This post is a follow up to my previous exploration of smart meter apps. I hope to keep having to add to this story, as new, better, and adapted apps come along to help every home owner reduce their energy bill, and the environmental impact of generating this energy.
Specifically, I want to add my 2 cents to Tyler Hamilton’s, concerning an Ontario startup called Energy Mobile Studios, and some thoughts that his post led me to. His blog goes through the founder’s vision, whats next for the company, and is generally an expose about a home grown innovator. They currently have two apps, Powercents and Gridwatch. Powercents is a great guide to time-of-use rates, with similar tips to both Lowfoot and Quinzee. As an added benefit, it quantifies what you can save by switching specific loads to different rate periods. Its a pretty slick tool for those just learning about TOU and how to do something about energy use.
Gridwatch is also an educational tool, taking IESO public data and crunching it into easily understood graphics about where Ontario’s power is coming from. Take this snapshot taken as Im writing this (9pm, September 5):
iPhone Screen Capture
As a graphical tool it allows you to really appreciate what is keeping your lights on (or, ahem, your laptop typing). You can even shut off specific sources to see what effect that has on CO2 emissions.
Both of these tools are passive though. They are not connected to an actual meter, nor are they able to perform any action. I think I have been spoiled by the automation system that I use at work on a daily basis. I want to be able to do something with this data. In the app.
There is a real market opportunity here for someone with the skill and some time. Combine the following:
- The reporting functions of a smart meter and web apps like Lowfoot and Quinzee
- Real time, in home data display for users to get instantaneous feedback on their energy use (not next day, not four weeks later). I mean being able to see when you shut off a light, or when the refrigerator cycles
- The ability to take action (with a web connected thermostat, or peaksaver-like load shedding)
- Mobile access to #1 through 3.
Easy to say from the comfort of my chair! I hope to see these apps move in this direction, and I’ll be one of the first to put up my hand to demonstrate the solution. I am starting down this path, but the solution is a patchwork: a web app for reporting smart meter data, an energy meter from Toronto Hydro’s Peaksaver promotion, a web-connected thermostat, and individual portals for each.
For now, check out Gridwatch and Powercents in the app store (and again, both are free – anyone seeing a trend here?)
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