Bidgely, a Khosla Ventures-funded smart grid energy analytics company, has announced a collaborative partnership with Emerson Climate Technologies, a business segment of Emerson, to offer utilities a single-platform demand management solution.
By combining Bidgely's patent-pending, real-time Appliance Tracing technology with Emerson's Smart Energy Thermostat, utilities can integrate energy efficiency and demand response benefits on one platform, thus increasing consumer adoption and sustenance of peak demand reduction programs, according to the companies.
The thermostat provides temperature control accuracy of +/- one degree, ensuring both customer comfort and more predictable demand response results. Bidgely’s cloud-based energy management platform also itemizes smart meter data down to appliance level. The companies say that these insights will enable utilities to precisely target their residential consumers based on their load types and engage them for higher impact with specific and actionable insights, recommendations and savings on their energy bills.
“The utility-run consumer programs face two big challenges today. First, the programs do not effectively target consumers who will yield the best outcomes (energy savings or peak demand reduction). Second, the consumers do not get much out of these programs other than one-time incentives,” says Prateek Chakravarty, vice president of business development and marketing at Bidgely. “We are helping utilities overcome these challenges by creating an ecosystem of leading technology vendors. Utilities get their energy and peak reduction, while consumers get an eco-lifestyle product and stay engaged on an ongoing basis.”
