Two trials being conducted jointly by IBM and
the Department of Energy in Oregon and Washington state could one day lead to widespread adoption of technologies that
ease strains on both the power grid and consumers' wallets. The first of these trials involves using IBM's WebSphere
Application Servers to monitor both real-time energy prices and in-home energy usage, and alerting consumers by email
when their usage exceeds predetermined thresholds. This trial's 300 participants can even choose to let the system
regulate their thermostats and adjust temperatures if energy bills are getting too high (i.e. use your jacuzzi too much
in the winter and you're in for some pretty frigid temps at home--although manual overrides make this scenario
unlikely). The second trial involves a prototype dryer by Whirlpool that can sense stresses on the power grid and
briefly turn off its heating element while continuing to tumble dry its load, in a manner that wouldn't be noticed by
the end-user. IBM claims that widespread adoption of these technologies could save consumers up to $80 billion over 20
years (we assume that's an aggregate figure, and does not refer to a multi-billion dollar savings per household).
posted Jan 12th 2006 4:42PM
Not new. Georgia Power, Westinghouse, Johnson Controls, and a few others had a test system over 20 years ago combining power/cable/telephone with custom sensors and thermostats to do the same thing.
They concluded that there was suffiecient power savings potential to avoid building several power plants.
Nothing wrong with savings, but I dont think these methods are the key. I think you either have personal regulation (when people start to care about the environment) or more likely, market regulation. When prices go up, people will save. Technology is also improving things, lighting with LEDs for example will save a ton of power in the near future.
This approach is also in use in Chicago, although limited to AC and such in residences. It is also available to commercial/industrial firms that can load shift to off peak times.
And of course something along the lines of this is being worked on at a university in Michigan...
The last time we tried to conserve energy in Seattle, they told us to conserve water because of drought, so we did. Then they told us that we had conserved too much and the power companies weren't making enough money so they raised their rates.
#5, How does the conservation of water by consumers affect the power company's profits?
Damn, and I was already dreaming of what I could buy with that extra 4 billion a year...