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Two new approaches to help consumers save energy surfaced this week. GE Appliances and Georgia-based Flint Energies have embarked on a pilot program to get a handle on the potential for smart appliances to save consumers money and reduce peak loads when coupled with peak time rebates. And Colorado's Simple Energy is taking its online game platform to Texas where participants will compete with friends and win prizes for energy efficiency.

Those smart grid solutions include features to reduce energy consumption based on peak time rebate signals from the utility. Flint customers who cut consumption during peak load periods will get an 87-cent per kilowatt-hour rebate, but won't be penalized if they choose to override the load reduction settings.

Simple Energy's Customer Engagement Platform

Customers in the Houston and Dallas metro service areas of Oncor and Centerpoint Energy can sign up for what Simple Energy bills as a "social, fun and simple way" to save energy. The  Simple Energy Customer Engagement Platform is an online game that gives customers the opportunity to compete with friends and win prizes for their energy efficiency efforts.

By joining the application, customers can share their energy savings on Facebook, set up teams and see their energy use with a mobile app that is coming soon, the company says. The Texas program follows a successful pilot energy efficiency program in California where the customer engagement platform more than doubled energy savings for participating customers over a three-month period.

Simple Energy CEO Yoav Lurie commented "The amazing results from California clearly demonstrate that the Simple Energy approach to motivating people to save energy really works."

Photo courtesy of GE

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