The 'Radio Network of Things' Can Cut Electric Bills (Video)

We all love 'The Internet of Things.' Now imagine appliances, such as your refrigerator and hot water heater, getting radio messages from the power grid telling them when they should turn on and off to get the best electricity prices. Now kick that up to the electric company level, and give them a radio network that tells them which electric provider to get electricity from at what time to get the best (wholesale) price. This is what e-Radio is doing. They make this claim: "Using pre-existing and near ubiquitous radio signals can save billions of dollars, reduce environmental impact, add remote addressability and reap additional significant societal benefits."

Timothy noticed these people at CES. They were one of the least flashy and least "consumer-y" exhibitors. But saving electricity by using it efficiently, while not glamorous, is at least as important as a $6000 Android phone. Note that the guy e-Radio had at CES speaking to Timothy was Scott Cuthbertson, their Chief Financial Officer. It's a technology-driven company, from Founder and CEO Jackson Wang on down, but in the end, saving money is what they sell. (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

That was your first mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

We all love 'The Internet of Things.'

No, we don't.

Re:Silly assumptions.

[DamonHD]

Neither your house nor your fridge maintain an absolutely constant temperature; they cycle in a "deadband" about a set-point.

Neither your house nor your fridge instantly go to pieces thermally if you cut the power; they both have (valuable) thermal mass.

Simply widening the deadband a little, too little for there to be any functional difference, and probably for you to never notice, can make a significant difference to the grid and to your bills. The point is to slightly adjust an automatic cycle that you pay no attention to anyway to better share a scare resource.

People who are prepared to let these things happen are likely to have bills significantly, even 3x in some predictions, lower than those that don't, in a matter of a few years in some cases.

Rgds

Damon

PS. I have skin in the game. The OpenTRV project that I lead (http://opentrv.org.uk/ and http://www.earth.org.uk/open-s... for a more geeky page) aims to as much as halve space heating costs and footprint by this sort of trick while aiming to *improve* comfort by delivering heat when it is actually needed/wanted. There will also be a simple tie-in with the grid that could save up to ~2GW of peak electricity demand from UK domestic *gas* space-heating systems without most people ever noticing. That's bigger than our biggest nuke.