Aztech’s portable In-Home Display wirelessly communicates with the smart electricity meter mounted on a home to help both consumers and their utility providers with conservation and demand management.
Homeowners can conveniently monitor their real-time energy consumption patterns and estimated costs in the comfort of their own home. This direct and immediate feedback is imperative to raising energy awareness, because it assists residential customers with their household decision making. They can choose when to run electricity-hungry appliances, or see the results of switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs and unplugging an old fridge. Pilot studies have consistently shown actual energy savings of about 7-20% compared with homeowners who do not have an In-Home Display. This is a significant conservation effect. Thus, encouraging people to change their behavior helps them to save money and protect the environment at the same time.
Electricity companies, meanwhile, can better monitor delivery and usage and, therefore, manage energy demands more effectively. This, in turn, enables them to reduce costs and position themselves as world-class public service providers with a higher degree of customer satisfaction.
Smart Grid
A modernized electric Smart Grid is crucial to the welfare of our country, and will have a substantial and immediate impact on the distribution of electricity. Efficient power systems with increased reliability will ensure electricity flows as it should. A Smart Grid would not only be self-aware, with the ability to adjust supply and demand, but self-healing, with the ability to correct problems as they arise.
Utilities gain flexibility in meeting their energy needs, and are able to reduce the frequency and duration of outages. Ultimately, they can shift power to areas where and when demand peaks and thus generate less power. This results in immense environmental benefits by reducing harmful energy-related CO2 emissions -- conservation commitments and targets are achieved that much sooner.
And, by using digital technologies and two-way communications, we can reap the benefits of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Smart Meters
Smart (digital) meters are rapidly replacing the familiar analog meters with mechanical gauges in most areas of North America. It is estimated that by 2012, half of the continent’s 200 million meters in use today will be replaced with a new smart electricity meter.
Utility companies benefit from smart meters by meter reader manpower savings, improved billing accuracy, and the ability to relate their cost of energy to the amount they charge through time-of-day rates.
Smart (digital) meters broadcast their information to the IHD via low power short range radio signals. The IHD can be placed anywhere in a home, and shows exactly what the outside meter is displaying, eliminating the inconvenience of going outside the house to read the utility company meter.
Time-of-Use Periods
Generating costs have always varied by the time energy is used and were traditionally averaged together into fixed rates. Cost varied because generating stations are only fired up as needed, and each generator has a different cost profile. But the costs between relatively low cost coal fired generating stations and higher cost natural gas or oil fired generators is now exaggerated by the increasing differences in fuel costs.
In addition, Ontario’s generating capacity has not kept up with its growth in population. So when the province must buy power from neighboring provinces it must do so in competition with U.S. states that are willing to pay high rates. The bottom line for Ontario consumers is that prices for electricity are likely to become ever more volatile in the future, and controlling the cost of the utility bill for budget-minded consumers will require managing family energy use much more carefully.
Thus, the problem becomes, “How can the consumer tell what the price is right now” when the price of electricity fluctuates throughout the day?
History of IHDs
In-Home Displays are a recent development. As a result of governmental decisions to introduce variable energy pricing as a means of encouraging conservation, all electricity consumers will eventually need one.
The earliest In-Home Displays provided day-after information on usage and, since they were not integrated with the utility company, could not provide dynamic pricing signals or personalized messaging. But with the introduction of Critical Peak Pricing, the In-Home Display must now be in constant contact with the utility, providing reliable transmissions with no interference and offering advanced two-way features that are capable of sending data back to the utility.
Many of today’s IHDs come with both a sensor and a transmitter that you must install yourself – this entails a complex process of connecting various wires to your electrical panel. Furthermore, you are also required to personally program the device with the rates set by your electricity supplier.
But Aztech’s portable In-Home Display communicates wirelessly with your home’s smart meter (without the need for sensors and transmitters), and is preprogrammed to track, analyze and calculate the data and time-of-use rates for display on the customer’s system. All you have to do is plug it in!
With the IHD market on the verge of exploding, Aztech believes it will be the product of choice by consumers and utility companies alike. As a major supplier of the In-Home Display to the growing Smart Meter market, Aztech has been piloting an expandable product line to include communication with gas and water meters.
The Home Area Network (HAN)
All of this will lead to in-home energy management systems.
For example, the In-Home Display may be asked to communicate with smart appliances and thermostats to trigger cost saving settings. The Aztech In-Home display can interact with existing or new appliances and thermostats from many manufactures using a new radio control protocol called ZigBee, which is rapidly becoming a part of the new Home Area Network or “HAN.” Thus, the Aztech IHD can act as a portal by which consumers can control other devices in their home. This introduces a level of sophistication and ease of use that is unmatched.
Aztech’s Light Bar
Time-of-use periods are identified by three colors that sweep across Aztech’s exclusive patent-pending arched light bar. As energy use within a specific period increases, so too does the speed of flashing light. This provides concerned homeowners with at-a-glance warnings.
Aztech’s Display Screen
These warnings are backed up by accurate and detailed information displayed in both text and graphic form in the IHD’s backlit LCD window.
And, with Aztech’s intuitive technology, utilities can also provide their users with text messaging. The Aztech In-Home Display has the ability to receive updates over-the-air directly from the utility, so warnings of such things as critical peaks or maintenance-related outages can be delivered. The Aztech In-Home Display is battery backed-up, and can even display the “last gasp” message when power delivery has been interrupted.
In some cases, the In-Home Display may ask a consumer to acknowledge they have read a message, or it may give the consumer the option to “opt out” of a program to offload an air conditioner, etc. In-Home Displays must now be able to do all this and more in the future.
CONCLUSION
Among industrialized and developing countries, Canada consumes per capita the most energy in the world, with the U.S. ranking second. Canadians want to learn how to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible by using energy wisely. Aztech's practical and attractive In-Home Display is targeted at those who want a basic, easy-to-use tool to accomplish this. Thus, the Aztech In-Home Display is the everyday workhorse that empowers customers to control costs and lower their bills.
Together, Aztech and North Americans can all look forward to a greener future with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved waste reduction, more sustainable land use, and better air and water quality.
