Masdar City and GE Consumer & Industrial (NYSE: GE) announced Monday a pilot program that will investigate the reduction of peak power demand through the use of smart home appliances. Involving some of the first residents of Masdar City–whose goal it is to become the world’s first carbon neutral, zero waste city being built in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi–the program will test how GE smart (or demand response enabled) appliances and Home Energy Manager (HEM) can lower power demand in the home and across the city.
GE said it specifically designed and manufactured the appliances and networks for this pilot. The equipment will be installed in early 2010 in the first building to be completed at Masdar City, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.
“The GE smart appliances used in the pilot will be the first in the world to provide two-way communication and built-in advanced energy management functionality that will reduce power demand in response to notification of changing utility prices and energy demand, while also measuring and transmitting real-time power consumption data,” explained GE Consumer & Industrial President and CEO James Campbell.
Ten of the Masdar Institute’s 100 residences will participate in the two-year pilot project. The information developed from the program will not only provide important early feedback in testing consumers’ energy-consumption behavior in the face of Demand-Response technology, but it also will assist Masdar City in planning and designing its smart power grid.
The pilot residences in the Masdar Institute building will be
equipped with a Home Energy Manager and European-style and size demand
response-enabled refrigerators, cooktops and combination clothes
washers/dryers that work on 220volt/50HZ platforms. During the pilot,
the HEM and appliances will receive signals from the grid, which will
simulate peak energy usage periods. In response, the HEM and smart
appliances will customize the appliances’ responses to save energy,
reducing energy demand on the grid.
For example, the HEM and
refrigerator will receive a signal that electricity prices are going
up. When the refrigerator gets that signal, it can delay the defrost
cycle and raise the temperature inside the refrigerator by a couple of
degrees, thereby saving energy and money. When the refrigerator
receives a signal that electricity prices have gone down, it will
defrost the refrigerator and return the internal temperature to the
original setting. The entire process does not require any involvement
of the person living in the pilot residence, unless they choose to
override the demand response function.
GE’s Energy Home Manager is the central nervous system to the home that
will enable consumers not only to monitor their energy usage and
generation but also manage their energy use in the most cost effective
manner. The energy manager can help the consumer determine when they
should use energy from the grid, use stored energy, or self generated
energy or other sources.
The Masdar City pilot project comes as part of the broader relationship between GE and the Mubudala Development Company, of which Masdar is a wholly owned subsidiary, which extends to a broad range of initiatives in the fields of aviation, commercial finance, industry and corporate learning.
Masdar City, whose first phase of construction is set to finish by 2013, has already attracted a number of leading international entities. In addition to GE–an anchor partner that will build in the city its first ecomagination Center focused on sustainable business solutions–the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) announced in June that it would locate its new global headquarters in Masdar City. As well, the Masdar Institute is cooperating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to offer courses focused on education and research in advanced energy solutions and sustainable technologies.
Last week, Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) said it plans to produce one million "smart" clothes dryers by the end of 2011.
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