Home automation: What's in it for utilities

Technical Report · Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:7227157

Levy, R D ^[1]; Parks, T ^[2]

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1. Levy Associates, Sacramento, CA (USA)
2. Parks Associates, Dallas, TX (USA)

This report examines how home automation products might be used to facilitate and expand the load shaping and customer service capabilities of utility load management programs. It also addresses a range of programmatic issues that suggest home automation may be a viable substitute for conventional direct control programs. General functional capabilities, trends, and the strengths and weaknesses in current utility load management programs are discussed. Similar information is also presented for home automation products. Summary information on four categories of typical home automation equipment provides an overview of key product features and capabilities. Trends in the appliance and electronics industry indicate that home/building environmental systems will increasingly include microprocessor based logic functions as standard features. A comparison of functional capabilities concludes that present day utility direct control programs conflicts with resident logic/processor functions once these environmental systems are in place. In contrast, home automation systems are designed to work in concert with and complement resident logic/processor functions. This report also identifies increased activity by national and international companies to market home automation products and a variety of related energy management, information, and lifestyle enhancing services. All provide energy management applications to generate savings that cost justify customer purchase decisions. 17 FIGS., 10 TABS.

• Research Organization: Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (USA); Levy Associates, Sacramento, CA (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: EPRI
• OSTI ID: 7227157
• Report Number(s): EPRI-CU-6706
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
PLANNING
HOUSES
AUTOMATION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COST
DESIGN
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
FLEXIBILITY
IMPLEMENTATION
INTERFACES
INVESTMENT
LOAD MANAGEMENT
MARKETING
OPERATION
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
RESIDENTIAL SECTOR
BUILDINGS
MANAGEMENT
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
PUBLIC UTILITIES
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
TENSILE PROPERTIES
TESTING
296000* - Energy Planning & Policy- Electric Power
320105 - Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization- Building Services- (1987-)