OPower Making Millions in Home Energy Efficiency

I saw these guys mentioned on CNN yesterday afternoon by one of the founders of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab (http://captology.stanford.edu/).

This is a great example of using data to create value through good analysis and presentation. That is what the “smart grid” needs to get off the ground. I wrote about that yesterday on my blog: http://jeffersongoethals.blogspot.com/2010/08/data-data-everywhere-but-not-drop-to.html

This sounds good and I’m glad they’re succeeding, but this doesn’t seem like detailed enough actionable information. I have a wireless display that is linked to my breaker panel and I can see instantly how much electricity I’m using. If I see a lot of power being used, I can pretty easily figure out what’s going on and make an adjustment if possible. This is instant gratification and for families with kids it’s a great way to make them conscious of leaving lights on, etc. To get my son motivated, I offered him $5 for every month the utility bill was lower on a year-to-year basis.

pl. send more details on this. we are Indian based energy sector company.how this can be applicable to us? If we would like to do consultancy work in India in this regard, will you help/guide me? I would like to work on behalf of your company with your technical support/guidance. pl..guide how we should proceed.

I think you’ve hit on a great insight that many rushing to throw money and developers at the problem have overlooked. Conservation (of energy or any other resource) has always been difficult to promote when not using the stick.

The question is - Can they make it stick?

CEC has done a great job over the years mostly with a “stick” (regulations/codes). But when it requires self-motivated behavior change, it is much harder. Environmental and social researchers have studied this for decades before the OPower founders. What these guys have done is (re)identified that self-generated peer pressure/social perception is a great initial motivator.  It is no surprise to those with experience in advertising or psychology of environmental strewardship that clear and timely messaging in right format will direct behavior. OPower has been able to effectivelytranslate their studies into algorithms and more importantly they’ve done it without huge capex to install new controllers in homes and distribution systems.

The challenge is will this conditioned change become a habit or a fad after a couple of years.  Over time, the messages they deliver through different media (email, smartphone, etc) could just become noise to their audience. If conservation doesn’t become a habit, like my grandparents who continued to save every old scrap and end piece because it became part of their psyche in the Great Depression. Effectiveness will dwindle and OPower will need to come up with a new trick. Or, pricing schemes and levels will finally be enough motivation.

BTW, price schemes and increases will be ineffective until the economic and political climate change to allow severe cost increases when an individual exceeds a publicly-determine threshold.  Take gas prices as a proxy, we didn’t see a broad shift in consumption until unit prices jumped 50-90% depending on your location.  They outcry on that led to Congressional hearings and AG investigations.  Unless price sensitivies are higher for electricity, utilties will struggle to use that as a tool.

OPower is making it easier and more appealing for consumers and thus more compelling for utilities to engage. More power to OPower!

A solar cell converts 12 000J of solar energy into 4 800 J of electrical energy. Then a fan converts the electrical energy energy into 12 000 J of wind energy. What is the total efficiency of the system? Show your work
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(Blatant self-promotion warning!) There is a somewhat similar analysis targeted to commercial/industrial end users—http://www.energyai.com. Like OPower, it uses meter interval data to create a profile of use patterns and looks for actionable info in these patterns. But EnergyAI looks at the long term (annual).

You would know by which one gives off more smoke. The one with more smoke is inefficient. Efficient burners would convert the fuel mostly to light and heat energy rather than smoke. I don’t know about the speed of the reaction though…
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OPOWER is an energy efficiency and Smart Grid software company that helps utilities meet their efficiency goals throughsuper cleanse effective customer engagement and this is very promising.