Cool Energy Management Pilot Program in Ontario

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Ontario’s Green Energy and Economy Act starts in 2011 but it has already spurred some innovative clean energy and energy efficiency programs. I recently had the opportunity to talk to a company working on an interesting pilot program in Ontario and I thought you all might like to learn a bit about it as well (if you haven’t already).

Calico Energy Services (which is managing the pilot project) and Avante Security Inc. have supplied energy management systems to 130 households in Ontario to help people better understand, plan, and improve the efficiency of energy consumption in their homes.

Additionally, Calico is working with the Ontario Power Authority to try out technologies allowing for better supply-side control of such energy consumption — in particular, at times of peak energy usage.

Want to know what specific technologies Calico and Avante are providing participants with? Of course you do. Here they are:

• The Avante Smartboxx™, an energy management gateway, which uses cellular based technology to coordinate demand response and energy conservation commands with multiple controllable end use devices such as the Avante Zigbee Smart Plug. The Smartboxx™ also receives and transmits data from a home’s existing smart meter, empowering the customer with information about how they use power.
• The Avante HVAC Relay, a key component of the Smartboxx™ solution, which enables the user to control a home’s existing thermostat and adjust the HVAC system, changing temperatures as required.
• EIS OpCenter™, the command-and-control center of the Calico platform, which allows energy providers to reduce electricity use through demand response, rate and price programs, baseline management, energy efficiency, and interactive customer communication.
• EIS HomeSMART™, Calico’s engaging home energy management interface, a web-based portal which provides residential customers with an intuitive and affordable solution for energy efficiency, demand response, and home automation.

OK, if you are not real into the techie lingo and couldn’t follow that, here are a few key features some of the technologies provide that I particularly like:

  1. You can access all sorts of useful information about your energy usage on the web;
  2. You can auto-program any electrical device in your home to turn off, turn down, etc. at any time of the day (i.e. when you will be out of the house at work).
  3. You can have an auto-alert sent to you on email, Facebook, or via some other means when you hit some specific metric you set (i.e. some flat $ price, your average monthly energy usage, an energy usage target, etc.)

Looks like a good pilot project. I’m curious to see the final results of this pilot program and the continued development of similar programs in  Ontario and elsewhere.

Related Stories:
1. Ontario Feed-In Tariffs Create Tens of Thousands of Solar Jobs, Cost = 1 Donut/Month
2. Canada’s Largest Supermarket Chain Going Solar (on Over 100 Ontario Stores)
3. Samsung Signs $6.6 Billion Solar and Wind Power Deal with Ontario, Canada

Photo Credit: ViaMoi


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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