How will appliances connect with the Smart Grid?

Connecting home appliances to the grid

Green gadgets, the environment and the Smart Grid are starting to permeate consumer electronics and appliances. But how will utilities bring consumers to use electricity more efficiently and, if possible, off-peak? How can consumers really control their electricity bills? Will consumers allow utilities to collect information in the home? Several symposia at this year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
(United States of America), tried to provide answers.

Getting greener and smarter

Everybody at CES seemed to agree: while energy management tools didn’t grab a lot of headlines, this was the first time there was such intense focus on the environment, energy efficiency and the Smart Grid. In line with this trend, several CES symposia centred on home energy management and the integration of appliances into the Smart Grid.

While the Smart Grid means different things to different people, speakers in a variety of symposia agreed that consumers are more interested than ever in controlling their energy consumption. What they couldn’t agree on was how this control was going to be achieved. Out on the show floor, a number of different avenues were already on offer. They involved dedicated power management devices and virtual and real-life applications that integrate energy management as just another feature.

Making it easy to spot high-consumption devices

Several manufacturers proposed dedicated displays that show in simple graphics current energy consumption of individual appliances, allowing consumers to shut off high-energy consuming devices, if desired.

Improving energy use and reducing costs for utilities

In the vision of utilities and organizations such as GridWise, advanced communication, information, and controls technologies would allow "smart" machines to talk to the power grid. This would both optimize the use of electricity and reduce costs for utilities by decreasing the need for expensive stand-by power.

Utilities would be able to look beyond the meter and the residential gateway into the home. Those "smart" machines would communicate with smart meters sitting at the outside of buildings. They would translate utility protocols to home protocols and allow communication with devices in the home via already-installed in-home networks. With permission of the customer, these "smart" machines would be able to change set-points on thermostats and turn on and off high-consumption devices, such as water heaters, to skirt high-peak demand periods.

Reducing the electricity bill through smart decisions

Where available, demand response signals would provide information about tariffs and allow consumers to spot off-peak periods, thus allowing them to reduce their energy bills.

Such energy management devices would give consumers the ability to make simple choices:

• wash dishes now
• wash dishes in 2 hours, save 25 cents
• wash dishes in 6 hours, save 50 cents

Ultimately these "smart" machines would "learn" consumer preferences and become automated. A declared goal: putting the consumer at the centre, rather than at the end of the line.

Automation: the key to success

It is relatively easy to retrofit heat- and cool-pumps, which are heavy power consumers and can be easily turned on and off. But for all of this to be successful, many more appliances will need to offer intelligent controls that know if and when something can be turned off or put on stand-by.
 
Manufacturers will need to build new settings into appliances that can be automated and controlled at a distance. Some devices can’t just be shut down: think washing machines with detergents in them might harm clothes when stopped in mid cycle.

In general, people will not want just to turn off devices, they will need innovations that will allow them to use appliances differently.

Keeping it in the family

Manufacturers such as Panasonic have classified the home network as hostile. This provides it with the respect it deserves and leaves the consumer ownership of his data, processes and network inside his house. But will this be enough?

The fact that utilities would need to be able to reach into the home is, according to several speakers, what will likely limit the uptake of this approach.

Overcoming mistrust with home monitoring devices?

Since security and home monitoring devices have the trust of consumers – after all, they safeguard them and their belongings – this might be one avenue for utilities to reach into homes. These devices already offer multi-purpose applications that can be relatively easily upgraded to include energy management features. HAI, one of the leading manufacturers of home monitoring devices in the USA, believes that its products could help utilities overcome the "big brother is watching you" syndrome.

How sellable is energy management?

Best Buy represented the retailer point of view in the Home2Grid Forum. In its view, the convergence of entertainment management, energy management and home control in a connected world seems difficult to market. Best Buy also underlined the need for standardization to achieve mass adoption: "things will need to work seamlessly together".

Simple, simple, simple and automated

The retailer then shared some feedback from a recent study it undertook about home energy control devices: "Most homes are managed by women. The consumer needs an experience that is as simple as downloading an app [application]. She will want to have the ability to control her environment and will not want a utility to turn things on and off for her. In the end of the day, it will all be all about conversation with the consumer – NOT control by the utility. "

Energy management will need to be very simple, and "it’s not about ‘turning off’ the lights". Consumers will want a tool – virtual or real-world – that allows them to download movies, play radio and control their use of electricity, all in one.

This seems to echo other consumer studies that show that while consumers are willing to buy products that help them reduce their energy consumption, they are motivated more by the savings and less by the environment.

How long will it take?

Most speakers and participants agreed that optimizing electricity consumption at home will be a long, gradual, ongoing process. Consumers will not change appliances because newer ones are greener. Many energy-hungry appliances will remain in use for many years to come. On a more positive note, participants pointed out that the younger generations will play an important role in influencing their parents to be kinder to the environment.

As one participant formulated it after one of the sessions: "Overhauling buildings and industry might be a faster and more efficient road to increased energy efficiency…"