Comments on: The Future of Home Energy Management Lies With Consumers, Analyst Says

By: How Apple Could Jolt the Smart Home Energy Market

How Apple Could Jolt the Smart Home Energy Market — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:19:44 +0000

[...] more powerful combo than what is currently emerging from the nascent home energy management market. As some analysts have pointed out the future of the home energy market in the long term will lie with consumers, and companies that [...]

By: eMeter – eMeter in the Press 2009

eMeter – eMeter in the Press 2009 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:31:21 +0000

[...] Earth2Tech, Justin Moresco, June 25, 2009 “The Future of Home Energy Management Lies With Consumers, Analyst Says.” [...]

By: Panasonic to Invest $1B in Cleantech: Batteries, Energy Monitoring and More

Panasonic to Invest $1B in Cleantech: Batteries, Energy Monitoring and More — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:12:45 +0000

[...] a flood of companies entering the home energy management space, but as Gartner analyst Zarco Sumic told me earlier this year, the vendors that will likely dominate the industry will be the ones that know how to market, sell [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:27:24 +0000

One important item that no one has touched on is where the website will obtain the information. Consumption and event (like outage) data is collected by the utilities. It is combined with rate, geospatial, and other types of data.

So whomever partners with the utilities has the data. That will be the most useful website. Sounds like the startup has the right idea.

By: Marcus Fox

Marcus Fox — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:43:29 +0000

I absolutely love your work, I’m pleased their is more discussion around this and similar issues. Everyone seems to be complaining about power bills, but not prepared to take action themselves.

By: Kiran

Kiran — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:07:59 +0000

I agree with Sumic. I draw parallels to the Telco industry. Many startups have tried in vain to provide services to consumers using the Telcos as a channel. Utilities and Telcos are very similar in the sense that they are both slow, regulated and probably prefer working with big, well established companies. Startups targeting ONLY utilities are probably going to run out of money since the sales cycles will be long.

Home Energy Management (HEM) startups can take lessons from Apple iphone. They bypassed the Telcos completely and went straight to consumers. HEM applications need to do the same. Here are some advantages to going straight to consumers: 1. Shorter sales cycles but with more marketing dollars 2. Agnostic to any particular utility. Consumers will view that as something more trustworthy. Helps get away from the "Big Brother's Watching" syndrome. 3. Applications will be more consumer centric and less utility centric. In particular, less DR oriented and more energy management and energy education.

I am not saying that utilities should be completely ignored. However, I am saying that utilities should not be the ONLY customer / channel.

By: What to read on the GigaOM network

What to read on the GigaOM network — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:58:54 +0000

[...] almost gets it right (jkOnTheRun) How to eliminate compulsive Internet fiddling (WebWorkerDaily) Future of home energy management lies with consumers — analyst (Earth2Tech) Nintendo Wii gets CinemaNow movies…in Japan [...]

By: Rise & Shine: June 25, 2009 | Sweet Solar Home

Rise & Shine: June 25, 2009 | Sweet Solar Home — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:58:03 +0000

[...] The Future of Home Energy Management Lies with Consumers, Analyst Says Evidence that the home energy management sector is reaching bubble proportions ratcheted up a notch today with two new entrants into the space: Microsoft and eMeter. [...]

By: The Future of Home Energy Management Lies With Consumers, Analyst Says « SmartGrid Current

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:47:12 +0000

[...] The Future of Home Energy Management Lies With Consumers, Analyst Says Posted June 25, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized | http://earth2tech.com/2009/06/25/the-future-of-home-energy-management-lies-with-consumers-analyst-sa... [...]

By: Celeste LeCompte

Celeste LeCompte — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:36:57 +0000

Startups should also be careful about assuming what it is consumers want. Over at Earth2Tech’s sister research site GigaOM Pro, we recently published a report from Pike Research (http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/05/home-energy-management-consumer-preferences-and-attitudes/) about what consumers preferences are when it comes to home energy mangement (in terms of both demand response programs and energy information displays). Some of the findings were surprising: 45 percent said they were interested in the most active level of energy management, which is counter to the conventional wisdom.

By: The Future of Home Energy Management Lies With Consumers, Analyst Says - Automated Home

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:33:16 +0000

[...] posted here: The Future of Home Energy Management Lies With Consumers, Analyst Says :africa, ami, Hohm, Home Automation, largest, microsoft, most-interesting, Space, [...]

By: Harry Forbes

Harry Forbes — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:36:16 +0000

I agree with Sumic, but I do not buy the idea that “for startups looking to get a foothold in the market, however, utilities are an attractive partner”. They are not, unless the startup is a service company focused on selling a service to utilities. No way is an electric utility an attractive partner for a product company, least of all in the home automation space. Ask the AMI meter suppliers.

The most interesting thing about the Microsoft announcement IMHO was that MS-Hohm, just like Google, aspires to be the application that aggregates all a consumer’s personal energy information, similar to the role of Intuit Quicken in consumer financial management. This has big implications for utilities as well, which I discuss here:
http://www.arcweb.com/Domains/SmartGrid/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=11