Energy Roundtable - Wellington 20 October

Posted by Terry on 21 October 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: ,

I attended a very interesting conference in Wellington, New Zealand.The Energy Roundtable had representitives of all the major power companies as well as other players.

I was very interested in the workshops around consumer behaviour and feedback. Basically the power retailers were saying there is no interest in significant numbers of consumers for demand side management (the ability to control your own power usage and cost) and that in home demand side control was "some time away" in New Zealand. I was then pointed out by some outside players that if the power companies were not careful they would discover power being sold and managed over the Internet by software companies.

I had to agree and suggested it was time in New Zealand that power companies stopped working alone in their silos and enguaged with industry players, especially in the Home Area Network field, and provided the consumer with the two things it wants from the utilities, choice and control.

An excellent presentation by Kathryn Tholin, CEO of Center for Neighborhood Technology, Illinois, USA showed us that the consumer is not necessarily interested in "Demand Side Management" because they have no idea what it can do for them and the amount they pay for electricity until they experience it. This is true green flieds technology, like the humble text message which never would have existed if consumers were asked beforehand if they want to send 160 characters from their mobile phone ("No, I'll just ring the person up").

Cortexo is working on linking current in home technology that can read power consumption from devices as well as Smart Meter output and making that available remotely to users through the Corteso Service giving control to the user. If the user chooses to allow it (for reduced power fees) they may also allow energy utilities the ability to control the supply side by reducing demand on the grid by shutting off unnecessary appliances for short periods such as fridges/freezers (auto defrostimng as well as cooling).

Talk to me about smart demand side management!