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In SGN's Tech Take articles, power engineer and architect Erich Gunther evaluates actual products and services against the SGN Smart Grid Scorecard. Unless disclosed explicitly at the beginning of the article, neither SGN nor Erich Gunther has received any compensation from the vendor nor do they own stock in the company.
Greenbox Technology Inc. is demonstrating an integrated Internet service that lets residential customer view, interpret, and act on their everyday utility consumption — including non-electric utility services, distributed generation, and remote appliance control from a Web browser. Have they succeeded at creating a truly useful energy portal?
To answer this question, I’ll address three essential elements:
· The role of the SGN scorecard · The impact of user experience on the Smart Grid · How Greenbox measures up
The role and importance of the SGN Scorecard
The SGN Scorecard was developed for a very important reason: most of today's products do not adhere to Smart Grid principles. They do not support the requirements envisioned by Smart Grid researchers such as EPRI, the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research program, the Modern Grid Initiative and DOE's GridWise program. Nor do they adhere to the mandates in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
In particular, several elements of the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture are critical to implementing a Smart Grid: · Proven, IP based or Internet-derived communication technologies · Service based architecture at the enterprise level · Self healing technology · Well defined interfaces and points of interoperability · Application of industry and international standards · Built in security and network management
The SGN Scorecard is a checklist that measures whether products meet minimum standards for a Smart Grid. We will use it as the benchmark for all Tech Talk reviews. You are invited to use it free of charge for your own evaluations. For a further explanation and a blank version you can copy freely, download the PDF version of the Scorecard.
The impact of customer-facing systems and user experience on the Smart Grid
The utility's traditional residential customer interface has been through monthly billings and the register value displayed on the outside of the electricity meter. Using only a bill and a meter register value, it is hard for residential electricity customers to make informed decisions about how products, services, and behaviors impact their monthly bill. Inevitably, emerging non-flat rate structures leaves the account holder even more uncertain about when electricity was consumed, by whom, and using what device. Uncertainty about electricity consumption makes it harder for residential customers to modify their behaviors under growing need for conservation and peak demand reduction.
The Internet-style convergence happening across the Smart Grid provides the opportunity to upgrade the user experience for residential customers. In the future, Smart Grid applications may leverage any of two-way meter communications connections, resident-connected Internet connections, cell phone Internet connections, or any other data-access means to achieve the following:
But several needs still exist where the Smart Grid meets the residential customer:
Together, these form a scalable, coherent, user experience that offers more access and impact than any single means.
Greenbox Technology product lineup
Greenbox Technology Inc. is currently demonstrating an integrated Internet service that lets a residential customer view, interpret, and act on their everyday utility service consumption and distributed generation behaviors. While other companies have presented residential electricity awareness interfaces, they rarely demonstrate the ability to span non-electric utility services, distributed generation, and remote appliance control from a single unified interface. More information isn't always better, but having the right information at the right time to support the right energy decision process is great. Greenbox’s Web-based interface gets the job done by presenting data downloaded periodically from the utility AMI (or other infrastructure) back-end systems.
Supporting the Greenbox Web interface is a data access and service delivery architecture. Assuming the utility has deployed a higher bandwidth meter network, most tasks can be done by integrating Greenbox's system with the utility's AMI back-end system. To date, Greenbox has announced partnership with Silver Spring Networks. Control and data may flow over that infrastructure. Alternatively, Greenbox can place a third-party gateway device in the home to bridge home area network (HAN) control and data over the Internet. The gateway also helps incorporate smart energy devices, such as a thermostat, into a utility's demand-response program. The gateway device serves the dual purpose of making higher resolution consumption data available to the homeowner by reading it continuously across an electricity meter's home area network interface at the highest allowable rate and streaming it to the back end.
For the specific case of understanding HVAC consumption behavior, additional components may be offered. Greenbox has shown the ability to integrate with various thermostat manufacturers so far, with stunning results in the Web interface. A residential user can easily see how outdoor environmental conditions, their thermostat program, and energy price simultaneously impact their energy bill. Thermostats announced to date include Energate's Z100 and Radio Thermostat Company of
Greenbox Technology compared to competitors
To be fair, there are many competitors to Greenbox who have created Web portals that, in one way or another, legitimately extend the meter register inside to the Web browser or other media. However, there is just something different about the portal that is offered by this vendor. Greenbox's portal takes the next step towards integrating other aspects of the residential energy experience that might be compelling to utilities and to residential customers.
For example, interactively diagnosing and understanding device load profiles, identifying home base load to find “vampires” around the home, dynamic environmental analogy, and overlay of control settings for specific home appliances over energy cost are all features Greenbox offers that just aren't that pervasive in the market yet or rolled up into a single portal. (Current portal competitors include Comverge, Tendril, and Google.)
Google’s recent entrance to the open utility market captured the media spotlight, and for good reason. Third-party access to residential utility consumption data has tremendous perceived value, and it is obvious Google would like to sell services around that information. Currently, the marketed Google service feels more like an information display than the energy understanding service we see in Greenbox. Google has proposed an open data architecture (implying market creation and more ways to meet a utility’s specific needs from more vendors) and hinted at likely scalability across its future Google Android and Google Gadget platforms. Specifically, implicit potential for broader cell phone-based access to understanding and controlling consumption is a significant compelling factor to keep our eye on Google in the market.
Where Greenbox still falls short
We are looking to a future of improved platform access in which the interface moves beyond an Internet-connected Web browser and also scales across the HAN device platforms. For example, it would be excellent if the product experience could scale to include TV and cell phone-based control and notification interfaces. We would also like to see a broader range of HAN-capable (and ideally commercial) devices and appliances integrated with the platform.
In addition, as is often the case with many of our reviews, security needs to be addressed at a higher level than is presently implemented.
SGN’s Smart Grid Checklist:
Greenbox claims that they can help take 20% out of the typical user's energy budget. Looking at the interface, we believe we have enough information to get started finding out. In general, Greenbox Technology embodies key elements of the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture we believe are key to implementing the Smart Grid through well-integrated applications.
Greenbox Technology' Smart Grid Checklist scores — total score of 85 (out of 100)
Overall, we think this product is revolutionary in its ability to give residential customers the information and understanding needed to remediate costly or environmentally unfriendly consumption behaviors. As the residential customer information economy emerges, expect to see more utilities testing demand response and demand management programs with Greenbox supplying a coherent user experience.
Research and principal writing credit: Bradley A. Singletary.
Brad is a Utility Communications Security Architect on the Smart Grid Engineering team at EnerNex Corporation. Brad consults through EnerNex on home area network technology, standards, and security architecture for utility Smart Grid programs.
EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture Web site
Greenbox Technology Inc. Web site
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