In a world where innovative technology is at our fingertips, convenience has never been more accessible. From brewing coffee automatically to securing our homes, smart tech has taken efficiency to new heights.
But it’s not just individuals benefiting from innovative technology; businesses also embrace it to lower energy costs and improve productivity.
Smart Meters
A smart meter is a device that allows you to monitor your electricity consumption. These meters have a built-in circuit breaker that helps control the energy appliances consume in your home or business. Smart meters also have a communication interface that connects to your local utility company’s central systems. This enables customers to receive near real-time feedback on their energy consumption data, helping them to manage their usage and save money.
These devices can also help your energy supplier to run its power grids more efficiently by identifying inefficient voltages, incorrect connections, and other issues before they cause a service outage. They can even detect a power outage by monitoring the current power demand in the area, allowing utility companies to respond to any issues more quickly.
In the US, some electric providers have tried to encourage consumers to install smart meters by offering monetary incentives. However, these types of financial rewards don’t increase the adoption rate for this type of technology. These devices are becoming more common as technology evolves and consumers shift their attitudes toward energy consumption and environmental concerns. The ability to monitor energy use in close to real-time encourages many consumers to be more engaged with optimizing their electricity usage.
Smart Buildings
Smart buildings use edge technology to automatically monitor and control building functions, such as lighting, heating, security, air conditioning, and water. This allows for better utilization of existing assets, reducing maintenance needs and improving energy efficiency.
In addition, the data collected from smart building devices can be analyzed to predict future behavior. These predictions can be based on historical trends, weather forecasting, etc. For example, if the data indicates no employees in an area after 4 pm, the system can automatically adjust the lights and heating to save energy.
For facility managers and building operators, intelligent technology data can help reduce waste and maintain a high level of service for tenants. This is especially important in commercial spaces where occupants have varied schedules and may need to move from meeting rooms to collaboration areas and back again. Using sensors, the smart building can track occupancy levels and provide occupants with a personalized experience.
People sensors can also help to prevent the overuse of facilities. For example, when a meeting room is used more often than usual, the sensor can notify the building operator to reduce the number of meetings scheduled for that space. This helps reduce energy usage, lowering costs and meeting sustainability goals. This type of smart technology can be incorporated into almost any building.
Smart Grid
Using digital technology and overhauling work processes, intelligent grids allow the electric company in Killeen, Texas, to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve reliability. It allows them to connect with consumers in a two-way manner and enables them to participate in energy management through price signals, intelligent appliances, and energy storage.
Smart grids also add resiliency to the electricity network, providing a safety net against natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and equipment failures. They enable the rerouting of energy in real-time to avoid system overloads, minimizing the impact of outages.
The technology helps cut energy bills for residential and commercial customers by allowing them to know exactly how much they use. This information motivates them to cut back on energy consumption by a minimum of 5% to 10%, which results in immediate bill savings.
Smarter technologies also allow utility companies to communicate directly with the devices that use electricity, reducing demand during periods of high consumption. For example, communications and metering technologies can shift the temperature set point of air conditioners or switch off or reduce the usage of photovoltaic solar panels during peak hours. These measures can also reduce the risk of power outages caused by demand surges. This is called dynamic demand management (DDM) or demand response. It requires a communication network, such as the IEC 61850 standard for substation automation and the OpenADR communication protocol.
Utility Intelligence
It’s no secret that utilities are risk-averse. Dabbling in untested technologies and business models could have profoundly bad results when you keep the lights on and provide modern society’s power to function. But they still have the potential to be innovative.
For example, a utility might use AI to understand how its customers use energy at the household and appliance levels. That insight allows them to notify a customer when they’re on track for a high bill, along with options they can take to address the issue. The Netflix-kind of personalization will help a utility forge a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with its customers.
More specific, granular information about how households use energy can help utilities identify which families should be enrolled in DSM programs. That allows them to target outreach and marketing campaigns better to encourage the people who will see the most significant savings from installing a smart thermostat or other efficiency measures. This ability to deliver critical information at the grid edge — even at the low-voltage electric distribution network level — opens up a world of possibilities for forward-thinking utilities. It’s the kind of technology that empowers them to truly meet their customers’ needs, optimize their infrastructure and grid, and create performance-based outcomes.
