energy Detective series of display devices to watch your real-time energy usage. The move shows that Google is continuing to expand their software in both platform availability and ability. It also gives TED devices a much needed boost in relevance.

Unfortunately the TED devices cannot be set up to display the price of a real-time pricing program (or one that uses day-ahead prices). Their office claims that the expanded service could be available "soon." However, the device would still be an excellent way to manage your household energy usage. If you continued to check prices through our already available channels while then using TED to get up to the second usage data, then you could be assured that the steps you are taking to conserve your usage are working.


Currently you have to wait until your billing period is up to examine your hour by hour usage through Ameren's Energy Saving Toolkit, but this product would be a dramatically more effective tool to make the most cost cutting changes. Some Power Smart Pricing customers have said they like the program because it's feels like a game to see how much they can save and how much they can shift. With a TED device you could get a high price notification or receive the Daily Price Report from twitter and know exactly which hours you should conserve and then get the immediate feedback that you are doing it properly.

The cost of the device ranges from $100 - $250. It has to be attached to your circuit breaker and wired into your home so unless you are comfortable with that kind of work you will probably want to hire an electrician. Ultimately the cost seems small enough that if you actively used the newly available information, along with the price signals from Power Smart Pricing, that you could make up that initial investment in a relatively short amount of time.

For more on the TED-Google Partnership.

For more information on a TED device.

The Ted Store.

PSP Updates Twitter Page

Power Smart Pricing has made some changes to their twitter page. Starting yesterday, each evening at 6pm we will tweet the highest and lowest price for the following day. Think of it just like a weather report giving you a generally sense of what to expect. It is also set up to tweet the price is going to rise above 13 cents as another way to receive your high price notification.

Here's a sample:

Thu, Jul 09: Low @ 1¢ from 2am - 3am, High @ 3.8¢ from 3pm - 4pm

Looks good. Easy to use.

Follow us at http://twitter.com/powersmart

Microsoft Joins the Home Energy Management Fray

Microsoft has recently unveiled its home energy management online tool called Microsoft Hohm. The tool allows the user to enter data about their home and their energy usage to determine personalized and effective energy savings tips. More information from unique users will enhance results as the site will be able to more effectively match usage patterns and one's home profile with energy savings.

Once you login with a Windows Live ID (an existing account will work) the layout is very easy to manage. Your home profile is very detailed and the site will update how far along you are in the process as you gather your information. If your utility is a partner of Microsoft Hohm, your monthly bills can be automatically uploaded into your site (neither Ameren nor ComEd have joined this partnersip). For everyone else there is a simple place that you can enter your billing information each month. All you need to provide is your billing start and end date and the amount of kwh (for electricity) and therms (for gas) that you have used during that period.

The more information you can provide, and the more people that provide it, the better the service will be for everyone. Considering Microsoft's outstanding legacy and history of getting people to use their products, this is a piece of software worth watching. If more utilities were to partner (as Microsoft is hoping and actively seeking), then the number of users would rise at a fast pace. Currently there are about four utilites that have signed on, mostly in the West Coast.

If you are the type of person that keeps your bills on hand, but never looks at them, then this site might be a good help. As you enter your data, you will be able to examine more detailed charts and graphs that will follow your usage. Given your home profile and your billing data, Microsoft Hohm will estimate what portion of your bills are going to what appliances and behaviors. It will provide the most cost effective solutions, and it will definitely help you save money.

The one negative is that it takes some effort from the consumer. You have to be engaged in energy saving to get the most out of the tool. To continue on the metaphor, they give you the hammer and the nail, but you still have to build the porch. The site is worth checking out. It's on par with some of the management tools out there. Despite not having the capacity to handle variable pricing like Power Smart Pricing, it can still be a service these customers.

Overall, good stuff.

Check out Microsoft Hohm.

Google Announces Initial PowerMeter Partners

Google has announced its first PowerMeter partners. They have found 8 utilities representing over 10 million customers from 3 countries and 6 different US states. The utilities will offer Google PowerMeter to their customers. This will allow them to access detailed information on their home energy use through a web portal.

Here are the partners:

- San Diego Gas & Electric® (California)
- TXU Energy (Texas)
- JEA (Florida)
- Reliance Energy (India)
- Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (Wisconsin)
- White River Valley Electric Cooperative (Missouri)
- Toronto Hydro–Electric System Limited (Canada)
- Glasgow EPB (Kentucky)
- Itron (Integration partner)

The Google PowerMeter will assist customers in saving energy and money. Being able to see accurate and current information about their usage will enable customers with the knowledge of how and when to conserve their energy. Google throwing its name into the hat of software developers looking to advance the availability of energy information will certainly help push the limit into what is possible.

Follow PSP Prices on Twitter

We have set automated messages to tweet each hour as the price for electricity changes. Use the button located on the sidebar to get to our new Twitter page. This will provide another way to get the information you need whenever you need it.

We also want to encourage all of our participants to use this new platform to discover new and innovative ways to use this service to its full potential.

Here is a little positive encouragement on the endless possibilities:
http://www.goodcleantech.com/2008/12/make_your_own_remote_lighting.php

Some interesting ways to get started on your own can be found here with their selection of widgets and other apps for your desktop, website, or your iphone/itouch. You can even use their API (Application Programming Interface) to create your own.

Jay Nick Update and ecobee

Jay Nick has developed a couple of handy online tools for Power Smart Pricing. One of them is the "stoplight" tool featured at the top of the sidebar on the PSP Blog. He also developed a similar tool that mimics the Pricelight. The color of the orb changes depending on the price of electricity that hour. The tools can be embedded in a website (like this one) or it can be placed on your Google homepage.

He also developed a toolbar for Firefox web browsers. Once you download the software a bar showing the time/date and the price of electricity will automatically be displayed on your web browser. This is a very handy way to be able to see the prices all the time without having them in the way. For example, just a glance tells me that the price is currently 3.766 cents per kWh (current flat rate price: roughly 8 cents per kWh)

We recently had a conversation with him and he pointed us in the direction of a smart thermostat called ecobee. It takes advantage of a large display to make all its functions very user friendly. Like a traditional programmable thermostat you can set up a program to automatically manage your house's temperature.

It adds wifi so you can manage your household systems through a website. This would give you the added advantage of being able to change your program while you were away from the house. For customers with hourly electricity pricing this would be a nice feature to allow you to lower your cooling temperature during a higher priced time.

The next development with smart thermostats would be the ability to program the system to automatically respond to different price signals. For example, if the price for electricity is 6 cents and below keep the house at a particular temperature and so on. As variable pricing programs continue to emerge, so too will the tools. Many thanks to Jay Nick for advancing the ball.

http://www.jaynick.com

To his Firefox toolbars: http://www.jaynick.com/FirefoxAdd-ons.php
- Download the Ameren DAP toolbar to get price information directly into your Firefox web browser.

To the orb tool: http://www.jaynick.com/images/Ameren.svg

To the smart thermostat: www.ecobee.com

Today's Winner: The Verizon Hub

Here at the PSP blog we promote the notion that something must be measured before it can be reduced. Homeowners looking to reduce their energy bills will be given a much better chance to succeed if they can watch their usage in real time.

The key to acheiving this reality begins with smarter energy meters that can measure usage as it ocurrs, instead of once a month. This will essentially begin the integration of the internet onto the electric grid with systems interacting with each other remotely over some agreed upon protocal (another step towards acheivement). The question I am posing today is, how is this information going to be displayed so the homeowner can actually use it to save some real money?

Let's forget about the software for moment (think Google PowerMeter). After a recent visit to the Smart Home exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, it was clear that the ultimate outcome to display energy information has yet to be determined. Will it mount on the wall like your programmable thermostat? Will it only get as far as your computer screen? Or will something entirely different come along?

The Verizon Hub is an interesting proposal. It combines the home phone with a small display (not unlike the Chumby) that includes a series of applications to help people organize their lives. Hopefully, this initial effort to "reinvent" the home phone will be successful and further development will include software that is open to all the living room software developers out there.

All the big names are hard at work on this: GE, Google, Verizon, AT&T, IBM... (this list goes on). There are many more smaller companies that have done the tough job of proving that the technology works, but it sadly appears as if they will be eaten up by the power players. The competition is great, it's a proven method of finding the best solution. Now we get to sit back and enjoy.

I declare today's winner, the Verizon Hub. It's new, different, it looks great, and it would be a great place for that killer app to show me how I can save some money if I was just a little bit smarter with my energy usage. Tomorrow's winner, might win it all... so stay tuned.

Learn more about the Verizon Hub.

Super Bowl Smart Grid Ad (Video)

To be honest I missed it. Apparently it aired, oh well. Here's the video.



To see other ecomagination tv ads click here.

Update: Here is another ad. This one is on wind energy.

NRDC's The Green Squad

The National Resource Defense Council is the one of the nation's most effective environmental action organizations. They developed an interactive guide for kids to look for ways to improve their schools. It is similar to CNT Energy’s Energy Savers program that performs multi-family residential building audits in the Chicago area. However, this puts the tools in the hands of the students.

The Green Squad teaches kids about the relationship between their schools and environmental and health issues. The site is designed primarily for students in fifth through eighth grade, but also offers information for younger and older students as well as parents and teachers.

The Green Squad

More PSP on Facebook

Our Facebook group is getting underway. The numbers are growing slightly, but growing is the important part. We really want to encourage you to sign up because it will be a great way to learn more about the program from fellow participants.

The first discussion about the program was about Precooling. Now that its about zero degrees outside, this isn't the most seasonal article.

Zuzu asked: So I am up to renew my PSP in Feb , but I'm not sure if I want to because of how much more I spend in the summer... why should I keep it?

and Kristy responded: Best thing to do in Summer is to super cool down the house at night until about 10:00 am while power is really cheap and then gradually let it get a bit warmer during the day. We've done great in the summers by doing that. Also, it makes for a comfortable sleeping temp.


One of the "discoveries" that many of our participants made this past summer was with Precooling. It's an idea that has been really effective for some families, and it is a great method to keep costs down during hot summer afternoons.

Reading about it on facebook allowed our facebook administrator to see the comments and post a link to our fact sheet on precooling. Now we can provide all the extra little tidbits of information that we have learned about Power Smart Pricing.

We strongly believe that Facebook and the PSP blog can be a great resource for us to communicate with you and for you with each other.

Link to the Facebook group

Link to the Precooling factsheet

Our New Website

The Power Smart Pricing team has updated the Power Smart Pricing website (www.powersmartpricing.org)!

We are excited about the new features that the website now offers our current participants. Check out the new way to get daily prices by clicking on the “Hourly Prices” menu option. Now you can view (and print) the prices in a graph or table format where the day’s prices are color coded. A green bar indicates a low priced hour (less than 8 cents), a yellow bar is in the middle (8 to 13 cents), and a red bar is a high priced hour (above 13 cents).

In the new “Participant Tools” menu option, you can check out our web gadgets, learn about seasonal energy saving tips, and link to the Ameren login page to view your personalized online tools.

There is also a link to the PowerSmart Pricing blog www.powersmartpricing.blogspot.com). As many of you have already seen, it’s a frequently updated source of program news and interesting energy related stories.

As the number of Power Smart Pricing participants grows everyday, we’ve found that the participants themselves are great sources of information about how to succeed on the program. We work to provide the best possible information, and participants can be a great source of advice as well. That is why are we are beginning to build the foundation for new online social networking groups. Check out our new Facebook group called Power Smart Pricing!

Thank you for your participation in Power Smart Pricing. If you have any ideas about how to get the best possible value from the program, try using some of the online tools so other participants can hear your great ideas! And of course, if you want to talk, our staff is always more than happy to take your call.

Welcome Mumby the Chumby!

Welcome Mumby!

We have an addition to our Power Smart Pricing office. It’s Mumby the Chumby. As described by the makers, Chumby is a “compact consumer Internet device that enables people to receive a constant personalized broadcast of their favorite parts of the Web.” It has partnerships with CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL’s SHOUTCast, and Scripps Networks to provide a base set of widgets that can be displayed on its screen.

We are excited by the visit because each Chumby can be highly personalized to have the channels, or widgets, of your choice. This even includes ones that can be created by outside developers. Here at CNT Energy we are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to display hourly prices. A widget could be designed a lot like Jay Nick’s google gadget (as seen on the sidebar) that would show the current price and match it with an easily recognizable color scheme (green, yellow, or red).

If you currently own a Chumby, let us know what you think! Also if there are any developers out there who want to take a shot at programming a widget keep us informed with your progress!

To learn more go to http://www.chumby.com/.

A New Power Smart Pricing Website is Coming!!

Here at CNT Energy we have been working hard on updating the Power Smart Pricing website. We are fine tuning the finishing touches on what will be an exciting new "face lift" for our participants. There will be better access to hourly pricing, and well organized background information you can show your friends and neighbors as you tell them why they should sign up. The blog is still up and running, but yours truly has been a little preoccupied with the upgrade. Look for the new site to go live in the next couple of weeks!

GE's Smart Appliances

As plans are being drawn up to overhaul the electric grid with smart meters, some private companies are making their plans to keep up. General Electric announced that in the first quarter of next year the company will introduce a new line of appliances that can be controlled remotely. The company is developing smart refrigerators, ranges, washers and dryers, dishwashers and microwave ovens, and will start a pilot program in Louisville KY with Louisville Gas and Electric Company.

Utility companies across the nation have been looking for ways to lower peak demand, and some began that process by implementing real-time pricing programs like Power Smart Pricing (but not as great!!!). The high demand periods throughout the year have a great influence over electricity prices.

The improved appliances would be able to be controlled by utility companies to shift into an energy saving mode that would not have much affect on the consumer. For example, a freezer could be able to delay its automatic defrost function during peak hours. The change in wattage would be small, but overall the utility would be able to make similar changes throughout the service area on a wide range of appliances.

This integration will invite new innovation that will have the ability to fundamentally change the way we use electricity. New enterprises will spring up emulating the chances GE is beginning to take. For now, innovation comes in the form of Power Smart Pricing. Our participants constantly tell us that because of the way they are billed, the way they now think about their usage, they are using less. There is a lot of money for our households to save, and we must continue to support these endeavors alongside Ameren, and other utilities raising money for smart meters, and private companies looking to improve the appliances we use.

New online tools to help you keep track of hourly prices

As you know, there are currently two ways to check prices. You can go to Ameren’s website or call and listen to a recording of the prices. Would you like to have an easier way to keep an eye on prices – like a widget that could be displayed on your internet home page?

CNT Energy is testing three web-based tools that provide information about hourly prices. One tool is a Google gadget that displays the current hourly energy prices with a virtual stoplight. Another is a toolbar for Firefox that shows the current hourly energy price, with an optional graph of prices for the entire day. The third tool is a Vista gadget.

If you’d like to try any of these tools, see below for the links to download them. We’d like to know what you think of them, so call or e-mail us with your comments. Please let us know whether you find these tools helpful for managing your energy use. Also, we would be interested in your ideas about other helpful ways to make price information available. Finally, if you are a web programmer or developer who would like to help us develop these or other tools, we’d love to hear from you.

In addition, we continue to offer more detailed web-based information about your individual electricity usage and costs through our website. Those tools will continue to be enhanced over the coming year by our technology partner Aclara Software. To view these tools, log in to your Ameren account at www.Ameren.com, and then click on the Power Smart Pricing link.

Test the New Tools!

Please note that you will need a Google homepage and account, Firefox browser or Windows Vista operating system in order to use these tools.

Google gadget
If you have a Google account, you can place this virtual stoplight on your iGoogle homepage. It changes hourly to show the current price of electricity. You will need to log in to your Google account for the gadget to appear. Click here to download.

Firefox Toolbar
This toolbar is for users of the Firefox web browser. (If you don’t have Firefox, you can download it for free at www.Mozilla.com/Firefox.) The toolbar shows the current price of electricity and has a button to display a graph of the day’s prices. Click here to download.
(Note: You may have to log in to Firefox to have access to this program.)

Vista Gadget
This gadget will only work if you have the Windows Vista operating system. Click here to download. UPDATE: If you are having trouble getting the Vista gadget, here is a link to the Windows Vista Help website for gadgets.

These tools were developed by Jay Nick, a retired utility engineer with a long-time interest in real-time pricing. The tools are still under development, so your comments are appreciated.