I do not always like “how-to” articles that most trade rags put out, but this one did manage to keep me interested throughout. Short and simple, the author points out 10 things one can do and also points out that you’d better know what you are doing to get the speed you may be looking for. In other words, it may not be worth the effort to gain an indeterministic amount of time.
But…the article is well written, concise, and to the point. I like articles like that!
I recently moved into a new home. The reason for the move was to get closer to my wife’s work location as well as get into a house that was flat and had more “space” overall. We increased our space by ~800 sq ft, but we added a nice sized back yard and a nice sized lanai. That helps all around. That’s great, but with the increase in energy prices (and my increased mortgage) I want to find ways to save some money. I manage my money well by monitoring spending. I want to MONITOR my energy spend. How can I do that?
I have been doing some research on home energy management. So far, I have found a number of organizations that have “energy management”, however, most of these organizations do not cater to residential. Why is that? Are consumers that cheap? Do they really not care? I don’t think so. I think it is the utility companies at fault.
Yea, yea. I can blame many, but hear me out. A residential energy management system requires telemetry. Currently the best place to put the end point of telemetry is at the meter. However, I do not own the meter. My utility company owns the meter, I own everything behind the meter. Ok great. So I can either install my own meter (can I do that?) or I can put my own meter inside? Here is where that breaks down. Right now the companies that product telemetry software and hardware are doing it to make money. They make money by enabling the utility company to provide energy management as a service to customers. This allows the energy company to give the most expensive power to those that pay the highest rates and let the residential customers use the cheap energy when they need it (we usually never need to use expensive energy!).
This begs the question of why then would the telemetry device producers want to go outside – in? Why wouldn’t they want to penetrate all of the residential/commercial customers and have demand force the utility company to follow suite? Currently they approach a utility and the utility says – eh, too expensive to implement. With a inside-out approach, the telemetry device maker sells the devices and software to the consumer at a decent price point and then the consumer drives the demand to the utility? Sound familiar? Disrupt the cycle.
I want to monitor my residential energy. I want to see how much power each device is using. I can then decide to enroll in a energy management program through my utility or manage my energy myself. With all of the part-time residents in Florida, that seems like a NO BRAINER!!!
Time to do a bit of brainstorming and see what I can muster up. Sounds like an interesting niche. Especially at the start of the baby-boomer era where they want to save money and they have money to spend in saving money!!!
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