Fierce Energy: EnergyHub smart thermostat engages customers in demand response

EnergyHub has announced that its Mercury smart thermostat service, a cloud-based service using advanced analytics, is now available to utilities.

Utilities and service providers can implement the system efficiently and economically, as it does not require investing in backend integration, and greatly improves energy efficiency and demand response results.

In the past, HVAC demand response programs used one-way, pager-based switch hardware that was installed onsite at residential homes. This approach requires hardware and manpower to complete the installation. Measuring which households successfully participated in a demand response event is difficult because switches did not send confirmation signals.

“With the Mercury software platform and two-way communicating hardware, utilities can engage customers to participate in demand response events and accurately track the results of the program. It also provides the homeowner with advance messaging and opt-out capability,” Dave Wechsler, Vice President of Business Development at EnergyHub, told FierceEnergy in an interview.

The market for networked thermostats and other devices that wirelessly communicate with the smart meter is expected to grow. Home security, cable and telecommunications service providers are getting into the market by bundling thermostat optimization and remote monitoring and control services with existing subscription offerings. In the not-to-distant future thermostats could be communicating with weather forecasters and using house size data to automatically heat and cool the home and maintain energy efficiency.

Read the full story at Fierce Energy.