Communication is the Key to Smart Homes

By TMCnet Special Guest
Mary Miller, Marketing Director, Sigma Designs and Z-Wave Alliance

“Smart Grid” should not be defined simply in terms of new technology for energy conservation, generation and distribution. There’s another component to being smart – communication – and it is essential to the success of America’s new energy initiatives.

Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences recently published a study underscoring the importance of knowledge in changing people’s energy consumption patterns. When people know how much energy they use – and what it’s costing them in real time – they tend to use less of it. Of course, this knowledge requires utilities to adopt technologies that can accurately communicate data to consumers when they’re cooking, washing laundry, watching TV, and going about the business of day-to-day life. 

It’s often said that good communication begins at home – and this truth bears special relevance to the Smart Grid. To achieve its full potential – real-time pricing, billing and selective load-shedding capabilities – power utilities must recognize the centrality of people’s most private venue: their homes. The technical and political challenges of doing so abound. But many of them can be met with good communication.

During hours of peak energy usage, utilities cannot manage overwhelming demand and often resort to rolling blackouts and brownouts. Nationwide, the price for these outages is steep: $150 billion annually, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Smart meters have been widely deployed to help mitigate the problem, but without the ability to communicate with energy-consuming devices in the home, they’re not much help.

As part of the Obama administration’s master plan to modernize and standardize the nation’s power grid, smart meters have been deployed across the country. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, smart meters “enable a utility to measure a customer’s electricity usage in hourly increments.”Ideally, smart meters should be able to deliver real-time pricing data from utilities to consumers so people can stay informed. But such bi-directional communication included a plan that assumed smart meters would be able to talk to a meaningful number of devices in the home. This hasn’t yet come to pass. The most widely deployed technology for smart meters lacks a mature ecosystem of devices with which to interface. In fact, devices embedded with this technology often can’t speak with one another.

Fortunately, other options exist. Utilities across the country are beginning to shift their focus from Smart Meters to the Home Area Network (HAN). Their strategy is to find the most robust HAN technology with the most extensive ecosystem of interoperable devices for home energy management and control. They need a system that establishes a single, easy-to-install network of lighting systems, thermostats, TVs, pool heaters, and readable screens – like televisions, computers, and mobile devices – which enable consumers to view how much energy they’re using, which devices are using it, and how much it’s costing them.

Once this network is in place, utilities can do even more than furnish consumers with information about device-by-device consumption patterns; they can also let consumers decide which device(s) to shut down if a grid event occurs and the need for load-shedding arises.

Of all HAN-centric strategies for Smart Homes, Z-Wave technology is widely acknowledged as enabling communication among the most household devices. Z-Wave is embedded in 400 devices from well-known manufacturers, like Trane (News - Alert), Schlage, Cooper, Leviton and more than 155 others. Key to its success is interoperability: Z-Wave knows how to communicate with other Z-Wave and non Z-Wave devices. Z-Wave bridges let different technologies function as part of the network – including smart meters. All devices containing Z-Wave technology must go through a strict certification process to guarantee interoperability.

Another critical difference between HAN-centric strategies and Meter-centric strategies has to do with empowerment. Who decides which devices to “load shed” during grid events: the utility or consumers? HAN-centric strategies like Z-Wave keep consumers in control. Consumers have the freedom to install their home area networks with devices they want from manufacturers they trust. During grid events, technologies like Z-Wave make it possible for consumers to shut down devices from home – or away from home – using a simple remote control, online or with their mobile devices.

A HAN-centric strategy might work like this: Consumers set up their HANs to respond in certain ways to different levels of grid events. There might be three levels: yellow for mild, orange for moderate and red for serious. Utilities notify consumers when a grid event occurs. Upon receiving an email or a text notification of a yellow grid event, for example, a consumer might click on “agree,” which automatically puts his thermostat in energy-save mode. Upon receipt of an orange alert, he might “agree,” thus choosing a previously programmed stand-by mode for the power strip that controls his TVs and computers. If there’s a red alert, the consumer can send his HAN the signal to shut off his pool pump and hot water heater. This method provides an easy interface that engages users in energy conservation without compromising their privacy. It also enables them to decline certain actions, if necessary.

Just as communication is the key to making Smart Energy work on a technical level, communication is also the key to making it politically feasible. The nightly news is rife with broadcasts about widespread public opposition to smart meters. Some homeowners flat-out reject installation, citing electro-magnetic sensitivities, privacy issues, and measurement inaccuracies. Clearly, homeowners need to be reassured that they will remain the masters of their domain. They need to know that smart energy isn’t something that is being pushed upon them by the government or utilities – but rather something they adopt as partners in a project to future-proof our country. By keeping the locus of control in the home, utilities can communicate as partners, not as Big Brother.

Communication among utilities and consumers – along with interoperability among devices within the home and across the grid – will be hallmarks of America’s 21st Century Smart Grid. To succeed, utilities and policy makers must recognize that conservation begins in the home – and the home should be central to the conversation.

(source: http://smart-grid.tmcnet.com/topics/smart-grid-fa/articles/106564-communication-the-key-smart-homes.htm)