Utility testing monitor system
Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008
Oklahoma Gas & Electric is testing a home-based energy management system that, if successful, will be rolled out companywide, including to Fort Smith-area customers.
Since early July, about 25 Oklahoma City homes taking part in the Internet-based SmartPower program have used a computerized “dashboard” to monitor power use and track when electricity becomes cheaper to use, Oklahoma Gas & Electric spokesman Gil Broyles said.
The system — created by San Bruno, Calif.-based Greenbox Technology in a partnership with Silver Spring Networks and announced Wednesday — has lowered monthly bills 15 percent to 20 percent in 24 homes, he said.
The customer in the 25 th home “hasn’t seen such savings, but he likes the technology,” Broyles said. “He says he’d rather be cool but likes to see how much it costs to be cool.”
Greenbox consists of software and a central Internet site linked by Silver Spring Networks to a “smart meter” that tracks electricity use in individual homes, said Matt Smith, Greenbox’s vice president of marketing.
In early tests, customer-power use is fed every 15 minutes from the smart meter to a password-secured Web site, where customers can compare their consumption to that in similar homes as well as throughout the Oklahoma Gas & Electric system.
The software tracks information such as when and how much electricity is used, Smith said.
Few customers realize that electricity costs are higher at certain times of the day. The higher costs are typically in the afternoons and early evenings in the summer when demand is high and utilities draw power from “peaking plants” that are more expensive to run or buy additional power at higher costs through the open market.
“I’m looking at data from one customer that shows 45 percent of their power is used between 2 p. m. and 7 p. m.,” Smith said. “Almost half their cost occurs just five hours a day. So that’s a big incentive to change their habits.”
Systems like Greenbox could also reduce long-term costs for Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Broyles said. Based in Oklahoma City, it serves 660, 000 customers, including 69, 300 in western Arkansas.
“It could help companies shave how much peak capacity they require,” he said. “Over the long-term, that could eliminate the need to build a new power plant or delay its construction.”
If initial trials are successful, more-advanced systems are in the works that could offer minute-by-minute data and even adjust thermostats based on electricity costs at that moment, Smith said.
Similar systems being tested in units at a large Oklahoma City apartment complex also allow Oklahoma Gas & Electric to start, stop and convert service remotely instead of dispatching service crews, Broyles said.
“We roll about 10, 000 truck visits to that complex each year,” he said. “So that could save a lot of money by avoiding all those trips by technicians.”
Oklahoma Gas & Electric is the first utility in the nation to test Greenbox, joining about 25 Greenbox Technology employees who are conducting home trials in the San Francisco area, Smith said.
Founded 18 months ago by Jonathan Gay, the creator of Flash technology that is used in many Internet video portals, Greenbox hopes to launch its product nationwide in 2009.
“We’re currently in conversations with a number of large utilities,” Smith said.
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