| Smart appliances play in futuristic pilot |
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| Monday, 26 October 2009 09:35 |
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Specially built appliances and networks will be part of a pilot program investigating city-wide power-demand reductions made through smart home devices. The pilot will be conducted early next year in the oil- and sunshine-rich The program--which involves General Electric and the still-under-construction Masdar City, a carbon-neutral, zero-waste living lab for sustainable energy technologies--will test how smart appliances and the Home Energy Manager control unit can lower power demand in the home and across the city, according to a press report. The smart--or so-called demand-response enabled--appliances will provide two-way communication and built-in energy management functions to reduce power demand in response to notification of changing utility prices and energy demand. Simultaneously, the appliances will measure and transmit real-time power consumption data, according to GE. Ten of the city’s first residences will participate in the two-year pilot. Information from the program will be used to aid Masdar officials in planning and designing the city’s smart power grid to help it achieve its carbon-neutral, zero-waste, 100%-renewable-energy-powered objectives. Pilot results will also provide GE with feedback on consumers’ energy-consumption behavior using demand-response technology. |
