The argument is over. People have claimed that the home is a market where time of day pricing and user control will not work. That claim is false. Dave Chassin has proved it. It is time to let the state utilities commissioners know and begin planning new business models.
People in the home won’t pay attention. They need the big utility to help and control them or we will never save power in the homes. They must be subjected to programs with ugly names such as “Load Curtailment” and “Demand Control”. The Big U will turn off your water heater when it needs to. It’s for the best.
Dave Chassin is a staff scientist in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Energy Science and Technology Division. He has more than 20 years of experience in computer applications for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Dave’s work centers on non-linear system dynamics and high-performance simulation and modeling. Recently he has focused on the emergent econo-physical behavior of large scale engineered infrastructure systems. At Connectivity Week, Dave delivered a preliminary reported on the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Testbed project.
The results were unambiguous. The project let homes set on a daily basis a balance between comfort and economy. During times of high demand, this would result in higher prices for each aliquot of comfort. I won’t go into the details, because I would get them wrong. Dave was cautious about what it meant because he is an engineer and a scientist and will not speak beyond what he knows from the numbers. But the graphs and curves were clear. In aggregate and in detail, they showed that the home user could and would choose energy strategies that result in improved power distribution dynamics as well as reduced energy use.
Dave will study the details for a while. But anyone who saw, knows. We know that the home can be managed the user better than it can be controlled by the utility. Better for the Economy, better for distribution dynamics.
So, what business model will you develop today?