You upgrade your computers and other office equipment periodically so when was the last time your business upgraded its electric meter?
Well you are not alone; as with most commercial businesses electric meters have not been touched since their initial installation. Not to worry though, your local electric company will soon bring your electric meter into the 21st century as a Smart Meter.
These new meters will help provide their customers with detailed consumption breakdowns and communicate information back to the utility for monitoring and billing. They will help match consumption with generation, and promise major energy savings by changing how and when we use electricity.
Soon you will be able to:
Monitor, track, and adjust real-time energy usage.
Get more accurate billing to create better utility expense forecasts.
Quickly identify energy hogs allowing for consumption adjustment to assist in lowering bills
With real-time pricing, you may choose to run certain business processes based on off-peak pricing
Depending on your type of business you may benefit by shifting working hours based on lower energy prices.
Calculate an ROI for making a decision for an investment in an alternative energy solution like solar or wind for your business.
The smart meter/grid is rapidly progressing so begin today to start learning about how you can incorporate it into your business to save money.
To control the energy use of your home’s individual appliances, you have to make your wall sockets smarter or at least this company thinks so.
That’s the idea behind Toronto Canada based ZerofootPrint’s new device called the TalkingPlug. It’s a device that fits on existing electrical outlets to offer detailed information on electricity use by your energy hungry appliances.
The TalkingPlug is designed to be a controllable device on a wireless local area network (WLAN) either in your home or business. The plug is programmable so the appliances can be controlled automatically or by a person to fully power down your electronic devices or the power strip they are plugged into greatly cutting down the vampire power they consume when not in use.
When several plugs are installed, you can create a network that can send information via a network router to Zerofootprint who can monitor your energy use, analyze the data and show you how much power you’re using compared to your neighbors.
The plugs should cost around $50 and are expected to be available in the coming week. A bit pricey if you want to put many of them in your house or business, however as with most electronics we expect the price to lower over time once it is readily accepted in the market.
There are a few other companies also developing energy-management solutions to manage electricity use. The challenge remains in getting a “smart” device to interpret data from a “dumb” appliance cost effectively. All of them also seem to lack additional business intelligence (BI) to allow you to make some more quantifiable decisions
Over time we expect that these type of devices will eventually be built into appliances as standards emerge as to how they interface to a WLAN or other wireless network are set. This will take a number of years so these types of solutions will fill the gap until then… just like what happened with your PC… Ethernet Adapter, Modem Cards, Video Cards and Printer interface cards all used to be add on options and were robust businesses for manufacturers for a number of years prior to them being integrated into the PC.
If you are looking to automate your home with Z-Wave lighting and appliance control, the Vera Z-Wave Web-Enabled Automation Controller will give you the power to take advantage of full-featured home automation and make it simple. The Vera system is based on a Wi-Fi access point that links with your wireless router. Once connected, the Vera interface can be accessed as a web browser from a web-enabled PC, phone or PDA anywhere in the world. You can remotely program scenes, events and timers that activate an individual device or group of devices throughout your home. You can also receive remote notifications via a text message, email, or a phone call when certain things happen that you want to be notified of.
In addition to Z-wave products, Vera is also able to control certain wireless IP Cameras and audio video equipment. Vera offers the convenience to control lighting, climate, draperies and a variety of devices using your cell phone, iPhone, iPod or other handheld remote. The intuitive program allows you to see how much you’re spending on energy and gives you remote access see what’s going on in your home by watching your cameras from a PC or cell phone. They claim it can help a typical family reduce their energy bill by about 33% . The Vera system claims to be able set up in minutes and allows the novice home automation enthusiast to get everything you would expect from a high-end home automation system.
Many millions of dollars are being spent to install smart meters that alert utility customers to the minute-by-minute price of the electricity they are using at home. The goal is that consumers will adjust their use of power based upon its cost during varies times of the day. However this assumes they remember to check the meter before pressing an “on” button. The “edot” is a smart-meter display that can be stuck directly onto most appliances, like your refrigerator, with a built-in magnet. It communicates wirelessly with the smart meter, and its ultra-low-power radio link means that consumers never change its batteries. It is expected that each edot’s battery will last between five and seven years. For more information on it see Talon Communications.
Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO- News) today announced the first offerings in its new Connected Grid portfolio of smart grid communications solutions that will help utilities more reliably and efficiently deliver electric power from generation facilities to businesses and homes, resulting in better energy management, as well as economic and environmental benefits. The purpose-built, ruggedized routers and switches form a resilient, manageable and highly secure network solution for the substation to integrate Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications with the power grid for intelligent grid monitoring and control. These technologies build on existing Cisco® Smart Grid offerings and represent the latest in the company’s efforts to deliver end-to-end solutions that help utility customers address grid reliability, industry compliance and operational expenses.
Marie Hattar, vice president of marketing in Cisco’s Network Systems Solutions group in an interview with LaMonica of CNet stated “Our expectation is that this network will be 100 or 1,000 times larger than the Internet. If you think about it, some homes have Internet access, but some don’t. Everyone has electricity access–all of those homes could potentially be connected.”Perhaps the product of an unguarded moment of enthusiasm, but it makes a great headline. All kidding aside the Smart Grid Technologies are well on their way to becoming the next big technology wave. Check out companies like Gridpoint, Silver Spring Networks, Dain Tree Networks, GetGreenBox and Tendril to name a few. In the same interview Hattar said that Cisco believes that just the communications portion of the Smart Grid represents a $100 billion opportunity — “$20 billion a year over the next five years.” Even if she is off by a factor of 20, it still represents a substancial boost to the economy. If you’d like to learn more about Smart Grid interoperability or standards recognized for inclusion in the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Framework visit the NIST Smart Grid Website.
To control the energy use of your home’s individual appliances, you have to make your wall sockets smarter or at least this company thinks so.
