“Smart Operation of Smart Grid”
April 23 – Packard 101 – 4:05pm
Felix Wu
Emeritus Professor, University of California at Berkeley
Professor, University of Hong Kong

“Smart Grid – Analytics and Information Integration”
April 27 – Packard 202 – 4:05pm
Edwin Liu
Vice President of Smart Grid, Quanta Technology

“California Smart Grid Study”
May 6 – Packard 101 – 4:05pm
Angela Chuang
Senior Project Manager, EPRI

“Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM)”
May 15 – Packard 202 – 4:05pm
Mesut Baran
Professor, North Carolina State University

The kit includes a “smart” thermostat that automatically optimizes heating and cooling, remote-controlled light switches that install into sockets rather than walls, and power strips that turn off standby power to unused devices. All of the kit’s elements can be controlled from a Web site or mobile phone. Econetix also plans to gather and correlate user data and encourage energy-saving competitions among users, probably via social networking sites such as Facebook.

via Startup showdown – Energy efficiency by remote control (11) – Small Business.

We tried to answer this question when we developed the SmartSwitch, a dimmer switch equipped with a network connection and a miniature brake pad. The switch provides tactile feedback about the amount of energy being used either within your household or by the electrical grid as a whole. Our goal with this device is to help you make smarter decisions about energy use at the very moment that you’re pulling electricity from the grid.

One technology that is making us “smarter” about home energy use is the energy monitoring system, which typically provides usage totals and averages on a computer screen. While monitoring systems are good at generating awareness, they rely heavily on you to check your usage information on a regular basis, remember this data, and make more efficient decisions the next time you use an electrical appliance or turn on a light. By using SmartSwitches along with your home monitoring system, you receive feedback at the time and point of use – changing behavior in the moment, rather than after the fact.

It’s important to note that the SmartSwitch doesn’t restrict you from turning on a light. Rather, mindless habits like flipping on a light when it’s not really needed are slightly disrupted — hence why we consider it to be a “nudge”. It helps you to make an informed decision, while not telling you what to do. We also believe that the key to stimulating behavior change is to change the context in which a person looks at energy. The SmartSwitch does this by connecting together multiple users – across a building, a neighborhood, or even a town or a state. By changing the notion of electrical power from private ownership to shared responsibility, you feel part of a larger cause.

It is our hope that by building greater awareness around energy consumption, people will make smarter decisions around their energy usage. The smarter the users, the smarter the grid.

(The SmartSwitch was recently named a semi-finalist in the 2009 Core77 Greener Gadgets competition. For more information, as well as images, please see our entry at http://www.core77.com/greenergadgets/ientry.php?projectid=61 )

Many, if not most of the technological systems we use and in which we participate, are created specifically to perform boring, highly regulated, and mundane tasks. But there are exceptions, especially in contexts where we are completely ambivalent to the system around us. Cedric Price’s Generator , a proposed building composed of a series of 150 12′ x 12′ cubes, movable by a crane operator, is one such example. Price’s Generator was characterized by an ever-changing program, defined by the behaviors of users of the space and feedback collected by sensors within the space. Through this ongoing conversation between system and participants, a building, typically solid and unchangeable, is transformed into a highly dynamic system. Boredom presents itself a leverage point within the system.