Home Energy Management

Fast, affordable … and essential

Pilgrim Beart, AlertMe.com

“Save Energy Now”90% of consumers are concerned about their energy bills

and want to save money (and energy) now*

But consumers lack the necessary informationand lack the ability to easily control consumption.

Governments worldwide are driving ‘energy saving’ because of both Energy Security and Climate Change

Per

son

al U

K e

nerg

y co

nsum

ptio

n†

* AlertMe survey of 1000 broadband users, Sep 2008† Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air

EDF

UK generating capacity

3,300 kWh

Electricity

Natural Gas

20,500 kWh

USWITCH JUNE 2008

UK

CALIFORNIA

49 therms/household/month=588 per year= 17,000 kWh

Electricity

Natural Gas

5914 kWh

17000 kWh

http://www.pge.com/about/environment/calculator/assumptions.shtmlhttp://www.californiaenergyefficiency.com/docs/EEStrategicPlan.pdf

UK Domestic energy consumption

• Average household:– Disposable income £14,520– Domestic energy bill £1,213 (8.3%)

(U-switch press releases, 6 June 2008, 26 Aug 2008)

– 10% of electricity wasted on standby(NAO, 2008)

So why don’t consumersdo something about it?

Cost up-front?

ROI too poor or slow?

Laziness?

Ugliness?

Disruption?

Fear of unknown?

Fear of complexity?

Obstacles

E.g. condensing boiler retrofit

Vaillant:“Switching your boiler could save you over £240* a year on heating bills because our high efficiency systems use 35% less energy”

– But installed cost ~£2200*– ROI ~10 years– Disruptive

* Average UK (boiler+install) from whatprice.co.uk Nov 2008

Insulation measure Households with this measure

  1976 2005

Loft insulation 51% 95%

Double glazing 10% 84%

Hot water tank insulation 74% 95%

Energy-saving : saturated?

BERR

Managing Demand

Many different solutions

• And we need many!

• Even the slow, expensive, hard ones– (perhaps especially those)

but don’t forget the quick, cheap, easy ones!

Smart Meters

Europe• Italy already rolled-out AMR – too early• Sweden by 2009

– Gothenberg 300k home “ZigBee city”

• UK by 2020USA• California (regulated), 3.3m meters by 2011 (pop 36m)• Texas (deregulated), 7m meters by 2019 (pop 23m)

then…• Demand management (2 years after meters?)• Smart-Energy-aware Appliances (7 years after meters?)

Energy management -Closing the loop

BEHAVIOUR

AUTOMATIC

MEASURE CHANGE

Academic StudiesConsumer Behavioural Effects of making consumption

visible:• Savings of 5-15%• Best long-term effects from Billing or other periodic

feedback• Processed feedback best for demonstrating effects of

changes to heating, efficiency measures or high-consuming appliances.

• Indirect feedback best for showing heating load.• Historic feedback (comparing with previous recorded

periods of consumption) more effective than comparative or normative (comparing with other households, or with a target figure).

“The effectiveness of feedback on energy consumption - a review for DEFRA of the literature on metering, billing and direct displays” by Sarah Darby of the Oxford Environmental Change Institute, April 2006

Evidence

• UK energy trials show that consumer pull is vital for adoption

• 90% of consumers are concerned about their energy bills and want to save money (and energy) now

• 67% would pay £10/month for an energy-saving service which claimed to save on average £31/month

• Focus groups have shown the need to remove the need for an “energy policeman” and engage the whole household

Solutions

Set heating and cooling automatically, taking into account multiple temperature points, presence information, weather, day of week, house specific heating lag and more.

Read your meter anywhere (TV, phone, web…). Real-time and historical. In £ not kWh. Alternative tariffs.

Accurately measure energy usage at outlet and control it locally, remotely or automatically. Installs in seconds.

Smart Energy in 2009 (not 2029!)

SmartMeter

Smart Plugs

SmartMeterSmartMeter

Gateway

Backhaul(wired)

Backhaul(wireless)

BackEnd

Displays

Phone

SMS

TVWeb

Ambient

API

Presence

Safety

LoadControl

(inc. EV)

SmartAppliances

Whole-houseTemps

HeatingControl

Value-AddedServices

Retrofit

Utilities and other service

providers

HAN

AlertMe launched in 1Q 2008

AlertMe to launch in 1Q 2009

Removing obstacles

Cost up-front? £0 with rebate checks/CERT

ROI too poor or slow? ROI instant, if sold as service

Laziness?

Ugliness?

Create pull with an attractive consumer proposition

Disruption? Easy install

Fear of unknown? Market through familiar channels

Fear of complexity? Keep it simple

References• http://www.alertme.com• http://www.californiaenergyefficiency.com/docs/EEStrategicPlan.pdf• http://www.pge.com/about/environment/calculator/assumptions.shtml• http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/electric-metering.php • http://lightbucket.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/step-one-home-insulation/ • http://www.greenandsave.com/master_roi_table.html• http://www.withouthotair.com/