Is Green?

Green refers to energy derived from renewable sources with a low environmental impact. The goal is to reduce harmful greenhouse gases. In residential and commercial context, usually, Green is associated with solar panels, electric vehicles, energy storage units, and wind turbines.

This said, with green comes other constraints that make mass adoption rather challenging:

1. Green energy is intermittent. e.g. during hot and windy summer days we may have excess energy and during cloudy days we may not have enough

2. Overgeneration/excess energy/reactive power is dangerous for the power grid

3. Green energy is still expensive. Without massive government subsidies, not everyone can afford going green

So, what’s the solution?

What if the consumers and the utilities could dynamically, and in real time, negotiate their energy needs? For instance, during the hot summer days, the utilities could ask the consumers to use more energy to help alleviate overgeneration. And, during cloudy days, consumers would reduce their energy use and/or discharge their storage back into the grid.

The real time negotiations between the consumer and the utilities requires a communications standard. That standard is OpenADR, and, we were one of the original editors for its specification. Also, ISY was one of the first certified products and currently the golden standard.

The real time negotiations between the consumers and the utilities addresses #1 and #2. But, what about #3?

Based on FERC ruling 745, saving energy (demand | response) is equal to generating energy (say from solar panels). In essence, those who don’t have solar panels, EVs, wind turbines, or storage could still participate in the energy negotiations by either curbing or increasing their energy usage. It’s immediately clear that you can do that with your fingers! As a matter of fact, Flex Alert logo and commercial are specifically about the power of your fingers!

This is indeed quite inexpensive but a little cumbersome and somewhat unpredictable: what if you are not there?

And, this is where IoT comes into the picture: with the ever ubiquity of low cost, off-the-shelf, and connected devices the whole process of negotiations between the utilities and the consumers can become fully automated. And, quite inexpensively.

ISY was specifically designed to seamlessly marry Energy Management, Automation, and IoT. And, ISY is your sidekick that helps you make sense of it all, save energy, save money, and save the earth.