Costco Connection - August 2009

conditioning systems on and off at preset times and can reduce home heating costs by 20 percent, according to the Energy Conservancy. Look for the programmable thermostat to be increasingly integrated into affordable and easy-to-use wireless home automation network protocols.

Then there is the “smart” meter, which creates an interactive relationship between the home and the power grid. The most basic smart meters are already being rolled out by local electricity providers. These allow the utility to read the meters remotely, thus reducing fuel costs incurred by having to read each meter at the home and cutting the carbon footprint caused by auto exhaust emissions.

But smart meters can accomplish much more, by connecting wirelessly to home digital thermostats that can then be adjusted up and down remotely by the utility company itself. During extreme temperatures, when power consumption is at its peak and power costs increase, the utility would have the ability to change thermostat settings to reduce demand. This would be done with the consent of homeowners, whose incentive would be much lower electricity bills from reduced off-peak prices.

Eventually, all consumable utilities in homes will be able to be monitored by the homeowner and the utility, moving consumers toward home “dashboards” that will provide instant feedback to families about how they’re using energy, says Chris Dorsi, Costco member and co-author of The Homeowner’s Handbook to Energy Efficiency (Saturn Resource Management, 2008). “The utility bill we get now tells us how we used energy in the past, when it’s too late to do anything about it,” he explains. “Smart, interactive metering will provide real-time feedback that will help change our habits.”

Technology is often blamed for creating energy crises in the first place, but it can also offer powerful solutions. C

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