EnergyHub

Houston Residents Can Stay Cool This Summer While Saving Money and Conserving Energy With New Home Energy Efficiency Program

2012-05-15T19:17:53Z

Houston, TX – May 15, 2012 – Last year’s record-setting heat and drought in the Houston area sent electric bills through the roof and utility experts are predicting more of the same this summer, which will continue to put a strain on the electric grid in Texas. Houston residents can now be among the first in the nation to sign-up for e5^SM, a new home energy efficiency program aimed at saving energy and money without giving up comfort.

The new program, developed by Earth Networks^SM, owner of WeatherBug^® and operator of the largest weather network, and EnergyHub, is designed to save residents money, help communities prevent power outages, and give Houstonians control of their thermostats and energy use from anywhere, anytime through the web and mobile devices. Participation is free, and Houston-area residents receive a discount on Wi-Fi thermostats compatible with the program. In addition, qualifying participants receive a Home Efficiency Score Card along with a $25 Home Depot Gift Card for doing their share to conserve energy.

Get Started Before Summer Heats Up: http://earthnetworks.com/e5houston.aspx

Weather is the single-largest factor when it comes to home energy use. The patent-pending e5 program uses real-time neighborhood-level weather conditions from Earth Networks – WeatherBug, combined with Internet-connected thermostats and award-winning software tools from EnergyHub, to help homeowners save on their electric bills while conserving energy during times of peak use.

Using this data, e5 determines how each home heats and cools in response to weather conditions and automatically pre-heats or pre-cools during non-peak hours to maximize energy efficiency while maintaining comfort within the home. For example, if the forecast shows temperatures rising at 1 pm during a summer heat wave, e5 may pre-cool the home earlier in the morning when energy demand is lower and less electricity is required to maintain a comfortable temperature throughout the day.

The e5 program, which stands for ease, energy, efficiency, environment and earth, is different from other energy saving programs because it:

Places homeowner comfort first. With e5, comfort is the number-one priority. The e5 program uses the consumer’s own temperature settings to cool or heat the home before the warmest or coolest part of the day. Even on the hottest days of the year, e5 keeps the home’s temperature within two to three degrees of the consumer’s settings.
Puts the homeowner in control. Choose and install your own program-compatible thermostat. Once installed, participants select their settings and temperature preferences through a user-friendly website. Homeowners can then change their settings from anywhere through the web or using mobile applications on iPhone and Android smartphones.
Taps into the world’s largest neighborhood-level weather network. Energy-saving adjustments are made based on neighborhood-level weather conditions and forecasts. This minimizes energy consumption and costs, while keeping a comfortable temperature within the home.
Provides a Home Efficiency Score Card. The e5 program uses advanced thermodynamic equations and associated variables to create a model that ranks the efficiency of your home and the impacts of temperature, wind and solar fluctuations. From these rankings, e5 creates a customized list of suggestions for improving energy efficiency and saving money.

The program is open to all Houston-area residents with single-family homes of any size, and many other types of homes such as townhouses and larger condominiums. The first 2,500 homeowners who qualify and enroll will receive a $25 Home Depot gift card along with their Home Efficiency Score Card in September. This Score Card will provide the homeowner with personalized home performance information and tips to achieve even greater efficiency.

“We are making this service available to all residents in our Greater Houston electric service territory to help them conserve energy, especially during the hot summer months,” says Jarrett Simon, Manager, Program Implementation, CenterPoint Energy. “We are partnering with Earth Networks and EnergyHub to provide the e5 program to help lower residential energy usage and curb peak demand in and around Houston.”

How to Get Started with the e5 Program:

Sign up for the program at http://earthnetworks.com/e5houston.aspx and receive a promo code to purchase a discounted Wi-Fi thermostat at the online e5 store. Or you can purchase an e5-compatible thermostat at Home Depot or HomeDepot.com.
If you already have an e5-compatible Wi-Fi thermostat that is installed and connected to the Internet, go to https://my.radiothermostat.com/filtrete/e5.html to upgrade your thermostat to e5 for free. To view e5- compatible thermostats, visit: http://earthnetworks.com/e5/E5FAQ.aspx#e5_compatible_thermostats.

Who can participate in the e5 Program: Houston-area residents with single-family homes of any size, and many other types of homes, such as townhouses and larger condominiums.

To learn more about e5: Learn more about the benefits of e5 and sign-up for the program by going to: http://earthnetworks.com/e5houston.aspx.

About Earth Networks^SM
As a provider of comprehensive atmospheric data for nearly 20 years, Earth Networks is “Taking the Pulse of the Planet” with the world’s largest weather observation, lightning detection, and greenhouse gas monitoring networks and is establishing a network for collecting data within the planetary boundary layer. The company’s popular WeatherBug website, desktop application and mobile apps for major smartphone platforms provide real-time neighborhood-level weather and advanced severe weather alerts to millions of consumers. Enterprise solutions from Earth Networks enable organizations and markets, including energy and utilities, agriculture, schools, sports and recreation, emergency operations and government entities, to safeguard lives, prepare for weather and climate events and improve business operations. Founded in 1993, Earth Networks (www.earthnetworks.com) is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with additional locations in Mountain View, Calif.; New York, NY; Milan, Italy and a local presence in 50 countries worldwide.

About EnergyHub
EnergyHub, Inc. develops software and hardware solutions that help consumers, utilities, and service providers reduce energy consumption and save money. EnergyHub solutions allow homeowners to understand and control energy use in real time and encourage people to take actionable steps to reduce consumption. Utilities also benefit from EnergyHub technology as it enables them to identify and manage peak loads, implement effective demand response programs, and improve operating efficiency. EnergyHub, based in Brooklyn, New York, is a privately held, venture-backed company and is deploying its energy management technologies with a variety of utilities across North America. For more information on how EnergyHub can help homeowners realize savings through energy efficiency visit the EnergyHub website and Mercury smart thermostat platform page.

How Much is 1° Worth?

2012-05-15T14:39:10Z

Spring has sprung throughout most of the country by now. As trees started to blossom and animals began to emerge from hibernation, our data analysis team here at EnergyHub headed back into their caves to dissect a winter’s worth of thermostat data.

We’re grateful to the DOE, EPA, and other government and industry organizations for making some valuable predictive models for heating and cooling. For example, the DOE’s Energy Savers website says that you can generally save 3% on your heating bill for each degree that you turn your thermostat down during the winter. With the billions of data points that our Mercury smart thermostat platform collects every month, EnergyHub’s in a unique position to see how well heuristics like that stack up to reality.

If you want to skip the rest of this post, here’s what you need to know: in some cases, you could save a lot MORE than 3% for each degree that you lower your heating setpoint.

Here’s how it works: we looked at all of the Mercury-connected thermostats deployed across the great state of Michigan from early February through early March. For each thermostat, we calculated the average scheduled setpoint for each day, along with the number of minutes that the HVAC system was actually heating the house that day (called “runtime”).

If you’re curious what “average scheduled setpoint” means, consider the default program schedule from the latest ENERGY STAR Program Requirements for Residential Climate Controls by the EPA:

Period	Time	Heating Setpoint
Morning	6:00 am	70 °F
Day	8:00 am	62 °F
Evening	6:00 pm	70 °F
Night	10:00 pm	62 °F

With this schedule, the home would have a setpoint of 70 degrees for 6 hours each day (6:00-8:00 am and 6:00-10:00 pm) and 62 degrees for the remaining 18 hours. If you do a little math, that works out to an average setpoint of 64 degrees over the course of the day.

For our Michigan thermostats, we compared the average scheduled setpoint to the heating runtime for each day, and we found that runtime increased a little more than 14 minutes per day for each degree increase in average setpoint – costing about $10 per month per degree.¹ Compared to Michiganders using the EPA default setpoint average of 64 degrees, this works out to be a 5.4% reduction in heating costs per degree decrease in the average setpoint.

In other words, our Mercury data shows that if you live in Michigan, you could have saved about $10 (more than 5%) off your monthly heating bill for each degree you turned your thermostat down. At $30 a month for a three-degree change, putting on a sweater starts to sound pretty appealing.

This analysis didn’t consider home size, furnace size or type, number of occupants in the home, and some other important factors, so your results may vary. Plus, not everyone lives in Michigan. Nevertheless, lower average setpoints are clearly better for most people.

Want to get aboard the savings train? Here are three ways to decrease your average setpoint and save some money on your heating bills next winter, no matter where you live:

Lower all of your setpoints a little – when you’re home, when you’re away, and when you’re sleeping. Feeling chilly? Grab a Slanket!
Increase the amount of time your thermostat is in its “away” state (the energy-saving temperature you use while you’re not home). You should definitely make this part of your programmed schedule, but you should also use this energy-saving temperature for weekend errands, vacations, and other less predictable times when nobody’s home. If you own a Mercury-compatible thermostat, it’s easy to Set Away for your entire house with a single tap/click on your mobile phone or web browser.
Be more aggressive about lowering the heating temperature when you’re away from home. Try a 10-degree set-back instead of 8 degrees.

Whatever method you choose, lower is better, especially if you live in The Wolverine State.

On March 14th, the total cooling minutes for Mercury-connected thermostats passed the total heating minutes for the first time in 2012, and that can only mean one thing: air conditioning season is ramping up. Look for some “cool” content to come in future blog posts.

What was your best way to save energy this past winter? What questions or predictions do you have for air conditioning season this year? We’d love to hear your tips, thoughts, and questions. Hit us up at ilovedata@energyhub.com.

_____________________________________________________________________________

1. Natural gas is the most prevalent residential heating fuel in Michigan. A standard gas boiler consumes around 175 BTU per hour, which is about 175 cubic feet per hour. At $0.793 per 100 cubic feet of natural gas (as of April 2012), 14.329 minutes per day is worth about 33 cents. So, that’s around $10 per month.

EnergyHub’s First Cleanweb Hackathon

2012-02-03T16:17:44Z

Last weekend, EnergyHub sent a team of crack developers (and me) to participate in New York city’s first Cleanweb Hackathon. The event, sponsored by NYSERDA and a host of private companies, aimed to promote innovation and cooperation in information technology with a focus on promoting energy efficiency and clean energy. There was a lot of focus on datasets: records of energy used by buildings, the solar potential of rooftops in the area, and even the schedules of the MTA’s trains and buses.

The idea behind the hackathon is that if you put enough software geniuses (you know, the ones who learned to program before they could walk) into a room full of data, Mountain Dew, and pizza and shut the door, when you come back the next day, you will find that their unintelligible piles of numbers have synthesized into compelling graphs, informative web sites, and even new business ideas.

Hubbers Mark Whitney and Brad Zawacki at the Cleanweb Hackathon last weekend in NYC.

Some of this may be true. But allow me a minute to explain what a hackathon really is. I think the image that pops into many people’s heads comes from The Social Network – a bunch of geeks clustered around a ring of computers in a dark room, writing programs to break into government computers, taking shots of whiskey and cheering. This hackathon was not quite as intense – there was little or no cybercrime – but it did last two, round-the-clock, days. There were an awful lot of laptops, plenty of pizza, and definitely a few geeks, but most of the attendees were surprisingly well adjusted socially, and most were equally likely to geek out about the latest government program for improving energy efficiency as they were to argue over the advantages of node.js, jRuby, cPython or asp.net. There were also a few good designers and business folk participating. They brought valuable perspectives and design capabilities into a world dominated by programmers who would be perfectly happy if Facebook had nothing but a text-mode command-line interface.

The instructions were pretty simple: the datasets were posted before the event, and people who had an idea of what to create stood up at the beginning and explained their idea. One person wanted to make a web site to help people find more efficient ways to commute – carpools, buses, or biking. Another wanted to use public data to show how the 1% had higher carbon footprints than the rest of us. Somebody else pitched a project that would quickly assess whether a building was a good candidate for energy efficiency improvements. Participants were invited to join whichever team looked most interesting. At the end of the hackathon, judges would choose their favorites and hand out prizes, including cash and a digital camera.

EnergyHub’s team came to the event with this perspective: we knew most of the teams would be exercising the datasets that had been posted, but we figured that the special sauce we could bring to the party was device control. EnergyHub’s “thing” is energy efficiency and demand response in the connected home – we make web and mobile software for smart thermostats and build a home energy management system that helps people get a handle on their energy use, all with powerful yet simple interfaces that a grandma could use.

For our hack, we mulled over a bunch of ideas and arrived at the one that we felt had the greatest potential to save energy and extract the most benefit from a smart thermostat. Effectively, the hack added location awareness to our Android phone thermostat control app. We set it up so that you (the user) can tell our servers where your home is, and when you go a specified distance away from that location, the app on your phone notifies our server. When the last smartphone that belongs to your account leaves that specified home area, the thermostat automatically switches into away mode, setting back the temperature (up or down, in summer and winter, respectively) and saving energy.

Automagic senses your location and puts your home
automatically into Away mode when you leave.

What’s particularly cool (pun intended) about this tool is that it enables a meaningful improvement in energy efficiency using the devices that a smart thermostat owner almost certainly already has and it does it without requiring the user to do or buy anything special. You could also do this with occupancy sensors, but those cost money and require installation and maintenance. All our solution needs is a smartphone, which a tech savvy user is practically guaranteed to have anyway, and a connected thermostat.

And the takeaway? Well, we didn’t win. That’s fine – we figured that the winner would be doing something with public datasets, which was basically true, but I think it is telling that the team that won the most accolades, Econofy, actually had to scrape much of the data from pdfs because they were not available in any computer-friendly format. But we were pretty happy to make a cool piece of software, and it was also great to meet the other participants and judges.

Among the judges were two government officials who have the power to make the public data better, more useful, and more available. They were Aneesh Chopra, the first CTO of the United States and Rachel Sterne, the first to hold the new Chief Digital Officer position for the City of New York (unfortunately for the tech community in America, Mr. Chopra resigned from his position a week later). It’s encouraging to see the government giving some much-needed attention to technology. And this brings me to what I hope will be the biggest net benefit coming out of this event. During the event, both Mr. Chopra and Ms. Sterne seemed to be most interested in the way that the public data failed the developers during the event.

One team from building efficiency auditors BrightPower found themselves unable to make use of the public power database because the building classification data did not give enough detail to assess whether a building was performing badly. Similarly, the Econofy team helped to highlight a shortcoming in the ENERGY STAR requirements: although appliance makers must submit information on the efficiency of the devices they produce, that information is not accessible via software.

Focus, focus, focus. Me (Dan Riegel) and Andy O’Neill, with our team’s 7 computers, making stuff work.

Making this data more accessible and comprehensive would be a simple change, but one that is essential for fostering technology innovation. Equipped with more usable data, clever hackers and designers could get down to crafting better consumer-focused tools. And these are the tools, inspired by events like this hackathon, that will help consumers see the tradeoffs they are making when they choose to buy, say, an energy-hogging plasma TV instead of an LCD TV.

Mr. Chopra made a brief speech at the end. He talked about the Green Button initiative, a recently released standard that allows people to download their energy use data from utilities in a consistent format. Standards like this should allow people around the country with different utilities and different meters to use the same software to understand and improve their energy efficiency. As more and more information gets staged online, we can expect to see a sharp uptick in web sites doing interesting things with the data, and the single biggest thing that the government can do to facilitate this is to remove roadblocks and friction. This way, a developer can save the time it might take to scrape data from an unfriendly web site, and instead jump straight to the interesting part: mashing up energy use, solar potential, appliances, location data, work schedule, etc., to advance the cleanweb revolution, bit by bit.

Posted by Dan Riegel, Software Director

Treehugger: Smart Software Adjusts Your Thermostat Based on Weather Forecasts

2012-01-27T19:47:47Z

Treehugger: Smart Software Adjusts Your Thermostat Based on Weather Forecasts

By Megan Treacy | January 26, 2012

Home energy management systems and smart thermostats feature a lot of programmable settings that allow users and their utilities to maximize energy savings. Usually these are based on a consumer’s schedule or times of peak energy demand for the utility; but what if a thermostat could pre-program itself based on weather forecasts to optimize both a consumer’s energy savings and grid performance?

EnergyHub and Earth Networks’ new demand response software called e5 will allow smart thermostats to do just that. Using Earth Networks’ system of 8,000 weather observation stations around the country (the same that power its WeatherBug apps), the e5 system will use live, neighborhood-level weather conditions and forecasts to anticipate major changes in weather and manage heating and cooling needs in advance, in the most energy-efficient way.

Heat wave coming? The program will start slowly cooling things down ahead of time. Blizzard approaching? It will crank up the heat, all while preventing crippling demand loads on the grid.

The software is launching with the 3M Filtrete Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat that home owners can buy at major home improvement stores. Consumers will also have to voluntarily sign up for a demand response program with their utility.

Users can enter their preferences (hot- or cool-natured?) and schedules, as well as change controls remotely through EnergyHub’s website or mobile apps. Earth Networks thinks its focus on user comfort will increase participation in the program.

To read the full article, head on over to Treehugger.

Gigaom: Tapping Weather Data for Better Demand Resonse

2012-01-26T19:39:43Z

Gigaom: Tapping Weather Data for Better Demand Response

By Katie Fehrenbacher | Jan. 24, 2012

Energy software company EnergyHub and weather and sensor network company Earth Networks have teamed up to offer a smart thermostat and demand response program for utilities and consumers. Called e5, the service will use weather data from Earth Networks’ thousands of nation wide weather stations (Earth Networks is the company behind the Weather Bug app) and will combine that data with Energy Hub’s smart thermostat management software. The combo is supposed to enable utilities to more effectively turn down home thermostats when necessary and will help consumers use their heating and cooling more efficiently, saving them money.

Demand response is when the customers of utilities agree to let their energy-consuming devices — like thermostats, pool pumps and smart appliances — to be turned down during peak events (like the hot summer months), in return for financial compensation or other benefits. Residential demand response projects aren’t all that common these days, but the numbers of customers enrolled in these programs are growing. Energy Hub says it already has 100,000 smart thermostats under management and the company plans to add another 100,000 this year.

The e5 service will launch in Texas this summer and use a WiFi-connected thermostat from 3M. The consumer is the one who enrolls in the program and installs the thermostat, which can be obtained at retailers or online. The consumer can benefit through energy savings, and the utility can benefit from better demand response.

To read the full article, visit Gigaom.

Earth Networks and EnergyHub Debut e5 Home Energy Demand Response Program Based on Neighborhood-Level, Real-Time Weather

2012-01-24T15:52:42Z

DistribuTECH 2012 – San Antonio, TX, Germantown, MD and Brooklyn, NY – January 24, 2012 – Earth Networks the operator of the largest weather, lightning and climate observation networks, and EnergyHub, Inc., a leading provider of home energy management software and systems, announce a new home demand response and energy efficiency program called e5. The patent-pending e5 program, which stands for ease, energy, efficiency, environment and earth, incorporates for the first time live, neighborhood-level weather conditions and forecasts into demand response programs that aim to reduce peak consumer demand to better manage grid load during extreme weather.

The program is designed to provide home energy efficiency without sacrificing comfort, while putting the consumer in control. The program is launching in Texas during the summer of 2012, followed by expanded implementation with additional utilities planned across North America.

The e5 program takes the burden off utilities to supply, install and maintain home thermostats because consumers play an active role in the program. When consumers chose to join, they select and install a program-compatible Internet-enabled thermostat that is available at major home improvement retailers and online. The program is launching with the 3M Filtrete™ Wi-Fi-enabled programmable thermostat, which includes EnergyHub’s user-friendly software that guides the consumer through the setup process and provides them with ongoing remote HVAC control.

Based on the consumer’s own selections, the e5 program maintains desired comfort level while optimizing energy use by pre-cooling or pre-heating in response to local weather, and when a demand response event is anticipated by forecasted conditions. Further, the e5 program provides homeowners with a home energy audit, which ranks the efficiency of the house using local weather conditions including temperature, wind and solar fluctuations. From the rankings, e5 provides a customized and prioritized list of recommended steps consumers can take to save energy and reduce costs for their home energy systems, which drive the majority of consumer demand during peak periods.

Weather is the largest variable impacting home energy demand. To maximize effectiveness, the e5 program integrates data from more than 8,000 state-of-the-art Earth Networks weather stations installed at schools and public buildings around the country to provide live, hyper-local weather data for a customer’s location. In contrast, other approaches rely on weather data from an often distant location, such as an airport, with delayed reporting that may not represent actual current local conditions.

In developing the e5 program, Earth Networks and EnergyHub sought to overcome a major factor overlooked by many existing demand response programs – occupant comfort. Unlike existing demand response programs that turn off or cycle home thermostats on a pre-defined schedule regardless of the actual indoor temperature, e5 puts the consumer in control. With e5, users dynamically adjust their comfort settings using EnergyHub’s website and mobile apps.

“Many utilities are interested in rolling out demand response programs, but user adoption is limited because consumers want to retain control of their thermostat and remain comfortable while saving both energy and money,” says Earth Networks Energy Products and Business Development Director Dave Oberholzer. “In addition, utilities are finding the installation and maintenance of thermostats at customer premises to be time consuming and expensive. The e5 program, developed in partnership with EnergyHub, eliminates these concerns and difficulties by placing easy-to-use tools to control comfort settings into the hands of the consumer.”

“For years, we have seen how home energy management software and devices can save homeowners money, while helping utilities successfully initiate demand response programs,” said Seth Frader-Thompson, CEO of EnergyHub. “The e5 program elevates these initiatives to a new level by utilizing neighborhood-level weather data from its network to provide more accurate information about home performance. That intelligence enables greater choice and flexibility for consumers in their energy usage, which encourages program participation. When combined with our existing robust and scalable demand response management system, the e5 program can realize higher yields, better energy efficiency, and improved performance for utilities.”

The e5 program is available to all utilities, whether they have existing demand response programs or want to replace their current programs with a more consumer-oriented offering. Earth Networks representatives will be available to discuss the program at DistribuTECH in San Antonio, Texas, in booth #4456. EnergyHub representatives will be available at booth #1621.

To learn more about the e5 program, contact John Bosse or Dave Oberholzer.

About EnergyHub

EnergyHub, Inc. develops software and hardware solutions that help consumers, utilities, and service providers reduce energy consumption and save money. EnergyHub solutions allow homeowners to understand and control energy use in real time and encourage people to take actionable steps to reduce consumption. Utilities also benefit from EnergyHub technology as it enables them to identify and manage peak loads, implement effective demand response programs, and improve operating efficiency.

EnergyHub, based in Brooklyn, New York, is a privately held, venture-backed company and is deploying its energy management technologies with a variety of utilities across North America. For more information on how EnergyHub can help your customers realize savings through energy efficiency visit the EnergyHub website and Mercury page.

About Earth Networks

As the provider of advanced weather data for nearly 20 years, Earth Networks (formerly AWS) operates the world’s largest weather observation and lightning detection networks and is building what will become the largest greenhouse gas monitoring network. Observations from Earth Networks inform and alert consumers, enterprises and governments around the world, providing them with advanced environmental intelligence for decision making and safety. The company’s popular WeatherBug website, desktop application, and mobile apps provide millions of consumers with real-time, local weather information and dangerous severe weather alerts. Enterprise solutions from Earth Networks enable organizations, including energy and utilities, agriculture, schools, sports and recreation, emergency operations and government entities, to safeguard lives, prepare for weather and climate events and improve business operations. Earth Networks is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with offices in Mountain View, Calif.; New York, NY; Milan, Italy and a local presence in 50 countries worldwide.

CNET: Need a better thermostat? Look to your smartphone

2012-01-19T23:51:36Z

CNET: Need a better thermostat? Look to your smartphone

For many, the ballyhooed smart home of connected devices will start with the lowly thermostat.

By Martin LaMonica | January 19, 2012

Startup EnergyHub today is releasing data from a study of customers who bought a $99 Wi-Fi enabled thermostat tied to EnergyHub’s Web service. It found that letting consumers operate the thermostat from a familiar PC or smartphone application, rather than on the thermostat itself, makes a dramatic difference in how often the programmable features are used.

An Internet-connected thermostat also allows people to remotely control home heating and cooling. Being able to adjust home temperature from the office or commute, for example, appears to be driving much of the interest in smart thermostats, said EnergyHub CEO Seth Frader-Thompson.

“Most people want the convenience and the energy savings,” he said. “Remote control is by far the biggest driver to make the initial purchase.”

Typically, only about 10 percent of people who have a programmable thermostat actually create a schedule to, for example, turn down the heating when nobody’s at home. In tests with about 100,000 users of the 3M-50 Filtrete Wi-Fi thermostat, EnergyHub found that about 85 percent of people made use of the scheduling features.

“We’re not changing the way the thermostat works. We’re getting it to do what it was designed to do 30 years ago,” he said. “An easier interface is a huge part of it.”

To see the full story check out CNET’s article here.

Gigaom: What Big Data and Smart Thermostats Can Reveal About Us

2012-01-19T23:36:58Z

Gigaom: What Big Data and Smart Thermostats Can Reveal About Us

By Katie Fehrenbacher | January 19, 2012

Energy software startup EnergyHub is powering around 100,000 connected thermostats in the U.S. with its management software called Mercury.
While that might not sound like a whole lot, those 100,000 thermostats are producing around 5 billion data points each month, and that’s starting to reveal some interesting trends about how Americans consume energy.

EnergyHub says through crunching its customers’ energy data it’s discovered such counterintuitive notions like: folks in cold climates have a lower average heating temperature set point than households in warmer states. So basically the average person in a warm state like Texas sets his/her heating temperature significantly higher than an average person in a colder state like Vermont — despite that you’d think the person in the cold state would need a lot more heating than the person in the warm state.

But that statistic is probably due to the fact that people in the colder climates would have to spend an exorbitant amount of money on heating if they wanted to heat their homes in a similar fashion to a person in a warmer state — because there are that many more cold days, and those cold days can be really cold. So the people who live in cold states are just, frankly, dealing with it and going without the extra heat. As EnergyHub explained it: “Darwin’s core tenet is alive and well—it appears folks in the colder climates have adapted to their surroundings!”

That tid bit is just an example of the kinds of things that connected thermostats and analytics will be able to reveal about home energy consumption habits. And the more utilities, consumers and companies know about home energy consumption habits, the more energy consumption habits can be shaped and pushed to be more efficient.

Check out the full article at Gigaom.

GreenTechGrid: Vermonters Save 20 Percent on Winter Energy Bills Compared to Texans

2012-01-19T22:53:50Z

GreenTechGrid: Vermonters Save 20 Percent on Winter Energy Bills Compared to Texans

“Put on a sweater.”

By Katherine Tweed | January 19, 2012

If you grew up in New England, you know the response to the often-heard wintertime comment, “I’m cold.”

“Put on a sweater” was usually the first answer. It could be followed by “put on a hat,” “put on slippers,” or “get another pair of socks.” A parent might have even have told you to go outside (where it’s far colder) and run around to get your blood flowing.

Whether it’s Yankee frugality or a testament to the rugged Northern disposition, Vermont leads the U.S. with the lowest average set point on their thermostats, with Oklahoma and Texas at the high end, according to data compiled from more than 100,000 thermostats running on EnergyHub’s Mercury platform.

This should come as no surprise to anyone from New England, including this reporter. My father would remind us before a walk to the bus in single-digit temperatures, “There’s no such thing as cold weather, just badly dressed people.” He’s probably wearing shorts right now.

Maybe Texans need to invest in sweaters. While the average winter temperature set point was 63.4 degrees F in Vermont, and about 65.5 degrees F in Maine, it jumped to 69.9 in Texas and an even 70 in Oklahoma. The difference in the two extremes means that Vermonters are saving about 20 percent on their heating compared to the cost if they set it at 69.9 F, which comes out to about $500 a year.

To read the full article about how the EnergyHub Mercury smart thermostat platform analyzes regional patterns in temperature settings, visit GreenTechGrid.

Does Living in a Colder Climate Make You Warmer on the Inside?

2012-01-19T16:07:59Z

A recent analysis of data compiled through EnergyHub’s Mercury^TM smart thermostat platform uncovered a correlation between consumers’ geographic location and the average heating temperature of their homes—with surprising results. Generally, residents in states with cooler average temperatures are setting their thermostats lower than those living in warmer states—from an average of 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit in Vermont to 70.0 degrees in Oklahoma.

With heating season in full effect across the country, we looked at the average Tuesday morning heating temperature (known as the "setpoint") by state. Since the setpoint is the target temperature which a house’s heating system is working to reach, you might expect similar results across the nation – the thinking being that whether you’re in Maine or Nebraska you have similar comfort preferences. However, the below graphic tells a different story:

We were intrigued by the number of Northern cold-weather states (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) on the cool end of the list and the number of Southern ones at the warm end (Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana). With the help of NOAA’s Climatic Data Center, we plotted the average heating setpoint for each state versus the average number of heating degree days (a measurement designed to reflect the demand for energy to heat a home) per year from 2001-2010. Throw in a regression line—and voila!—there is indeed a nationwide correlation between cold weather and lower heating setpoints.

Though it’s not surprising that residents of cold weather states have higher energy demands to heat their homes than their warm weather counterparts, what is interesting is that the average home heating temperature is lower in the cold areas. This may be proof that Darwin’s core tenet is alive and well—it appears folks in the colder climates have adapted to their surroundings!

Though these findings may seem contradictory, they actually make a great deal of sense. Take Vermont, for example. If Vermonters set their thermostats like Texans, their heating bills would go through the roof. Why? Because Vermont has an average 7,746 heating degree days per year, while Texas has only 1,862.

Just how much are Vermonters saving? Well, by setting their thermostats at 63.4 degrees versus the Texas comfort level of 69.9 degrees, residents are seeing a nearly 20% reduction in their heating costs.¹ According to an analysis of Vermont household energy expenditures in 2007, that works out to more than $500 per home per year.

We also thought it helpful to point out that although there is a dramatic difference between the lowest setpoint in Vermont and the highest in Oklahoma, the current ENERGY STAR^®-recommended daytime heating setpoint is 70 degrees. So, on average, even the Mercury users from Oklahoma are doing pretty well from an energy-conservation standpoint.

If Texans adopted the same temperature settings as Vermonters, they’d save a mere $42 per year. But the tables turn when summer air-conditioning season comes around—a topic we’ll explore in a future post.

EnergyHub’s Mercury smart thermostat platform collects a wealth of data about how people are actually using their thermostats. The geographic factors we analyzed are just a small sampling of the more than five billion data points generated each month by every 100,000 thermostats on the Mercury platform.

Got a prediction about whether the same pattern will hold during the dead of winter? Which state do you think will have the highest (most-efficient) setpoint during air conditioning season? Have other interesting ideas for analysis? We’d love to hear them. Email us at: ilovedata@energyhub.com.

¹Assuming a savings of 3% per degree if the other setpoints for the day were also similarly adjusted. See http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12720.