The Smart Grid Brings Smart Tips for Energy Use

Knowledge is power? Not according to Google and Microsoft. These firms and many others have recently rolled out energy efficiency tools designed for consumers to use on the emerging smart grid. The hope is that knowledge will bring less power, fewer blackouts and reduced carbon emissions.

Investors are beginning to sit up and take notice of smart grid technologies, especially since the Obama Administration’s stimulus plan directed over $4 billion to the young industry. There’s been much talk about how a smart grid can reshape the utility industry, but smart grid technology also will bring about changes for you and me. This spring Google offered a glimpse with the introduction of PowerMeter, a web-based widget that displays and tracks information on home electricity use in near real-time. Turn on your heater and watch your energy use spike. Put on a sweater instead, flip the heater off and feel gratified watching your energy bill fall. Similar technologies are being developed by large players such as Microsoft and start-ups such as Tendril. Some companies are focusing on bringing this technology to smart phones, such as Trilliant’s Energy Valet, being developed for the iPhone.

Accessible to about one percent of U.S. households, Google’s PowerMeter isn’t yet ready for primetime. Fortunately, there are other tools already available for the rest of us. In July Microsoft released  Hohm, an application that offers customized tips for saving energy. I tested Hohm with my mother and she was relatively pleased. After surviving a fairly tedious survey that takes an hour to fully complete, she was given a personal energy profile including a dozen energy saving tips prioritized by costs and savings. Some suggestions were too generic, but others were very helpful. She got detailed advice on a water heater upgrade she’d been thinking about, plus a few simple fixes that can save her hundreds of dollars a year and reduce her carbon footprint by thousands of pounds.

While Microsoft’s Hohm offers good suggestions for one-time home improvements, Black & Decker’s Power Monitor is better suited to change everyday habits like forgetting to turn off the lights. The Power Monitor is a handheld display that wirelessly connects to a sensor attached to a regular meter.  The portable Power Monitor then displays the cost (per hour or month) of current energy use. You can also isolate the cost of running individual appliances like a TV or toaster. The Power Monitor reminds me of the Toyota Prius and its dashboard display of its engine and fuel mileage. Just by monitoring this display, many Prius drivers learn to drive differently and conserve fuel. For some, it has become a game of sorts.

It’s nice to see tools like PowerMeter, Hohm, and Power Monitor making it easier than ever to conserve electricity at home. While the rocky economy has delayed many wind and solar projects the advantages of energy efficiency remain strikingly clear – using less is cheaper and cleaner than using more.

Climate Change Shareholder Resolution Wins Majority at Idacorp

In a precedent setting victory, a shareholder resolution filed by Trillium Asset Management Corporation (“Trillium”), As You Sow, and Calvert that asked Idaho Power to establish greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets received 52% of the vote.  This is the first time a climate change resolution has received a majority vote — the first majority vote recorded for a climate change shareholder proposal.  In response to the vote, Idaho Power CEO LaMont Keen said that the company took this message seriously, and would work to meet the resolution’s request for a report by September 30th. 

The resolution received the endorsement of the Idaho Statesman.  Newspaper endorsements of shareholder resolutions are quite rare.

Read the full press release here.  

Read an Idaho Statesman op-ed about the resolution by Trillium Assistant Portfolio Manager Lauren McLean here.

PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio (PBD)

The PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio (PBD – AMEX) is a global clean energy exchange traded fund (ETF) that was launched in June. It is significantly more diversified than the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio (PBW), which was launched in early 2005. That makes it the best single security for investors to gain exposure to the booming market for clean energy. The underlying index (the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index – NEX) contains 87 stocks versus 43 in PBW. Because it is able to own shares of foreign companies that don’t trade on U.S. exchanges, PBD offers a much more comprehensive picture of the clean energy marketplace. Germany and Japan have been major players in clean energy development, with Spain rapidly joining the top ranks.

PBD includes companies focused on the generation and use of cleaner energy, conservation, and efficiency. WilderHill divides the sector into the following categories: demand side energy savings (8 percent of sales), generation efficiency and smart distribution (6 percent), hydrogen and fuel cells (4 percent), power storage (2 percent), solar (23 percent), wind (27 percent), biofuels, biomass and waste-to-energy (12 percent), renewables-other (11 percent), and services and suppliers (7 percent).

Keep in mind that the clean energy space remains volatile, responding to overall energy prices, public policy, and the movement of global equity markets. So PBD is likely to see its share of sharp ups and downs.

www.powershares.com