Previously, in part 1, Claudia Richter from OhmConnect explains how easy it is to get started with Demand Response. In part 2 of our interview, she now talks about the future of smart grids where residents get to “orchestrate” their energy use. In the future, people get to seamlessly be producers and consumers of electricity without even thinking too much about it, and as a whole, we waste so much less energy and make better use of our planet.

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TRAVIS:  How do you see energy savings in the next five years play out? What do you think is going to happen?

CLAUDIA:  Yeah, yeah, great question. I think it’s going to be the electrification of everything. This is super exciting. We want to shift our use from natural gas to electricity. For example, the water heaters. We want everything to be electric, and we want them to be efficient. There’s been so many improvements in efficiency when you think about appliances. Look at Energy Star appliances and how little electricity these appliances use.

CLAUDIA:  My total utility bill tends to be around $20 a month, including gas. I use very little. There’s very little for me to squeeze out on an ongoing basis. But part of what we need to do in those next steps is to make them smart as well. It could be the appliance, or it could be through connection with a smart plug. The next wave after electrification is being able to say, “Can I get my overall home usage down to zero when the grid is really, really stressed?  Can my dishwasher run in the middle of the day on its own so we don’t curtail solar?”

CLAUDIA:  I think that’s one of the big exciting things as it relates to energy savings and efficiency. The connected home and the home as a supplier of energy through a combination of solar and EV (electric vehicle) is truly exciting. I don’t even technically need solar on my roof if I have an EV that is being charged during the day, and the battery is fully loaded. Then, if I could discharge it and run my home off of my battery inside my EV in the evening, my energy use from the perspective of the utility company may drop down significantly. I could be providing it back to the grid because I don’t actually need that much.

CLAUDIA:  I see a future model where I can say, “Hey, I need my car to get me to and from work, but because during the day there’s this excess sunshine, I’m going to use the sunshine to load the battery in my car. Then, when I come home, and I can either use my battery or bring it back to the grid as a producer of electricity.” I think it’s this smart orchestration in tangent with everything has been built efficiently. This is the future.

CLAUDIA:  In San Francisco, we have these Ford GoBikes, which is one of the bike share models. This is the one that has docks associated with it.

TRAVIS:  Yes.

CLAUDIA:  I think that most of the providers in the space do this as well. You get credits if you move bikes. The system says, “Hey, this location needs to have three bikes removed while this other place needs extra bikes. If this is within your route, we’re actually going to pay you to move the bikes” Imagine a world where this orchestration is really dynamic. But, instead of for bikes, it’s for energy.

TRAVIS:  Yeah. That’d be something else.

CLAUDIA:  Full orchestration. The key is automation. The automation piece and the awareness of load is what’s going to be meaningful–to be able to do this at any time. The more energy use is automated, the more your home can offer up energy at any time. This is how much load I can reduce. Or this is how much I have stored. I’ve talked about peak demand because that’s the one that most people can wrap their heads around. There’s also this market called ancillary services, which is basically the system asking the following: “I need a deep reduction for 15 minutes.”

CLAUDIA:  It’s the steepness of the demand curve that becomes particularly problematic for the electric grid. There may be these windows of time that are quite brief but need really deep and quick reductions. The system may ask, “Hey, we need this for 15 minutes.” You can answer, “Yeah, I’m going to just power everything down for 15 minutes.” That’s no big deal. Anyone can handle 15 minutes, versus like a two hour outage. Respondents still can opt out at the time if there are special situations.

CLAUDIA:  I think ancillary services is going to be a really interesting opportunity for electric grid orchestration.

TRAVIS:  Well, Claudia, one last question, and then I’ll let you have your day back. At AskDrPower.com, we focus on energy savings and cutting bills. Do you have any personal
“life hack” for cutting electric bills that you’d like to share with us?

CLAUDIA:  Yeah, I have a couple of hacks. Honestly, one of my most consistent hacks is sweaters. Do you really have to heat up the house, or can you wear a sweater? I just love wearing big wool sweaters. It’s nice and cozy. Growing up, my mom said, “Put on a sweater if you’re too cold. Where is your sweater?” Or it would be like: “Go get some exercise.” That’s one of the things I think about, is how much do we really need to heat versus wearing warmer clothes or exercising.

CLAUDIA:  More seriously, in addition to having a lot of energy efficient appliances, I definitely focus on vampire load. Anything with a standby light in my home is on a smart plug (which completely turns a device off when not in use). One of the most cost effective hacks is something like Bluetooth-enabled electrical plugs where you actually have a remote control at the door. I started with that. The TV, the computers, all that stuff… I’m not home during the day, so there’s no reason for the to be using any energy while I’m not there.

CLAUDIA:  There are two methods to get rid of vampire load. One method is to shut things off when you leave the house. Turn them back on when you get home. The second method is to make these devices either automatically or can be conveniently turned off. Most devices can now be on TP link or smart plugs. Part of what I do with OhmConnect is that I set a general schedule when things are on and then they shut off automatically. A great side benefit that I like is that when I designate, “Hey, it turns off at 10,” it is also a good reminder to turn off the TV and head to bed anyways. Pretty much, there’s no reason to be using energy in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping or while you’re not home.

TRAVIS:  Folks, we heard earlier that Claudia has a $20 per month bill. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working really well.

CLAUDIA:  Yup!

TRAVIS:  Claudia, thank you for your time. Really appreciate your talking about Demand Response, your personal life hacks, and the future of energy orchestration.