HEMS from consumer brands

 May 24, 2011, Connectivity Week, Santa Clara, CA—a panel of representatives from known brands looked at the issues facing Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS). What is the interest in energy management from both a monitoring and control viewpoint, and can the existing home network be leveraged?

Glen Stone from CEA moderated the panel. Panel members included Mark Trayer from Samsung, Dean Samara-Rubio from Intel, Kimberly Kupiecki from Edelman, Bill Carney from Sony, and Elizabeth Kurfess from GE Consumer and Industrial.

Audio and video are already going into home networks, can we bring in HEMS and integrate them into the existing network? Do we focus on control or monitoring? Will the systems interoperate?

Trayer talked about the converged home, but the gateway enabled smart home is over 10 years away. Functions will include monitoring, control, and personalization, and not all functions need a dedicated screen because there are already plenty of screens available. Functions that will be implemented include remote control, direct control applications, and monitoring and control.

A gateway will provide services and connectivity to the broadband network. Networking appliances will enable functions like remote maintenance and bidirectional communications can provide energy profile for tracking performance changes over time. Information exists and can be used very easily to improve user satisfaction.

The architecture for the home based energy management system will provide connectivity through any access point. Manufacturers, service providers, and home automation control companies could add functions and capabilities for various types of services. Incorporating connectivity and intelligence in appliances will help the overall integration and enhanced convergence with other consumer electronics devices.

The configuration for typical home installation would reside on one of the three types of screens available for in-home displays — phones, tablets or computers, and televisions. The user interface must be intuitive and simple and any details need to push through the user interface to the end function. Implementing HEMS requires a smart grid, smart metering networking, and remote control capabilities.

Samara-Rubio indicated a need to develop tools for providers to help consumers. The drivers for these developments include the energy industries views on managing and consumption, the concept that energy efficiency is equivalent to new resource for energy. Another goal is to make energy use personal.

As a result, Intel has developed a HEMS reference solution that includes hardware, operating system, middleware, peripherals, residential gateways, database, and links to analytics. This reference platform shows one way to blend energy, lifestyle, and home automation into a single working environment. To minimize energy use in the HEMS system, the RF link is based on Zigbee. This platform is one path to a total smart energy solution.

Energy is in everything, so specific applications require analytics, data modeling and protocols, to relate dollars per kilowatt per use function. Consumer engagement will require multiple protocols to support all possible implementations. The next steps are to evaluate various reference platforms. The key factor for successful deployment will be in very strong middleware to hold the whole system together.

Kupiecki, coming from a non-manufacturing perspective, claims that building trust and communicating value propositions for HEMS are critical. HEMS is an exciting technology that challenges companies to humanize their offerings. This is an emerging and crowded market in a very high hype cycle.

HEMS are suffering from a trust deficit as noted by a people’s distrust of smart readers and increasing concerns on security and privacy. Most users operate in a “set and forget” mode, and only a small number of people are using the available tools despite the investments from utilities to promote the use of the tools. In addition, there is a cost factor in adoption of these new technologies.

In an internal survey, they found that people need 3 to 5 exposures to information before they believe it. Technology represents the most trusted sector and experts are perceived to be the most credible. This is a big issue since trust protects reputations. A distrusted source is not believed by a 59 percent of listeners, whereas a trusted source is believed by 51 percent.

HEMS is in the early adopter stage and has a high trust deficit. To counter this inherent skepticism a company needs to use trustworthy experts to present their messages. Engagement is critical as the number of changes in media move towards social networking environments. We are in an era where we are changing shareholders into stakeholders throughout society.

Carney noted that the smart grid is a complicated fragmented market with many participants, evolving standards, and new and untried business models. Exacerbating the situation is the vague understanding of consumer value propositions and knowledge.

As a result, there is no single solution or brown second address all the issues in HEMS. In this environment, the killer app is a reduction in energy bills and not some vague desire to save the planet or implement cool technology. The components of HEMS include hardware, the software service platform, cloud applications and services, and smart devices.

One possible business model would be a network of partnerships that would include retail, professional services and installations, utility companies, and other service providers. The questions for all of these people are, “where is the money” and “who does a consumer call for help”. A successful solution will not be in the hardware, but through collaboration and partnerships across a wide spectrum of providers.

Kurfess showed a video (YouTube Martha’s Vineyard:GE nucleus) demonstrating HEMS controlling appliances, lighting, etc. Consumers don’t know or care about the specifics of energy costs. Unfortunately, energy is limited so utilities are looking towards load shifting as one way to extend their resources.

The problem is that smart grid investment implementation and adoption is very slow. Variable pricing may change the situation as the utilities start using the smart grid capabilities, but we need solutions that also work for consumers. With appropriate software, individual appliances can be monitored, leading to changes in use behavior. One example of these changes is smart thermostats which can be reprogrammed through computer applications for smart phones.

The utilities must face a number of even greater issues. There is a big push to increase renewable sources for power generation but as consumers install PC systems they force the consumer to choose between using and selling back the power. Electric vehicles represent a major new load on the system and may make some of the renewable power generation options untenable. Changes are coming to help the smart grid move into the smart connected home.