Via Forbes, an interesting article on the need for smart apps for the smart grid. We have long advocated such, although we believe apps that permit transactions will ultimately prove to be more sustainable and useful that games etc. As the report notes:
“…The other day a friend of mine asked me what he could do with the “smart meter” the electric company had just installed in his house?
Other than paying a little extra money every month on his electric bill, my only answer was “nothing.” My friend was disappointed. Given the enormous hype surrounding the catalytic changes likely to result from the massive deployment of smart meters in homes across the United States, I could hardly blame him.
More than one-in-five households now have a two-way communicating digital electric meter, according to a new survey by the Institute for Electric Efficiency. By 2015, more than half of the homes in the country will have one of the new ‘smart’ meters, according to the survey.
So what now?
Smart meters are creating heaps of value. The trouble is that most of that value is accruing to utilities rather than customers. Utilities tap the data streams generated by smart meters to streamline operations, enhance forecasting and improve reliability. As a general matter, these efficiency gains will sooner or later flow through to customers in the form of cheaper bills and better service. But that doesn’t happen overnight and it is not at all clear who gets the bulk of the benefits – utilities (shareholders) or ratepayers?
But not everyone seems worried about whether customers will support smart meter investments. The question is whether utilities are truly migrating from the “cash register” concept to the so-called “data dashboard” model of electric metering. In the former instance, the meter serves the simple and straightforward objective of billing customers for the use of electricity. In the latter scenario, the meters are seen as an information gateway that sits between the customer and utility service provider and provide a platform for new services.
The smart meter is the principal infrastructure needed to enable this transition. But now that we’ve got the smart meters, why hasn’t the revolution begun?
Justin Segall, the founder of Boulder, CO-based start-up Simple Energy, has a theory why.
“iPhone sales only started to really explode after the apps market came online,” said Segall. “Smart Apps can do the same thing for utilities, customers and the smart grid.”
Simple Energy seem convinced that utilities can engage customers by leveraging the successful strategies used by Apple and its many copy cats in mobile phone industry. A number of companies seem to share Segall’s thinking on this point. Consider recent news reports on this subject.
IBM Research is teaming up with the electricity utility EKZ in Zurich, Switzerland on a project that will allow consumers to conveniently charge electric vehicles and monitor their energy costs, using mobile devices. The pilot project combines a Web-based application (app) designed and developed by IBM scientists in Zurich and a data recording device, roughly the size of a phonebook, which is installed in electric vehicles to collect information on the vehicle’s battery charge level, location and the power source.
Katherine Tweed at Greentech Media reports on an effort by Opower, Facebook and the Natural Resources Defense Council to launch an energy-efficiency app for mobile phones:
[E]nergy efficiency is meeting the masses where they already are. Facebook is teaming up with Opower and the Natural Resources Defense Council to develop a social media app that will allow participating consumers to benchmark their energy use against similar homes, compare usage with friends, enter energy-savings competitions and share efficiency tips.
The list is long and will more likely than not include your local utility soon if it doesn’t already.
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