Have you heard about the Green Button initiative? It’s a way to get your energy usage information from your electric utility. President Obama mentioned it in his State of the Union address, and you’re probably going to start hearing a lot more about it. Electric utilities are beginning to support it—and app developers are busy creating useful—and hopefully engaging—apps based on Green Button data.

The initiative started as a challenge from Aneesh Chopra at the Obama Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, and so far California utilities Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE) have answered the call and are offering Green Buttons on their web sites so customers can download their energy info.

Other utilities including Southern California Edison, Glendale Power & Light, Oncor in Texas and Mid-Atlantic energy provider Pepco Holdings will offer the feature later this year. Expect many other utilities to follow.

PG&E and SDG&E offer downloads to their smart meter customers in XML or CSV formats, the latter of which can be viewed in a spreadsheet. You can download a sample here. Customers of those utilities who also have two-way communicating smart meters can go to their My Energy or My Accounts pages to download their energy data.

So far the form of the info is a bit crude. And the energy usage info is your total electricity used each hour, though you can get 13 months worth of it. The California utilities got together and agreed upon a specific format for their Green Button rollouts.

San Diego Gas & Electric reports that about 2,900 downloads have taken place since the button was first made available on Dec. 29, 2011. SDGE has replaced 1.4 million electric meters with smart meters.

Apps Will Follow

Josh Scholten created an app in 12 hours showing electric usage by day, month and year. Click image to see PG&E video.

This is just a start, though. The idea behind the Green Button initiative isn’t just to give people their rightful energy information, but to enable app developers to also use this early, crude-form info to develop useful applications for consumers to view and manage their energy.

“The availability and access of this information will create a lot of excitement,” says Greg Snapper, spokesperson for PG&E “We’re going to leave it up to the brilliant and savvy Silicon Valley folks to provide ways to present of that information.”

You can choose to keep your energy information yourself or share it with a third-party developer. Smart grid software platform company Tendril already has a Green Button Connect site where consumers can upload their green button data and try out different applications to make sense of it. According to reports, Tendril says that 240 application developers have registered to use the Tendril platform through Green Button Connect, and at least 50 applications are in active development.

The site already features two apps by Simple Energy and Tendril. The Simple Energy app allows people to compare their use with friends and neighbors on social platforms like Facebook, email and mobile apps. Tendril’s Energy Insight app presents energy use data in easy-to-read charts that can be displayed in hourly, daily, monthly intervals with a tabular summary report.

“A lot of what we’re doing with it is making it simpler and easy to use,” says Dennis Kyle, Tendril’s vice president of strategic and new market development. “We’re trying to come up with tools to make it easier and more accessible to the consumer.

Austin, Texas web developer Josh Scholten created an app in 12 hours showing electric usage by day, month and year, and he also wants to provide charts, graphs and analysis. (See video here or by clicking on the photo above.)

You can expect these kinds of apps to become available, as well as those that can provide targeted energy efficiency tips, depending on your energy use and other factors.

The Green Button is also expected to support a new generation of interactive thermostats and virtual energy audits that will recommend energy-efficiency retrofit improvements for homes and businesses.

Here are a few ways that data from Green Button might be put to use, according to the White House:

• Insight—entrepreneur-created web portals that can analyze energy usage and provide actionable tips.
• Heating and Cooling—customized heating and cooling activities for savings and comfort.
• Education—community and student energy-efficiency competitions.
• Retrofits—improved decision-support tools to facilitate energy-efficiency retrofits.
• Verification—measurement of energy-efficiency investments.
• Real Estate—provision of energy costs for tenants and/or new home purchasers.
• Solar—optimize the size and cost-effectiveness of rooftop solar panels

A Safer Smart Grid?

Considering concerns about security surrounding smart meter communications, many utilities may prefer that their smart meter customers get their energy information via the Internet rather than through a direct connection and in-home energy display. We may also see utilities providing smart grid services like information on changing hourly rates (called Time of Use rate) via the Internet rather than through their smart meters.

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Is a Photo Frame the Way to Smart Grid Home Energy Management?

Ceiva puts energy management in a digital picture frame.

Many companies are vying for the smart grid HAN (home are networking) market, producing energy management and monitoring systems that they hope utilities will deploy to enhance energy-saving smart grid services. There are all forms of energy dashboards available for this job, but one company may have the answer to inspiring utility customers to think more about their energy use. And it involves a digital photo frame.

A first glance the Ceiva Energy Display looks like a frivolous gadget. Oh look, someone put an energy manager in a digital photo frame. Cute!  But there’s a reason for it. And the reason is getting eyes on a home’s energy usage. And what better way to do that than with pictures of your loved ones?

The display, which is being made available only to utilities, can intersperse a few basic energy information slides and energy efficiency tips amid the 40 photo slots on the photo frame, and allow more detailed information to be available with a click or two on the unit’s remote control. It’s based on cloud-based digital photo frames made by parent company Ceiva Logic.

The display can show consumption of electricity, gas, or water, as well as how much energy from an alternative source like a solar system is producing.

It has Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity to a home’s network, so it can see what a connected smart thermostat is doing, for example. It can also control other connected devices and has wireless ZigBee and Smart Energy Profile (SEP) 1.1 to communicate with many two-way smart meters being installed by utilities for smart grid services. Cevia’s Energy Display can ping the smart meter every 8 seconds.

Reducing MTKD

The idea of combining energy usage info amid pictures of Mom and the kids reduces MTKD, or “mean time to kitchen draw” that is prevalent when users get over the novelty of an energy monitor and stop checking it.

Wannie Park, Ceiva’s vice president of strategic partnerships, says the Ceiva Energy Display can provide energy info three different ways:

• Energy monitoring with more comprehensive information available to those who want to drill down.
• Photo slide show with a few slides dedicated to provide basic energy information and costs and other information the utility wishes to provide.
• Adding two to three slots per slide show to provide real-time energy data feedback.

Cevia will also charge small subscriptions to its service. That and other pricing will depend on the utility and whether it plans to subsidize the costs.

Ceiva is currently involved in a year-long utility pilot with Glendale Water & Power in Glendale, Calif. Fifty 9-inch diagonal Ceiva Energy Displays were put in homes a couple of months ago, and after technical feasibility tests a second phase of 15,000 will be deployed, before the rest of the population gets 80,000 to 90,000 units, says Park.

Participants in the Glendale pilot can turn up the air conditioning and watch the numbers climb on their digital photo frame right on their kitchen counters.

The interface and energy information homeowners receive via the units depend on the utility’s needs and requirements, Park says.

Also see:

3 Ways to Heat Up Your Energy Efficiency Sales

Report: Building Automation Market to Reach $146 Billion

Catch the LED Wave: An LED Lighting Market Outlook

Homebuilders promoting Energy Efficiency, Net Zero Homes

Green home building and renovation is one area of the home market that is actually growing, opening opportunities for builders, HVAC and energy effciency contractors, systems installers and more.

Green homes construction is expected to grow to between 29 percent and 38 percent of the market by 2016, realizing an $87 billion to $144 billion market, reports McGraw-Hill Construction in its new Green Home Builders and Remodelers Study. That’s up five-fold from the 17 percent/$17 billion green home construction market in 2011.

Construction industry professionals report an even steeper increase in green home remodeling; 34 percent of remodelers expect to be doing mostly green work by 2016, a 150 percent increase over 2011 activity levels. The amount of builders expecting to do 90 percent green remodels by 2016 nearly triples, form 8 percent in 2011 to 22 percent in 2016.

The study also reveals business benefits afforded by green building, such as a competitive marketing advantage:

Source: McGraw-Hill Construction

• 33 percent of remodelers and 68 percent of dedicated green remodelers report positive business impact form being green.
• 46 percent of builders and remodelers find that “building green” makes it easier to market themselves in a down economy, and an overwhelming 71 percent of firms that are dedicated to green home building report the same.
• Many factors are driving the green homes market, with “higher quality” and “increases in energy costs” topping the list, indicating that today’s green homebuyer is not just a green consumer. Buyers recognize that green homes have lower bills due to higher building performance.
• 60 percent of builders and remodelers say their clients will pay more for green.
• The reported costs of building a green home have also gone down significantly. Builders report that the cost to go green is now 7 percent, as compared to 10 percent in 2008 and 11 percent in 2006
• While green is growing across the U.S., three regions are seeing higher than average growth. The West Coast has seen the highest green growth; the Midwest’s northern region, west of the Mississippi, is second highest; and New England ranks third.

McGraw-Hill Construction will continue analyzing the results of the Green Home Builders and Remodelers Study and release a printed report in April during the NAHB’s National Green Building Conference and Expo in Nashville.

Also see:

3 Ways to Heat Up Your Energy Efficiency Sales

Report: Building Automation Market to Reach $146 Billion

Catch the LED Wave: An LED Lighting Market Outlook

Homebuilders promoting Energy Efficiency, Net Zero Homes

Home Energy Management at $85B Market?

When Green Isn’t About Green

Allure Energy's EverSense and the Nest Learning Thermostat (right).

We can learn some lessons in selling energy efficiency from thermostats.

Yes, the boring, old and hopelessly utilitarian thermostat—until now, that is. Today’s thermostats can feature colorful LCD touchscreens, video, and all sorts of features and functions that, simply put, make it easier to sell people on energy efficiency and make it easier for them to be energy efficient.

1. Make it simple.

There’s a reason that a great majority of programmable thermostats already installed in homes are NEVER programmed. People think they’re too complicated. And some of the early ones were. But others aren’t, so what’s the hangup? Likely, it’s because of too many buttons, dials, things to think about. Add those up, and it never gets programmed. By contrast, the Nest Learning Thermostat, designed by former Apple folks who brought us the iPod, is a simple, round dial with one “button” but multiple functions. Simple. Not imposing. Learns your habits to make adjustments automatically. (Honeywell is now suing Nest Labs for patent infringements, but you get the point.)

2. Automate as much as possible.

A new thermostat set to hit the market in the second quarter is the perfect example of this. Allure Energy’s EverSense uses proximity sensing via an app on an iPhone or Android-based smartphone that reads the phone’s GPS and can ramp up the heat or cooling in a home when you reach a preset distance away, so half way home on your commute the HVAC ramps back up to a comfortable level.

Explains Allure’s Vice President of Business Development Jim Mills: “How can we make sure that people don’t have to remember to manage their energy and how can we do it for them efficiently? In the end, we think people want to have interaction with their homes be automatic and easy.”

3. Don’t sell energy management alone.

As a sales pitch to many consumers, energy management can’t stand on its own, despite the potential cost savings and environmental benefits. So pair it with other features and functions—and bake it into your systems design.

Again, Allure Energy’s upcoming EverSense thermostat offers a good example of this. The wall-mounted or tabletop controller (used with wall-mounted wired thermostats) will feature weather information, animated energy efficiency tips, and music streaming from your smartphone. That adds value to just having thermostat functionality—and it should for a $349 device.

I personally don’t know if I’d buy a thermostat just because it can do music streaming and has a pair of speakers attached. I don’t expect that of a thermostat.

But energy management and efficiency can be sold alongside audio and video, home theater, lighting and home control, you name it.

Make it simple, automate it as much as possible, and bake efficiency right into your systems design. That’s the way to do it.

Also see:

3 Steps to Selling Green

Sustainability is a Feature

2012: The Year of Energy Management?

3 Simple Ways to Sell High-tech Energy Efficiency

Image (c) FreeFoto.com

A new report from Pike Research says the market for commercial building automation systems will double over the next decade, increasing from $72.5 billion in 2011 to $146.4 billion by 2021.

Pike Research’s report, Commercial Building Automation Systems, analyzes the global market for commercial building automation and management systems including security and access, HVAC controls, fire and life safety, building management systems, and lighting controls.

Because commercial buildings consume roughly 23 percent of all electricity globally, the automation systems that ensure efficient performance are a critical part of energy management.

Pike also recently released reports on the markets for building energy management systems and zero-energy buildings that produce as much or more energy than they use.

States Pike:

Today, the market for commercial building automation systems is in the midst of revolutionary change in terms of technology and utility. In the last several years, the focus has shifted from an individual system view to a more holistic view so that the “building system” can be defined to include virtually any device or data source within the building. The amount of data created by automation systems can be overwhelming, but real competitive and economic value exists in using the data to monitor performance and uncover trends. “Recent advances in automation technology, particularly relating to their integration with information and communication technologies, are dramatically increasing system capabilities and enabling deeper levels of energy management than ever before, thereby generating a surge in demand,” says research analyst Eric Bloom.

Pike says the demand for automation systems is being driven by two important trends that are transforming the building industry:

1. Aggressive energy efficiency goals within the building stock, which is undergoing tremendous growth, particularly in developing Asia Pacific nations.
2. Building automation controls and field devices, which communicate via a range of protocols such as BACnet and LonWorks, are starting to be fitted with Internet Protocol capability so as to utilize the same protocols and infrastructure equipment as the IT network. As a result, the silos that IT, property management, software, and traditional BASs occupied within companies are disappearing.

The study examines current market conditions along with an assessment of the competitive landscape and technology issues that will affect the adoption and success of these systems. Market forecasts through 2021 are provided for seven global regions and five key market segments. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website.

The U.S. Department of Energy has recently released a pair of reports that sheds light in the market for LED (light emitting diode) lighting. It’s a market that shows great promise, one that consumers in residential and commercial markets are taking notice of—and one whose market longevity may be limited.

The DOE’s US Lighting Market Characterization (LMC) clearly indicates that investment in energy-efficient technologies, federal and state lighting regulations, as well as public awareness campaigns, have enabled a considerable momentum shift toward energy-efficient lighting.

The report indicates that solid-state LED lighting adoption has grown 30-fold to some 50 million lamps, but still represents only 1 percent of the total lighting infrastructure footprint. See some potential here?

More interesting is the DOE’s report on Energy Savings Potential of Solid State Lighting in General Illumination Applications. This is worth a look if you plan on selling LEDs as a part of your business.

Some highlights:

• Across the entire residential sector LEDs are expected to represent over 25 percent of the installed base of lumen-hours by 2020 and 62 percent by 2030.
• LED luminaire products generally offer higher efficacies than LED lamp products. This is likely because LED luminaire products, with optimized form factors, are able to better utilize the inherent benefits of LED technology and better manage thermal and optical losses.
• LED lamps will begin to rapidly gain market share in the residential GSL–MSB submarket after 2014 as the retail prices approach those of halogen and CFL products, which will cost between $2.50 and $3.30 per kilolumen in the same year. LED lamps will remain slow until prices fall low enough to compete with other technologies after 2014, but will subsequently ramp up to 26 percent market share by 2020 and 69 percent in 2030.
• Market research shows that LED lamps and indoor luminaires on today’s market typically have a lifetime of approximately 25,000 hours. Luminaires for outdoor use typically have longer lifetimes (50,000 hours in 2011), such that their improvement in parallel with indoor luminaires should result in an average lifetime of 75,000 years by 2030.

• Using industry, DOE, and manufacturer pricing data, it was determined that the average cost of LED luminaires was about $181 per kilolumen in 2010. Thereafter, this analysis predicts that LED luminaire price will decrease at the same rate as the MYPP LED lamp forecast. Due to the comparative adolescence of the LED technology and marketplace, the LED price projection decreases exponentially between now and 2030 and then is projected to plateau at about $3 per kilolumen for LED lamps and $13 per kilolumen for luminaires.

• Two types of lighting consumers include those who prefer low retail price and put less importance on annual cost savings; and those whose purchasing decisions are based primarily on the life-cycle or annual cost of a lighting product. Homeowners tend to place more emphasis on the upfront cost, while commercial consumers look at annual or lifetime cost benefits.

Commercial Market Set to Gain

• In the commercial market, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, and Sterne Agee predict that LED lighting will obtain market shares of 15 percent by lumen-hours, 13 percent by units, and 19 percent by units by 2015, respectively. Other studies predict larger growth, with Cree reporting that the industry consensus on LED lighting market value is approximately $50 billion with a 33 percent share by value of the overall lighting market by 2015. By value, Philips foresees a 50 percent market share, and IMS Research expects LED lighting to have a 46 percent market share by 2015.
• By 2020, this analysis predicts that LED lighting products will contribute 36 percent of lumen-hours sold, with large growth seen in all sectors. It is then predicted that the rapid growth of the LED lighting market will slow because the long life of LED lighting will reduce the need for replacements, thereby limiting new opportunities for growth. Therefore, it is estimated that LEDs will comprise 74 percent of the overall lighting market by 2030.
• In order for the energy savings forecast to be realized, LED lighting products will need to achieve substantial improvements in price, efficacy, and operating life.

Our Conclusions

If you want to get in on the LED wave—commercially or residentially—don’t wait until 2014. Start now, especially if you’re doing custom work in the residential market. After 2014 the market will become rapidly commoditized, and consumers will have more knowledge about buying LEDs to do it themselves. The commercial wave, too, should be well underway by then.

Margins on LEDs aren’t great, but they can be an excellent way to show ROI and get into a business or home repeatedly, as you replace lights in budgeted stages.

Also see:

Must-Dos to Grow Your Energy Management Business

The Promise and Peril of Big Box Hardware Stores Going Green

Case Study: Building a Green Electronics Installation Business

5 Steps to Staring a Green Electronic Business

Energy management makes sense for the large commercial and industrial markets. Image (c) FreeFoto.com

Some recent studies show the promise that building energy management systems and energy efficient buildings are set to take off—at least in the commercial sector. However, that promise is tempered other factors.

A report by Pike Research states that global revenues from building energy management systems (BEMS) are expected to rise almost 14 percent per year through the end of the decade, realizing a market of slightly less than $6 billion by 2020.

Cheers, cheers. And here is the tempered part:

North America continues to lead the global market for BEMS, but Pike expects growth to accelerate worldwide, particularly in Asia Pacific, due to the extremely rapid pace of construction in the region as well as the challenge of meeting soaring energy demand with limited supply. Outside of these three regions, the BEMS market will generally experience single-digit growth and modest levels of overall spending over the forecast period.  In every region, the existing building stock is a large market for BEMS sales – particularly buildings constructed or modernized within the last 30 years with moderately sophisticated building management systems.

OK, slow and cautious growth is to be expected in many areas. This is still a developing market, even in a commercial sector where energy efficiency and management is quickly becoming a best business practice.

And here’s a report by Siemens that says one in three of those responsible for energy management in U.K. businesses say that the issue is not being taken seriously by their organization, while 83 percent of board directors believe that their organization is, in fact, serious about energy management. Seems to be rift in the views between energy managers and their bosses. And again, this is to be expected in a nascent market, in which many energy managers must still make compelling cases.

Zero Energy Buildings

According to another report from Pike Research, worldwide revenue from zero energy buildings will grow rapidly over the next two decades, reaching almost $690 billion by 2020 and nearly $1.3 trillion by 2035. Zero energy buildings produce as much or more energy than they use. Pike expects a compound annual growth rate of 43 percent in zero energy buildings, with much of that growth occurring in the European Union, where the Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) that governs EU building energy codes will require nearly zero energy construction in public buildings by 2019 and in all new construction by 2021. The exact language of these new building codes is still being established, but it is clear they will drive significant investment in zero energy building technologies over the next few decades. Similar regulations have come into effect or are being discussed in the United States and Japan.

While the technologies required to make zero energy buildings possible, such as efficient lighting and HVAC systems, improved insulation, solar photovoltaic and other systems, can add significant upfront cost, advances in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies will improve system performance and reduce costs, the Pike report states.

Well, let’s hear it for Zero Energy Buildings. Though they will still have to show compelling ROI to succeed in many commercial and residential markets.

Sell to Gov’t Buildings

Government mandates for green and energy efficient buildings are great places for green tech markets (including BEMS) to start and take root and flourish—and great places for green tech companies to sell their services. President Obama, for example, has directed all U.S. federal agencies to make at least $2 billion worth of energy-efficiency upgrades in the next two years (matched with another $2 billion in private funding for a $4 billion total.) There will be a carry-over effect into commercial and residential building markets from this as well.

If you want trillion-dollar markets, you’ve got to start somewhere.

Also see:

Selling Green to the Government

Energy Efficient Buildings Market Set to Soar

Energy Management, Building Automation Set to Take Off

Can Residential Pros Get Into Building Energy Management and Automation

7 Habits of Highly Successful Energy Efficiency Motivators

The energy management announcements have come in fast and furious this week, with trade shows such as DistribuTECH going on. Here are a few key announcements, including an energy managing digital picture frame (neat idea), a new ecobee thermostat, EnTouch energy management for small businesses, Crestron energy management automation for commercial facilities, HAI ZigBee honors—and news that BMW and energy management company Tendril will build a show house to display smart home and smart EV charging.

Energy Management in a Picture Frame

CEIVA puts energy management in a digital picture frame.

CEIVA Energy demonstrated a new home energy management solution, the part digital picture frame/part energy manager CEIVA Energy Display, at DistribuTECH 2012 in San Antonio (January 24-26).

The CEIVA Energy Display is a ZigBee Smart Energy profile (SEP) 1.1 compliant, consumer-driven In-Home Display that leverages smart grid technology to send real-time energy usage and local utility information directly to consumers.

The CEIVA Energy Display features a network-agnostic built-in home gateway that simultaneously communicates on both the Home Area Network (HAN) and the consumers’ Local Area Network (LAN) to provide fast and accurate access to the home’s energy information to both consumers and utilities.

Since the CEIVA Energy Gateway is uniquely integrated into the CEIVA Energy Display, it requires no new hardware. Additionally, because it is cloud-based, it allows consumers to remotely control other SEP compliant devices, such as pool pumps, thermostats and refrigerators, via dedicated iOS and Android energy apps.

By enabling consumers to see exactly which appliances are draining their smart meters (and their wallet) anytime, anywhere, CEIVA Energy’s solution empowers them to take control of their energy consumption and change their behavior accordingly.

BMW, Tendril to Build Smart Energy Home

Tendril, provider of the cloud platform smart grid services, and BMW are partnering to build out a demonstration smart energy home in Mountain View, Calif. to prepare for the rollout and integration of the new BMW ActiveE electric vehicle (EV).

Tendril has be demonstrating how its cloud platform integrates the BMW ActiveE with the home area network to provide orchestrated and prioritized charging at DistribuTECH  in San Antonio, Texas.

The smart energy home will ensure that ActiveE is ready to go at all times, while making use of cheaper off-peak charging when possible. The BMW Group Technology Office USA will use its smart energy home demonstration facility, powered by Tendril, to help refine the charging and monitoring of the ActiveE. Tendril’s cloud-based energy management platform, Tendril Connect, will provide the connectivity to integrate the EV charging station into the home, to local utilities and energy service providers, as well as to BMW.

BMW’s smart energy home will include smart thermostats provided by Tendril, a solar panel installation, home appliances, residential lighting and other smart devices. All of these will be centrally managed by Tendril Connect and accessible via Tendril Energize. BMW and Tendril will integrate a battery charging station, to help manage the intermittent energy produced by the solar panel and to mitigate the home’s impact during periods of peak electricity demand.

ecobee Thermostat Goes Remote

ecobee Si offers remte connectivity

ecobee, maker of the award-winning Smart thermostat and Energy Management System, unveiled its latest product, the Smart Si thermostat, at the 2012 AHR Expo in Chicago.

Designed for the residential market, the ecobee Smart Si thermostat offers remote connectivity anytime from anywhere via your computer, iPhone, smartphone or tablet and includes a high-resolution color display, an intuitive user interface, sleek buttons and live weather.

The Smart Si is Wi-Fi enabled, so you can make adjustments to your thermostat program on the go from your tablet, computer, iPhone or smartphone. It has a built-in live weather function and uses advanced algorithms so you can be sure your thermostat is always saving the most energy possible. An easy to read high resolution color display, sleek buttons, and an intuitive user interface makes it easy to quickly set a personalized program, make setting adjustments and create new vacation events. Automatic alerts and reminders notify you when your HVAC equipment is due for service, if there is an equipment malfunction or when it’s time to change your filter.

EnTouch Energy Monitor for Small Businesses

EnTouch's GM8 Universal Energy Monitor provides energy data for small businesses.

EnTouch Controls has launched the GM8 Universal Energy Monitor, which works with its EnTouch Energy Management System to provide facility energy data for small business owners.

The GM8 monitors total business energy usage, along with up to eight branch circuits, and provides energy consumption data wirelessly back to the EnTouch master controller. Multiple devices can be connected to provide additional monitoring points and the system can quickly scale to meet the needs of small and large facilities, EnTouch says.

Energy usage can also be monitored remotely through the EntouchGo web portal, enabling real time control and analysis of facility energy consumption.

The EnTouch EMS is targeted at small commercial businesses including restaurants, retail stores, service businesses, convenience stores and small offices. Introduced in early 2011, the EMS replaces existing thermostats in these facilities and uses a wireless network of HVAC controls and energy monitoring sensors to provide full control of HVAC and energy monitoring of main and branch circuits, the company says. The system is remotely accessible through the customer’s WiFi network, providing automation, data reporting and maintenance alerting features.

GM8 pricing starts at $250, and an installed EnTouch EMS system starts at $1,000.

Crestron to Roll Out Fusion Energy Management Software

Crestron's Fusion EM software offers energy tracking and control of various systems like lights and motorized shades.

Control and automation company Crestron has announced that its much-anticipated Fusion EM (for Energy Management) software will be made available March 1.

Fusion EM can provide energy management and energy tracking capabilities for home or commercial environments, though it is primarily intended as a commercial application. The web-based Fusion software will control lighting, shades, heating and cooling for every room in a home or facility, while tracking your carbon footprint and allowing you to change and schedule temperature set points, lighting levels and demand response settings, if energy-saving demand response events are offered by your local utility. Crestron says that Fusion EM can save you energy by automatically turning off lights and reducing HVAC use in unoccupied spaces, with the use of occupancy or motion sensors. Crestron has also said that the systems can be programmed to shut off devices and other systems based upon reaching preset energy consumption ceilings.

It can also work with Crestron’s GLS-EM-MCU, an energy monitor that can measure the total electricity use of a home or facility, as well as up to 84 branch circuits, so you can measure down to the circuit level. It will be released on May 1.

Fusion EM can run on a Crestron 3-Series control system or 2-Series control system with C2ENET card or built-in Ethernet. Software license is $5,000, though home users can use it in up to five rooms at no charge.

HAI Smart Grid Line Gets Golden

HAI's ZigBee gold-certified wireless smart grid solution.

Home Automation Inc. (HAI), announced that its wireless energy management suite has been certified as a golden unit for ZigBee Smart Energy Profile 1.1, which supports the needs of utility companies rolling out smart grid services. ZigBee Golden Unit serve as benchmarks for future product certifications.

HAI ZigBee Smart Energy certified products include: 30A Wireless Load Control Module (HAI part number 73A00-3SH), 5A Wireless Load Control Module (73A00-4SH), In-Home Display (81A00-1WHSH), 15A Plug-In Load Control Module (89A00-1SH), Omnistat2 Single Stage Conventional & Heat Pump, White (RC-1000WHSH), and the Omnistat2 Multistage Universal with Humidity Control, White (RC-2000WHSH).

HAI HAN products allow utility customers to implement time of use rating structures, manage demand response by shedding load during peak demand events, and send common custom informational messages to the customer.  HAI’s Omnistat2 Programmable Communicating Thermostat (PCT) is a flexible product designed for use by utility companies for Home Area Network (HAN) use in Smart Grid programs.
HAI’s Smart Grid Gold Certified product line is available now.

See Also:

Keys to Consumer Acceptance

2012: The Year of Smart Appliances?

Smart, Connected Home = Green?

At CES, Smart Energy Abounds

Sustainability is a Feature

2012: The Year of Energy Management?

The smart and connected home was a popular theme at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. And that should be a very good thing for energy management, because companies from Panasonic to Samsung to LG and more were showing at least conceptual energy management systems.

LG and other companies showed home energy mamagement systems at CES that display connected appliances as well as measure energy use. But when these products are brought to the market, they will also have to engage consumers in a connected home experience.

Though that doesn’t mean it will just happen. “Consumers don’t wake up and say they want a connected home.” Says Dave McCalpin, General Manager of GE’s Home Energy Management (HEM) business.

In a panel discussion on the connected home, McCalpin and others outlined some keys to consumer acceptance—not just of the now almost-mythical smart grid but applying to consumers interested, or potentially interested, in energy efficiency and energy management.

“Consumers are discerning,” McCalpin said. “It will take compelling value propositions to drive adoption.”

He identified four key areas of opportunity:

• Better managing ways to conserve resources.
• Maintenance and service (especially with self-diagnostic products and cloud-based services).
• Improve experiences with products (in other words, make life easier and more convenient).
• Engaging experience.

“Ultimately it’s about value proposition to get consumers to take those first steps,” McCalpin stated. “One value proposition that is very appealing is around home comfort.

But on top of that, connectivity and control at your fingertips.”

This means maintaining or improving that comfort in a home, and offering easy control of devices and things like thermostats from smartphones and other mobile applications.

Make it Simple, with Benefits

Kris Bowring, senior director, platform lead, Home and Energy Management at Best Buy, said that energy management will become more and more important as consumer electronics devices use more and more electricity. Also, though, these products must integrate into consumers’ everyday lives. No one size fits all.

And when it comes to a user interface, it has to be wonderful, with apps.

He cited a good equation to work by: The value of customer experience has to be greater or equal to difficulty plus complexity. That’s without making it difficult or complex, of course. Rather, you have to translate the complex into the desired and simple.

He said consumers in 2011 want to know:

• Where do I start, who do I turn to?
• What gets me going and gives me best bang for the buck?
• Help me sort through possible actions.
• Help me understand the trade-offs.
• Break it apart—with what I can do now and later.

“Consumers don’t know what they don’t know, but they’re willing to learn,” he said. And they would appreciate someone making it easier for them to know what to do. That’s key and critical.

• This can come from a website, a retailer, or visit to friends’ house.
• Help me feel good about what I’m doing.
• Help me see how it’s benefiting me.

Also see:

2012: The Year of Smart Appliances?

Smart, Connected Home = Green?

At CES, Smart Energy Abounds

Sustainability is a Feature

2012: The Year of Energy Management?

Samsung's WF457 Front-Loading washer will have wireless connectivity for remote operation.

Here come “smart” appliances—again. Only this time more are bound to make it to market—we think.

At the recent CES in Las Vegas, Samsung and LG both showed appliances that can connect to a smart grid, in which utilities will send pricing information that could change by the hour so you can automatically run energy-intensive appliances at cheaper rates. But that isn’t their greatest strength—yet.

Their greatest strength is connectivity—to other appliances and the people in the house using them. LG, for example, showed how you can store information about the food you bought in its premium fridge, which you can connect to by smartphone to see if you need milk while on the way to shop. And it can suggest recipes and send that info to a connected LG oven.

Samsung featured apps such as a Grocery Manager on the 8-inch touchscreens on its French door RF4289 and side-by-side RSG309 refrigerators, while a WF457 Front-Loading washer, due this spring, has a smart control system that lets you wirelessly connect to it to check status and start or pause wash cycles. Via a smart phone application, you can monitor cycle selections, remaining time and finishing alerts, as well as remotely start or pause the washer from anywhere in the house.

“Smart grid and smart appliances are not the same thing. You can have a connected appliance without energy management,” says Warwick Stirling, Global Director of Energy and Sustainability at Whirlpool. “Real innovation will be in the cloud. You’ll be able to manage communications between devices.”

“The real advantage is that now appliances are communicating. If we’re able to do that, then the ‘smart home’ is possible,” echoes Kent Dickson, chief technology officer of energy management smart grid company Tendril.

OK, so you may not want to input your food inventory into a refrigerator’s LCD panel, or even check on the washer’s energy usage. Some of this stuff may be pie-in-the-sky. Or as Stirling says, “You’re not going to be Facebook friends with your fridge.”

Though the real power of connected and smart appliances may be in sending you alerts if an appliance is using too much energy or if maintenance is required. That makes sense. After all, just changing an air filter could save a significant amount of energy.

Much of this won’t take off until utilities roll out their smart grid programs and offer changing, real-time rates. That’s when, by most experts’ consensus, it will take off, because we’ll all see the differences on our utility bills.

First, though, you connect the home. Says Kevin Messner, vice president of policy and government relations at the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM): “Once there’s a connected home, then you can have connections to the smart grid.

See Also:

Smart, Connected Home = Green?

At CES, Smart Energy Abounds

What Will Be Green and Energy Efficient at CES?

Sustainability is a Feature

2012: The Year of Energy Management?