iPhone: the energy management savior?
How will the home energy management market evolve in the next few months or years?
Will homeowners buy energy management services on their own or will they have to be bundled with other services?
Who will be the big players in energy management in the next year?
And what role with electric vehicles (EVs) and this dang iPhone play?
Several attendees of the recent Parks Associates’ Smart Energy Summit: Engaging the Consumer, in Austin, Texas, came away with some keen insights about the market.
Here are their thoughts:
Mark Komanecky, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Eragy
- Will people buy energy management services [on a subscription basis] just to save money? The consensus on our panel was no. There needs to be more than money savings to get people interested. It can’t be strictly an ROI sale.
- How engaged does the consumer need to be? The consensus is that it needs to be “set it and forget.”
- People want info on demand and control on demand.
- There is a lot of conversation on educating the consumer. If it’s not done carefully, it’s not going to be interesting. For utilities, it’s how do we get them interested in this
Martin Flusberg, CEO of Powerhouse Dynamics
- Parks feels we’re about to start a period of rapid growth, and there’s a recognition that the bulk of activity and energy management in the next few years, will come from independent networks and not the smart grid.
- Some [speakers] said that you can’t have energy management purely by itself, and it has to sit in with other things in the homeowners’ lifestyles.
- But we also heard a lot of “different strokes for different folks.” Different types of people will react to different things. You need both energy management dashboards and set it and forget it to cover. You do need to provide different functionalities for different types of people.
- There also seemed to be less talk about in-home displays and more about browser-based solutions.
- Several security companies were in the audience, [so it appears they are interested in getting into energy management.]
Erica Shonkwiler, Market Research Manager of CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association)
- Most companies talked a lot about bundling. So, instead of energy management being a standalone service, it will be another app on a more complex user interface with other services like home health, streaming content, security, etc.
- As we know, ADT, Verizon, AT&T, and Motorola are making big moves to incorporate energy management. Speakers anticipate that Lowe’s and Home Depot will soon be offering installation services of control devices, similar to Magnolia at Best Buy.
- The two biggest points of focus in the next 24 months that will affect the speed of adoption for energy management products and services are interoperability and technical/security standards.
- The current infrastructure isn’t ready for how quickly electric vehicles may be purchased.
- The utilities have realized that most homeowners will never allow the utility to control their devices. Reduced consumption will need to be motivated by price incentives, neighbor competition, energy gifting, etc.
- Consumer education seems vital to the success of any program, but iPhone education didn’t have to occur to sell. So, the end result needs to be cool and exciting. Another case for bundling. Energy management alone isn’t cool, a connected home is.
- All elements of the connected home will need to be easily customizable.
Related posts:
11 Reasons Energy Management Will be Big in 2011
What Form Will Home Energy Management Take?
I believe the best way to drive popularity of energy management systems is to bundle these systems with anyone installing a Renewable Electric system. Then their curiosity in usage, savings, and earnings will really be peaked and they can better understand what those numbers really mean relative to money as they stair at their energy production numbers in KWH’s vs $’s.