The Trouble With Air-Conditioners | The Energy Collective

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Con Edison has been promoting green initiatives for some time now, but certain problems impede their progress: dense urban environments are ill-suited to the promise of smart meter technologies, consumer behaviors are hard to change, and there are those pesky window air conditioners.

Yes, window air conditioners.

Read my post in The Energy Collective

Meet BERT, Your Energy Control Freak

Will Ernie be next?

Remember when your mom would shout at you to turn off the lights when you left a room?  Well, now there's an electronic mom that does it for you without the yelling.

They call it BERT, which stands for Best Energy Reduction Tools, and it's a new "smart plug" has the witty tagline that it's "your energy control freak." 

I've written before about smart plugs (see ThinkEco's Modlet and Israel's Greenlet) and other energy demand management solutions, but yesterday's announcement by Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP) of Southeastern Pennsylvania that it was awarding a follow-on investment of $500,000 to Green Power Technologies of King of Prussia, PA, caught my attention.  (BFTP has already invested $250,000 in an earlier round.)

They call it BERT, which stands for Best Energy Reduction Tools, and has the witty tagline that it's "your energy control freak."

BERT eliminates wasted energy from devices that are turned off but still plugged in -- and let's face it, we're all guilty of leaving our devices plugged in when they don't need to be.  BERT software enables you to program up to 100 on/off commands per week, which gives you control of energy use day or night from your WiFi enabled computer or smart phone.

The company plans to manufacture in the US, which would make Jack Donaghy proud.  GPT has contracted with Millennia Group, a manufacturer in Cheswick, PA, to make BERTs.

I'm still looking for a solution that cuts off power to my phone charger when the charge is complete, such as when I charge it overnight, but this programmable smart plug gets closer to solving that problem. 

Tendril, UISOL, PJM Partnership Could Benefit Residential Consumers

Managing residential electricity demand and controlling load balances is an increasing problem for PJM Interconnection, North America's largest power grid, especially during extreme weather events and peak demand times.

Now Tendril, an energy platform company we've been tracking here at The Green Skeptic, is partnering with Utility Integration Solutions, Inc. (UISOL), a provider of demand response management and automation systems, on what they call a "Price Response Demand" demo project for PJM.

"This real-world demonstration will show the feasibility and ease with which residential customers can reduce their energy consumption in response to wholesale price signals that reflect grid conditions," according to Tendril CEO Adrian Tuck. "It will also enable utilities to aggregate Demand Response in consumers' homes for better load control, increased efficiency and additional savings."

The project combines Tendril's Connect platform with UISOL’s Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) price server to allow PJM to test a near real-time program for price response and better manage electricity demand.

If it works, residential consumers will be able to have a better handle on the cost of energy used in their homes and utilities will be able to better manage load balances that can lead to brown-outs or even black-outs during peak usage events.

This latest announcement comes on the heals of Tendril's partnerships with ThinkEco, creators of the "modlet" plug-load management device, and Whirlpool on smart home appliances.

The company also launched Tendril Energize, which they call "the first ever application suite based on proven behavioral science techniques" to provide "persistent consumer engagement in home energy performance."

Tendril and UISOL are demonstrating their PJM project at DistribuTECH 2011 this week in San Diego.

Related articles

• ThinkEco and Tendril Collaborate to Smarten the Smart Grid (prnewswire.com)
• Tendril's IDEO-Designed Home-Energy Monitoring Device Fails, Utilitarianism Wins (fastcompany.com)
• Whirlpool, Tendril to Collaborate on Smart Appliances (matternetwork.com)
• Are Consumers Ready For Home Energy Management in 2011? (gigaom.com)
• Tendril app tries to Energize consumer efficiency (news.cnet.com)

ThinkEco Introduces "Modlet" for Home

Modlet, CrunchBase
ThinkEco, a New York City-based company that I've written about previously on The Green Skeptic, will debut the home version of its "modlet," at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas later this week.

The modlet, which is short for modern outlet, is a wireless "intelligent" outlet that will trim energy waste from plugged-in appliances and consumer electronics.

ThinkEco's modlet will be available for home use this spring for around $50 for a starter kit, including one two-plug modlet and a USB receiver.

"There are more appliances and consumer electronics in homes today than ever before, and many draw power all the time, even if they are not being used," said Jun Shimada, ThinkEco's president and CEO in a press release. "This wastes energy quietly and invisibly, in stark contrast to the very visible waste associated with other resources such as keeping your faucet on or idling your car."

With ThinkEco's modlet, according to the company, you can schedule your outlets to shut off automatically when plugged-in devices are not needed and turn them back on at a scheduled time based on usage patterns. You can even control it from your mobile phone (as long as it is not power-down by the modlet, I suspect).

I'm hoping to test one of these babies in my own home, specifically on an outlet where I charge my BlackBerry overnight and can't be bothered to get up in the middle of the night to unplug it after charging.