The second wave of biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol, algae and others bypass the food vs. fuel controversy and are on the cusp of commercialization. This webinar will review the latest developments in the advanced biofuel space with leading companies more...
Join Intelligent Utility managing editor Kate Rowland, along with a panel from PHI including Rob Stewart, manager of technology evaluation and implementation, and Todd McGregor, AMI director, for an interactive discussion about this company's work to build a more intelligent more...
Join industry leaders and Marty Rosenberg, Editor-in-Chief of EnergyBiz magazine, for an interactive discussion about the critical relationship between transmission and distribution (T&D) investment and smart grid success. As the energy enterprise gets smarter toward the consumer end with smart more...
This webcast should be attended by those individuals that are responsible for identifying, planning and evaluating Smart Grid solutions, including those that empower and engage consumers and are easily assimilated with existing or new technology and business processes. more...
AESP's National Conference & Expo is the premier energy industry conference that unites renowned energy experts, stimulating educational sessions, and valuable networking opportunities into one convenient location. You will discover new ideas for your marketing and energy efficiency programs; learn more...
ACI's Smart Grid Revolution February 18-19, 2010 A two day strategic event bringing together utility professionals, government & state officials & consultants involved in deployment of the smart grid. To learn strategies which will improve energy efficiency programs & operations, more...
In 2009, a global economic meltdown collided with an energy crisis to turn the world on its ear. In the United States we've witnessed an unprecedented spending on energy resource development and infrastructure. As a result, a new energy architecture more...
CERAWeek, IHS CERA's 29th Executive Conference, is recognized as a leading forum offering insight into the energy future. Each year senior policymakers, energy and power executives, and financial and technology leaders from over 55 countries engage with CERA experts in more...
The conference will provide a comprehensive analysis of the thin film industry and its key challenges in an interactive manner. Leading companies will share their experiences through panel debates and high-level presentations. A great opportunity to network with the whole more...
Gas and Electric Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the natural gas and electric industries. Position yourself for career success by gaining a solid understanding of how each business works, including key physical, market and regulatory aspects, as well more...
Gas Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the natural gas industry. Position yourself for career advancement by gaining a solid understanding of how the gas business works including key physical, market, and regulatory aspects and how market participants navigate more...
Electric Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the electric industry. Position yourself for career advancement by gaining a solid understanding of how the electric business works including key physical, market, and regulatory aspects and how market participants navigate this more...
Gas Market Dynamics offers participants an in-depth understanding of North American natural gas markets and how they function. Enhance your career by furthering your knowledge of market structure, supply and demand, services offered in gas markets, and how various participants more...
We know you have something to say!
There is an immediate need for articles on
the hot topics in the Power Industry!
EnergyPulse, like no other publication,
also provides a means for our readers to
immediately interact with experts like you.
Interested in this topic? Need more information? Energy Central has created a complete information service focused only on Metering & Data Management. There is no better way to stay informed. Get more information on Metering & Data Management today!
Customers are finding new ways to connect with their utilities -- with or without a smart meter. However, smart meters bring along new opportunities to engage consumers. I talked with ComEd and Black Hills Energy about their strategies for interacting with consumers through smart meters. Each utility's approach and timeline varies, but operations and interactions will be critical to both.
Operations and Interactions
ComEd is planning to deploy approximately 141,000 smart meters in the greater Chicago area. The company participated in a six-month collaborative workshop process in which stakeholders discussed all attributes for smart meter implementation before filing its recommendation with the Illinois Commerce Commission. "We wanted to understand up front the value smart meters brought to customers and develop a pilot project that stakeholders and customers would support," said Anne Pramaggiore, president and chief operating officer, ComEd.
This collaboration encouraged ComEd to look more at consumer applications to engage consumers. "Our pilot will bring operational benefits, like reduced outages and more efficient access to customers, but the other piece is the customer experience," Pramaggiore said. A 10,000-customer subset will test a variety of consumer options -- from different pricing options to home area networks. "We are moving into a new era from a one-size-fits-all service," she noted.
ComEd is working to ensure that it engages a broad range of customers. "The pilot areas have a good mix," said Pramaggiore. "We have some business and some residential and different housing stocks, which is representative of our service territory."
In addition to this pilot, ComEd is already engaging consumers and finding success. For example, Com Ed has a residential real-time pricing program for about 6,000 customers. "This is a self-selected group who is very focused on energy with respect to more advanced technology," Pramaggiore said.
However, these are not your typical customers, so with other projects, customer education and insight into the value ComEd can bring to customers are key components for success. For example, 300 ComEd customers of lesser means will be given home energy displays to better understand their daily energy use. "Some customers get just the technology and some get the technology and energy efficiency training," said Pramaggiore. "We are testing the technology along with different levels of information to determine what customers want and need."
Com Ed will look at many different types of data to determine its success in engaging consumers. "We will determine the different types of customers we have and who are the relevant groups -- almost a classic market-segmentation approach," she said. "We want to determine what the sweet spot is, or what technology delivers the right information and works for most customers."
Operations, Then Interaction
Black Hills Energy completed a 3,300 smart meter pilot in Pueblo, Colo., in November 2008 and plans to have more than 53,000 additional meters installed by the end of 2009. "Right now, we have all of our IT systems in place, our business processes are developed and we are working through our installation," said Carl Fulbright, operations manager, Black Hills Energy. "We plan to move forward in the next year or two replacing the remainder of the meters in our service territory with smart meters."
Black Hills is moving full steam ahead on the project, but what pushed them to do it? "Some of the drivers that we really evaluated were operational efficiencies," said Fulbright. "But we've also seen it as the foundation for future customer options that are not being implemented just yet." These options include remote connects/disconnects, customer data presentment, and a variety of rate structures, as well as improved system reliability.
"We do have the capability to collect usage information at any interval needed from all AMI meters; however, as of today, we're not fully implementing this capability," said Fulbright. "We are in the process of evaluating future customer and company benefits and requirements associated with meter data collection and customer presentment. A limited number of large-volume customers do currently have access to interval usage information through a Web presentment tool."
Although most customers can't access their usage information on more than a monthly basis for now, Black Hills is considering other ways to engage consumers. For example, the company is launching an energy efficiency program. The program will provide customers with financial incentives to install and use energy-efficient products. The company is also looking at getting a direct load control pilot off the ground. "Looking to the future we're going to be able to offer a lot of customer options and optimize our business processes even more," said Fulbright. "It's a really exciting time."
This nice article is important in that it reveals two things if the two utility companies talked about are representative of the industry.
Firstly, no one knows exactly what combination of in-home technology and communications with residential consumers will be the most beneficial, so our utility companies are using and are planning on a variety of projects to find out. Given the limited money utilities can charge through rate increases, and limited government handouts that are available, they not surprisingly want to get the biggest bangs for their dollars.
Secondly, communication with the customer, whether it be with the customer themselves or with the customer's in-home equipment, is a common thread no matter what form the in-home technologies are, and no matter whether the communication is in real time or not.
I would say a real-time in-home energy display is a common piece that would satisfy the need for communication with the customer in all its envisioned forms. Companies that are making or are prepared to make in-home displays typically equip them with human interfaces but are also quite capable of putting the any necessary communication hooks in them to interface with any other in-home equipment such as personal computers, Home Area Networks, smart thermostats, smart appliances, pool-pump or air conditioning controls, etc.
In essence an in-home display could / should be standardized with accepted methods for interfacing to all the anticipated uses of utility-to-customer communications. It would form a gateway into a customer's residence particularly using the smart meter as a communications portal from an AMI network into residential homes.
Perhaps those developing industry standards for smart grid, like the IEEE for instance, should consider setting standards for in-home displays FIRST, and the rest of the in-home technologies afterwards.
Len Gould 9.8.09
Certainly Bob is right that standards are a critical pre-condition to any potential successes one can envision in this complex arena.
Don Hirschberg 9.9.09
I guess I just don’t get it. For the last 33 years I have lived in an all-electric house I designed with 6 inch studs and four foot overhanging eaves (the sun comes in the windows only in the winter.)My co-op for many years has been able to cut off my A/C/ heat pump and water heater for twenty minute periods in near peaking conditions. Realistically what more can all the electronics and IT do to reduce my power consumption? I could use the lake for my heat pump source but I will not live long enough to pay it off.
Len Gould 9.9.09
Don: Its not so much about reducing your absolute consumption as it is about shifting it from peak periods into off-peak periods. Does your refrigerator have an ice storage wall between the freeezer and the refrigerator section? Does it exhaust its heat outdoors in summer? Heat or cool only those rooms which are used at various times? Can you override your utility's commands to your A/C unit if your mother-in-law is over for lunch? Choose to not run your water pump or garbage disposal or dishwasher or clothes dryer if the electrical rate is at or going to whatever price / kwh is required to compensate that most marginal combustion turbine for the next half hour (eg. the one which runs only twice each summer)?
Bob Amorosi 9.9.09
Don,
Cycling your AC/heat pump off and on during peak periods is mainly for the utility company's benefit to lower total peak demand on the grid, not necessarily save you money although it marginally does. The AC/heat pump is typically the largest load in the house and gives them the biggest load shed i.e. the biggest bang for their effort.
Adding electronics and IT to your house would open up the possibility to track your consumption over time instead of seeing it once every billing period, and as Len says actively practice more load shifting to off-peak periods, either on request from the utility company, or by monitoring prices as they change in real time and shedding or moving a variety of loads to other times in some automated fashion. The latter may not necessarily lower total consumption but it can lower your bill substantially.
Another benefit of tracking your consumption in real time is the potential ability to associate energy costs to specific loads in your house, or identify phantom loads that are on all the time and associate energy costs to those.
A trivial example, say you have AC-powered garden lights on every night, or Christmas lighting during the month of December. While their load contribution is only a fraction of overall house consumption over a long time period, many average consumers are not aware of what they actually cost to run every day, week, or month. Once informed, consumers can make more judicious choices in how long to run them, or when shopping to buy new ones.
Don Hirschberg 9.10.09
Len and Bob
Your comments reminded me of the times long past when one would surrender his gold coins to the purser on an ocean voyage. While this was a valid security method it was also a bit of a scam. The purser would put the gold coins in a keg that was free to roll from side to side as the ship sailed, slightly abrading the coins. The keg acquired minute but valuable gold.
More recently remember how folks were advised not to carry their golf clubs around in the trunks of their cars? Remember how we were admonished to keep our tires inflated to the proper pressure? Remember how we were advised to have tune-ups? All to save energy. Utter nonsense. None of this amounted to anywhere close to a hill of beans. When I was a kid hot water was often for a once a week bath. Tell people to not take a shower every day, the first people on earth to do so. This would actually save some energy.
Look, I am not a Luddite. Rather I’m an engineer almost by definition one who seeks to increase efficiency. The ability of humans to procreate swamps geology and engineering.
Len Gould 9.11.09
So Don. In your theory, do we simply give up and crash when the fuels run out?
Bob Amorosi 9.11.09
Don,
Efficiency upgrades is a big topic not given much attention by smart grid technology.
Another potential benefit of tracking your specific energy uses in real time, and determining their associated costs, is the ability to GUAGE the energy and financial results of efficiency upgrades a consumer chooses to make. It will even help with purchase decisions when consumers are offered efficiency upgrade incentives from government rebates, tax exemptions, or potentially utility financial perks if regulators ever allow it someday.
Reconciling energy bills under Time-Of-Use rates is another looming problem that smart grid could help to address. When TOU are forced on us soon with all the emerging smart meters, consumers will more than ever need to verify their energy bills with real-time data. Otherwise average consumers will have no clue what they will save from load shifting to off-peak hours.
Picture a couple of residential consumers who routinely compare utility bills. It is mathematically possible for each to have similar or even identical total energy consumption amounts but very different bills under TOU rates. Without tracking their energy uses to reconcile their bills, the consumer with the higher bill will immediately suspect they are being ripped off by their utility company. Conversely the clever or intelligent consumer who load shifts will want to know just how much he is saving for each load-shift he is considering making, because let’s face it, load shifting will mean lifestyle changes which won’t come easy unless consumers know what they are going to get for swallowing them.
Don Hirschberg 9.12.09
I have said it so many times for so many years that I am glad we are not in proximate contact lest I be bopped on the nose. Alas, every year my case gets more convincing.
Given 6.8 billion people and still increasing at about 0.1 billion a year there is no combination of all the proposed solutions being implemented that will preserve our civilization.
Just today I read that China will likely from now on produce more cars per annum than the US. China, already the largest user of coal, plans to increase coal production by 30% in just five or six years. I don’t think Kyoto II in Copenhagen can off-even that. (Yet the big news focuses on a photo voltaic solar project in Inner Mongolia.)
The story in India is much the same and their population is growing fast enough to overtake China soon. 600 million have no electricity at all, the rest suffer daily outages. They will build coal burners.
Nigeria has 140 million people and almost no electricity. Without base load capacity are they going to build green plants?
It’s about numbers, so the wonderful things in Iceland and Denmark don’t amount to a hill of beans.
If electric cars get their energy from fossil fuel generation CO2 emissions go up not down and overall thermal efficiency is much less than if they burned gasoline.
All over the world water supply is problematic and water tables are getting lower.
I could go on. And I wish I were wrong,
Don Hirschberg 9.12.09
Bob, Seems I have always lived as close as possible to what is thermodynamic reversibility. OK, I’m weird. Even when I could buy gasoline for 17 cents a gallon I drove to get maxi min mileage. It didn’t make sense but I treated energy like food during the Great Depression. (I never went hungry but never wasted a bite.) And I never did understand why my contemporaries, almost to a man, so coveted >400 cubic inch engines. I guess I always thought bragging about mileage was more impressive than bragging about 0 to 60 time. Mileage requires much more skill and understanding than does floorboarding.
Seems to me that in the overall picture, forcing people to use electricity at the right time by electronics is a little like speed bumps. Speed bumps are only used when dealing with very inferior human beings.
Jeannette Douglas 9.13.09
There is something exciting about offering customers the power to save money. And while Ambit Energy can provide you with substantial savings, our goal is to do much more than that. It is our vision to be the finest and most respected residential energy provider in the country by providing our customers with an exceptional experience. By striving for excellence in everything we do, our success as a company will be guaranteed. Our first question is not how big can we be, but rather how good can we be. If you are looking for a great value that includes exceptional service, I invite you to put us to the test.
to sign up for the free service log onto: www.awesome1.joinambit.com
to sign up for the business log onto: www.awesome1.energy526.com
Jeannette Douglas 9.13.09
Howe many people do you know that use electric & natural gas??? Do you know that there is a lot of money to be made with this business, we not only save people more on there bill, but we give away free energy, also..........Texas is in triple bonus stage right now, do you know that by being in the ambit energy business you can retire and be set for life with-in 2 years because if you were to take a vacation, you know that your business is still working for you, not to mention that we are only in 3 states, Texas, New York & Illinois, and we are the top energy company now, and still have a lot of states to go, do you see all the potential income here??? And it's yours if you want financial freedom.
To watch the video go to: www.awesome1.energy526.com To sign up for the business go to : www.awesome1.ambitenergy.biz to sign up for service go to: www.awesome1.joinambit.com
Subscribe to Intelligent Utility magazine today.