Energy Exchange

Throughout 2012, EDF’s Energy Innovation Series will highlight around 20 innovations across a broad range of energy categories, including smart grid and renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency financing, and progressive utilities, to name a few. This series will demonstrate that cost-effective, clean energy solutions are available now and imperative to lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

Find more information on this featured innovation here.

If innovation is where expertise and opportunity intersect, then San Antonio-based Consert Inc.(Consert) is a perfect case study.

Founded in 2008 by veterans of the telecom industry, Consert’s Virtual Peak Plant^TM provides an energy management solution that gives consumers control of the highest energy-consuming electrical devices in their home or business and provides utilities with a low-cost way to tap into an unused energy source during key peak demand periods.

“We find the key is to offer a simple solution to consumers that also benefits utilities,” said Jeff Ebihara, vice president of Consert. “Our goal at Consert has always been to facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship between the consumer and their electric provider.”

The result is cutting-edge technology that connects, monitors and controls high energy-consuming devices including air conditioners, water heaters and pool pumps, which can represent over half of the total load for electric utilities during times of peak demand. The devices in a “Consert-enabled house” are linked using the wireless technology “ZigBee,” creating a Home Area Network (HAN) that can either be controlled remotely or configured to make decisions based on user preferences or outside weather conditions. Utilities may call upon this load during peak hours to reduce stress on the grid, with the consumer never losing comfort or control.

According to Consert, its home automation system can save consumers 15-20 percent on their energy use. When consolidated, these homes add up to a considerable amount of unused energy that utilities do not have to buy, sell or deliver.

Credit: Consert Inc.

The development of a consumer-friendly service that helps save money – and provides some “coolness” while requiring no sacrifice in comfort or convenience – is an important achievement as we look for new ways to reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency. Reducing electricity demand and making more efficient use of electricity is very important both environmentally and for electric grid operators. But beyond the appeal of doing the “right thing,” or the novelty of controlling appliances, there had previously been little to no incentive for consumers to make it a priority. Cutting their energy bill, Ebihara said, has proven a strong incentive.

“Of course there is a small segment of the market that wants to control every last part their energy use,” Ebihara said. “And we are happy to provide that level of control. But we are finding that most people want to “set it and forget it.” They want to save on their energy bill and they might like the convenience of remotely accessing their programs, but they don’t want to have to think about it all the time and they certainly don’t want it to be a hassle.”

Consert’s systems are available through utility companies, most of which offer the equipment free when customers participate in conservation measures. Others sell the equipment at a deeply-subsidized price. In San Antonio, CPS Energy will deploy Consert systems in 140,000 homes at no charge to the customer, reducing peak demand by 250 megawatts.

Throughout 2012, EDF’s Energy Innovation Series will highlight more than 20 innovations across a broad range of energy categories, including smart grid and renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency financing, and progressive utilities, to name a few. This series will demonstrate that cost-effective, clean energy solutions are available now and imperative to lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

Since launching in beta on March 20, 2012, the fast growing real estate network has already aggregated detailed information on over 700,000 buildings across the U.S. From architects to brokers, thousands of real estate, construction and service companies have joined the platform, posting their portfolio of work and connecting with building owners and managers to find new business opportunities.

Honest Building’s co-founder and CEO Riggs Kubiak says that the real estate market is primed for the convergence of data and community, which will lead to more transparency for all stakeholders and accelerate the adoption of high performance buildings.

“Greater transparency about building performance increases the demand for energy efficiency as tenants can make better, informed decisions about where they lease,” said Kubiak. “This accelerates the adoption of all sorts of best practices by building owners and managers in order to command the best leasing rates. From energy efficiency to leasing to design to management, buildings will have to get better, faster. This also gives the best building service providers and vendors the opportunity to scale faster, as the services and technologies with the best track record can leverage a network effect to capture more and more business.”

And when it comes to important energy innovations, tackling the building sector is vitally important.  Cars and trucks carry a lot of the blame for climate change.  But in the U.S., the building sector is responsible for nearly half of CO2 emissions, compared to a third for the transportation sector. Three-quarters of the electricity produced in the U.S. is used just to operate buildings, and that percentage is even higher globally.

There’s a massive amount of factual, verifiable data about how homes and buildings operate.  This data includes square footage, energy costs, walkability – all things that people care about now more than ever.  But all this information is very hard for consumers to find and for building professionals to promote.  And there is no venue for people — designers, buyers or sellers — to interact.

“The purpose of Honest Buildings is to merge the hard facts with human interaction,” Riggs said. “You can see the data on a building and weigh it against what the community is saying about it.”

In San Francisco, the Honest Buildings platform is using energy benchmarking compliance data to bring together building owners, service providers and local government to create new business opportunities and more efficient buildings.  Working with the city’s department of the environment, they’ve created a custom map of all the buildings that have and have not complied with the city’s energy benchmarking ordinance, and helped building owners connect with energy efficiency companies and consultants that can help these building go above and beyond compliance.

“The introduction of real-time energy data for buildings will provide an incredible insight into how they perform,” Riggs said.  “Our expectation is that developers and property managers will want to highlight their best performers and create an element of competition that will increase efficiency and sustainability.  And the better the technology, the faster that will happen.”

But according to Riggs, data alone isn’t enough.  “As with all great services, there has to be a human element,” he said.  “People need to be able to weigh in with their voice, and the social network aspect of our service will be just as important as detailed, trustworthy data.  Information may help us make better buildings, but people make the decisions.”