Smart Meters energizing Ontario utilities, enabling conservation and time shifting

The following article appeared in The Toronto Star on page B2, Monday May 18, 2009:

Future of Residential Power Management

by TYLER HAMILTON, Toronto Star 

More than 200 households in Milton got to test drive the future of power management last year and the results show that homeowners, given the right tools and motivations, are more than capable of conserving energy.

The pilot project, conducted between July 2007 and Sept. 2008, was a collaboration between Milton Hydro, Direct Energy and Bell Canada. Households were given the ability to monitor their energy use through the Internet, as well as through BlackBerry-like devices, and to remotely control the lighting and operation of appliances in their homes.

An easy-to-use Web interface, designed by Toronto-based Lixar SRS, gave them a detailed view of how much electricity individual appliances were using at any point in time.

The results showed that one in 10 households given the control used 16 per cent less electricity over 12 months and 18 per cent less during peak periods.

Just 10 per cent of participants achieved the higher savings, which could be interpreted as a poor result. But the point of the pilot was to show what could be done, not necessarily what's likely to be done today.

The challenge now is to refine the technology alongside the introduction of energy conservation programs and policies that drive behavioural change.

Change is coming, and local utilities seem energized by the opportunity. Ontario passed its Green Energy Act last week, making conservation a priority as the province evolves its electricity system.

Also last week, Toronto Hydro announced that its first 10,000 residential customers will get shifted on June 1 to time-of-use pricing now that a substantial number of GTA homes have a smart meter.

The utility hopes to have all single-family homes on the new pricing by year's end, and since peak pricing is more than double off-peak pricing, you can bet that over time households will desire, if not demand, more control over their power consumption.

Energy management is also a major component of Burlington Hydro's GridSmartCity demonstration project, announced last week. Company president David Collie says local utilities are realizing that their businesses are no longer just about pushing electrons to homes. Utilities are morphing into multi-faceted energy companies that can influence change in a community, and enabling conservation is now a big part of the job.

There still exists, however, some skepticism in the market. Some energy executives downplay the new high-tech tools that give homeowners more control.

All the bells and whistles are overkill, they argue, adding that most people don't have the time to monitor their energy use or participate in demand-response programs.

There's an element of truth there, but only for those stuck in the present.

Don't believe it? Then ask yourself why Internet giant Google announced in February that it was entering the residential energy-management market with prototype software called PowerMeter? The software, which is expected to be distributed for free, offers the same kind of feedback on power use that homeowners got from the Milton Hydro trial using Lixar SRS's technology.

Google has also teamed up with General Electric on smart grid development.

It's about more than simply knowing how much power your home or an individual appliance is consuming. It's about tracking and analyzing historical use.

You can't improve it if you can't measure it.

Full TheStar.com Business article on smart meters, Ontario Hydro and residential energy management

Robert Redford's eloquent plea for Utah Green Energy Plan, innovation

Legendary movie star and progressive social activist Robert Redford recently published an alternative energy article in the Salt Lake Tribune and it was picked up by the Huffington Post today 11may09:


Our leaders need to reconsider their allegiance to the dirty fuels industry, stop their bickering, and act boldly to move America towards a new energy economy.

by Robert Redford
May 11,2009, HuffingtonPost.com

Anyone who knows Utah knows the power of wind, water and sun. You can see that power in Utah's sculpted arches of stone, in our majestic mountains capped with snow, and in the cracked earth of our deserts.

Nature's power is so obvious that you have to wonder why we've mostly ignored it as a source of energy to run our homes and businesses, and to propel our cars and trucks.

After all, if we did a little more to harness that power, we could begin to solve some of our most pressing environmental and economic challenges. In fact, creating electricity from the energy nature gives us is critical if we're going to reduce global warming pollution, protect public health with clean air and water, create jobs in Utah and ultimately bring down energy prices.

We know that burning fossil fuels is destabilizing the atmosphere and acidifying the oceans. We know that our dependence on oil shackles us to dangerous foreign regimes and to the escalating prices they'll inevitably charge as demand outstrips supply. But we also know how to break our dependence and free ourselves from this destructive cycle. Why keep buying foreign crude when we could be making energy right here in Utah from sunlight, wind and geothermal power? Why rip up more pristine wilderness to extract dirty fuels when we could generate clean power from the energy nature delivers to our doorstep?

Dollar for dollar, investing in clean energy creates more jobs than investing in traditional energy sources like oil and gas. That really matters, especially when you consider that more than 30,000 Utah workers lost their jobs last year.

We've got tens of thousands of windy acres here in Utah, sites for geothermal energy abound, and the southern part of the state has tremendous potential for solar power. We will have to carefully pick renewable energy sites that don't endanger critical habitat and wilderness quality land, but the opportunity is vast.

So how can we jump start a home-grown clean energy economy?

Right now Congress is working on a landmark clean energy jobs plan that would boost the amount of wind, solar and other clean energy our country produces. The American Clean Energy and Security Act will also make our vehicles, appliances and buildings more efficient, and update our antiquated electricity grid.

Our investments in clean energy and efficiency today will pay dividends for generations. They will create good, family-sustaining jobs that can't be shipped overseas, and they will lower energy prices in the long run. They will reduce energy dependence and global warming pollution, and make our economy more competitive.

It's true that the economic and environmental challenges we confront are serious. But Americans have never encountered a challenge of any kind that we couldn't overcome by working together and applying our ingenuity.


Full Huffington Post Robert Redford article on renewable energy development in the USA

May 2009 Green Energy Stocks Investing News

Here are some recent blog posts about clean energy stocks and investing in publicly-listed green technology companies:

China Investing in Solar, Wind, Geothermal and Green Fuels

Clean Energy Stocks -News and Trends in Greentech

Financing Clean Energy: Perspectives | Alternative Energy Stocks

Green Energy News April 2009

Jeff Siegel post on Midwestern Wind Energy and windpower in Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas

Plug-In Hybrid Cars promoted by President Obama