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June 26, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels June 1, 2004 Ashland to pilot 'smart home' power program By Steve Zimmerman Ashland Daily Tidings A joint partnership between the City of Ashland and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) could reduce the overall use of power in the city. The two-year pilot program, "Smart Home Technology," will be installed in 100 Ashland area homes. It will allow the local utility to use its existing fiber-optic broadband network to communicate with the home to monitor, and when appropriate, reduce the electric demand of selected appliances. Mike Weedall, vice president of energy efficiency for Bonneville Power, said this is an Ashland-specific program. "We are demonstrating a technology here that someday, I think, will be in everybody's home," he said. "Ashland is the place we are doing this because Ashland has the fiber-coax system that we can layer right on top of. So the economics makes a whole lot of sense." The other reason is Bonneville is looking at ways to offset peak electricity consumption and explore the possibility of deferring transmission construction in the future. Ashland Director of Electric and Communications Dick Wanderscheid said the city wants to reduce power consumption and find better ways to deliver power. "Mike was aware that we had a broadband two-way communications system here," he said. "We have been toying with ideas on how we can use this technology to move along the agenda of energy efficiency and load management. These ideas merged with his staff wanting to learn about managing load in the summer in a utility that utilized BPA." The energy management equipment will be attached to selected customers' water heaters and air conditioning systems. "It will give people the ability to see what is happening as far as the consumption going into their home," Weedall said. "It has the ability to take and control on a pre-set basis the heating, the air conditioning and the water heating systems that are consuming power." For example, somebody knows they are going to be away on a regular basis, they can program their computer and never have to worry about if they turned off their air conditioner, Weedal explained. "Or they can get in remotely if they are coming back early from a trip and turn on the air conditioner and have the home at a certain temperature," he added. The system can also be used to control an individual's home consumption of electricity. Start up The two-year program will begin in June. While the general assumption is that more power is used in the winter, that is not necessarily the case with the hot Southern Oregon summers. "Our load growth in Ashland is three times faster in the summer than it is in the winter," Wanderscheid noted. "But we still are a winter-peaking utility. The load management system we put in, while we are targeting finding out about summer capacity and savings for the region, can be used year-round. What we are hoping to learn in the pilot is if we should make this city-wide program other than the first 100 we are going to test." Anyone interested in signing up can do so beginning Wednesday by accessing the City's Web site, www.ashland.or.us or by calling the electric company at 552-2305. "We can only do 100 homes in this program," Wanderscheid said. "We are targeting homes that are single-family, owner-occupied and have a heat pump heating system and electric water heater." The program is voluntary and the first 100 people that meet the qualifications of the program will be chosen. Incentives are a new thermostat and a really effective Internet interface gateway that allows them to control their water heaters, heating and cooling system remotely. At the end of each year of the program, participants receive a $100 credit on their electric bill. Finding out about load management is a major part of the program for the city and Bonneville. "We know a lot about energy conservation in the winter," Wanderscheid said. "But as a region, we have never really worried that much about load management and summer issues. So we are hoping to learn about how we can manipulate load in the summer. We actually pay more per kilowatt hour that we buy from Bonneville in August than any other time of the year." "This is a very sophisticated, very powerful tool," Weedall explained. "In a previous job I had, we had a very simplistic radio control signal so we could turn people's air conditioners on and off. Here, we are using an Internet-based system where the communication is both ways and people can see what is happening and make the necessary adjustments. It gives much more power to the user." DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams