Not all energy efficiency must be driven by high-tech energy usage controls and wireless networks.
Take Positive Energy, the company that renamed itself OPower on Thursday. It makes software tools to track utility customers' energy use, and says that can help them shave about 3.5 percent off their power usage, through providing both online and paper energy reports.
That's on the low end of energy savings being claimed by makers of home energy monitoring and control systems that hook up to smart meters or major energy loads in the home.
But it's also a lot cheaper than installing such systems in millions of homes - and cost could be a major barrier to adoption of those more complicated systems (see Utilities Mull Price Points, Policies for Home Energy Management).
OPower now has more than 20 utility customers, most recently adding Dominion, Xcel Energy, Seattle City Light and Commonwealth Edison to the list. It says it can deliver its reports for about $10 per customer, much less than the $100 and up that most home energy management platforms require (see $48: A Threshold Price for In-Home Energy Management?).
Of course, deep-pocketed home energy platform entrants Google and Microsoft intend to deliver their systems free of charge to homeowners, which could put increased pressure on home energy management startups to cut costs (see stories here and here).
Another example of low-tech energy savers comes from Belkin, which this week announced a new power strip with a timer that shuts off power to plugs for non-essential items.
That's "really the minimally invasive approach" to office energy savings, said Cliff Unger, senior product manager with Belkin. The new power strip is $35, only about $7 more than a non-timer strip, and those power strips get replaced about every five years or so in most offices, he said.
That might not provide the same energy savings as those promised by more complex office IT energy control systems like Cisco's EnergyWise platform, which offers such nifty functionalities as turning off cubicle power when an employee waves his or her security badge as they exit the building (see Cisco Rolls Out Building Management 'Mediator').
But the Belkin timer strip does engage employees, since they can press a button to enable or disable the timer, Unger noted.
"At least once per day, we're forcing that employee or end user to think about power conservation," he said.
And by shutting off devices that would otherwise consume standby power through the night, it can cut electricity bills by about $1,000 a year in a 100-person office, or $18,000 or so for a 2,000-employee office, he said – not too shabby for a $7-per-desk premium over the standard item.
