Is your refrigerator running? And talking?

Last week, a Boulder-based smart-grid startup called Tendril unveiled a deal with General Electric to collaborate on software to connect GE's “smart appliances” to the grid.

But why?

Given that about half of a typical home’s electricity consumption goes to power appliances, lighting, and water heating, these demand-response appliances would not only shrink your personal carbon footprint, but would also allow utilities to avoid building new power plants to meet peak demand or firing up dirty ones to avoid brownouts.

For most utilities, electricity demand peaks from 3-8 pm when people come home from work, cook dinner, wash clothes, run the dishwasher, charge up their cellphones, and flick on their big-screen TVs.

During the summer they crank up their air conditioners, which is why utilities like California’s PG&E have spent billions of dollars building natural gas “peaker” power plants that sit idle most of the time except when a heat wave hits. Or in the case of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, coal-burning power plants in Arizona and Utah provide them with peak power.

Of course, most consumers could care less because they pay the same flat electricity rate regardless of what it costs the utility to meet peak demand. Well, not for long. Smart electricity meters and the interactive power grid will allow utilities to impose variable or time-of-day pricing, which means it’s going to get pricey to run the washing machine in the evening when you realize you have no clean clothes for work the next day (so pull those clothes back out of the hamper).

How does this shit work?

How will these "smart appliances" help fix this electricity peak problem? I mean, sure it's smart, but is it a good conversationalist?

In fact, it is. If you turn on your oven to cook a meal when electricity rates are high, your stove will tell your refrigerator to delay defrosting or to adjust its temperature until after you've cooked your meal. Likewise, the washing machine will send a signal wirelessly or through the home’s power lines to the dishwasher to switch on after the clothes are cleaned. How freaking sweet is that.


When consumers buy a new fridge they’ll go online and register their new appliance with the grid. Then the appliance will start to receive pricing information and download algorithms to modify its behavior.

If you sign up for your utility’s demand-response program, the utility’s computers will adjust the energy consumption of your appliances and those in thousands of other homes—without affecting your lifestyle—to ensure peak demand is met.

Or you can set up your own rules for your machines like specifying a monthly electricity budget and instructing your appliances not to break the bank. Tendril is even developing an application that lets customers control their appliances from their iPhone.

Smart appliances will come with higher price tags, given the added electronics, but inevitable higher electricity rates will (hopefully) prompt people to replace their old machines when they realize the potential for savings and return on investment.

Like, for instance, this one, which is presented in this ravishing, high-budget GE video:



As we all know, U.Sians aren't great with recognizing long-term savings, but hopefully people aren't as dumb as their old machines and will recognize a smart investment when they see one.

Source: Smart appliances