Creating a smart consumer

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This famous quote by Arthur C. Clarke is an appropriate description of the upcoming energy market. A world where smart grids, smart appliances operate seamlessly and with maximum efficiency sounds very much like magic. But the key to unlocking the future “magic” world lies within our reach, and the key is by enabling and creating the smart consumer.

The "smart consumer" is an energy user, who has information at their disposal to make informed decisions about current and future energy needs.  The smart consumer knows, before turning on the light switch, refrigerator, or assembly line, the "cost of use" for the power needed to operate their life or business.  Based on historical use, projected needs, and external factors, the smart consumer knows what their requirements will be going forward.  This provides leverage in purchasing a supply of future power to meet current needs and controlling future costs.  To a business owner, the cost of energy becomes another data point in their growing business intelligence portfolio.

Creating a smart consumer requires three key components: desire, knowledge, and tools.  Each of these components represents a separate list of achievable goals, but will be most successful when approached in an integrated fashion.

Desire

The desire to save power is growing among energy users worldwide.  Whether spurred by recent spikes in energy costs or a desire to be more "green"- the goal is the same - to use less power.  Both the product manufacturing and energy industries are harnessing the opportunity of the new "energy saving consumer" in developing more efficient products and providing the purchaser more information on smart energy choices.  Appliance makers are promising consumers the "smart appliances" with built-in "load shedding" features to manage peak and off-peak use.

Simultaneous with the desire to use less power is the increasing desire to use more devices that demand power.  Established nations have more devices to power than ever before.  Thus, desire alone is not sufficient to create a "smart consumer" and balance the competing interests of using less to accomplish more.

Knowledge

Once an energy user desires to save power, they quickly realise a missing ingredient is knowledge.  "How much power does this new appliance use?" "How much does the power cost?"  "What time of day will it use power "How much power do I use currently?"  "What does my power load profile look like; can I benefit from time of use rates?"  Once the smart grid, smart meters, and smart appliances are all turned on and functioning, the energy user will be overloaded with data, but will not necessarily have more knowledge.  It is important energy users are able to take all of the information being provided and use it to achieve power saving goals.

Knowledge about power will come from two key sources - smart data and energy experts.  The smart data represents the information from the smart grid, smart meters, appliances, utilities, and other providers.  It tells the consumer how much power is used by time of day, how much is used by appliance or load center, and the current and projected cost.  Added to this are projections on external data - weather, energy pricing, and the user's own internal data.  A business needs to be able to understand how its own projections of the supply and demand of its products intersect with the supply and demand of the costs that go into operating their business.

The second source, energy experts, who bring knowledge about energy best practices and cover the full range of the market - from how to buy power to how and why to use more efficient devices.  For all building and uses  - energy management is a key component to creating the smart consumer enabling energy users to focus on their interests and core business, knowing their energy costs are controlled.

Tools

When complexity is added to a system, it is critical end users have the best available tools to manage that complexity.  The volume of data that the smart grid will produce will be enormous compared to traditional energy grids.

When businesses began data warehousing projects - pulling customer demographics, production costs, sales, forecasting into massive databases, a number of business intelligence tools were created to help businesses manage that data.  These allowed businesses to understand and compare previously disconnected reports and trends, create new levels of analysis to drive their decisions.  These tools quickly took volumes of complex data and simplified reports and trend analysis.

This same approach must be taken with the energy knowledge.  Tools that combine best practices and data provided by infrastructure elevate the energy consumer to a new level - that of the "smart consumer."  A sophisticated energy management tool take the results of an energy audit and integrate consumption and pricing data with the smart meter and appliances.  The result is a tool that provides insight and analysis of energy consumption - past, present, and future - but more significantly, a framework for creating actions that can control costs. 

Conclusion

The missing piece to the success of the "smart" initiative taking over the power industry is the "smart consumer."  If the industry is able to create this consumer, then the goals of providing more power to more people without significantly increasing the cost to serve can be achieved.   Smart consumers can be created, by harnessing the current consumer desire to control costs, go "green," and providing knowledge and tools that realise their desire. 

By creating smart consumers today, they will be ready for the improvements in smart grid technology, and more willing to purchase the smart appliances that become available.  Smart consumers are more able to make intelligent choices about energy pricing products, and are more willing to try new ideas, such as prepaid electricity or power storage options.  Smart consumers benefit everyone - the energy industry by being better users and the world by saving power while achieving more with the power they have.  In the end, what they will accomplish would almost seem like magic.