The UK government says it wants smart homes and gadgets to be connected much more closely with the electricity grid.
A plan they say will help even out the ups and downs of energy supply and demand, and save consumers and businesses a lot of money along the way.
And lets face it we now have all the tools in our hands-and homes-to make it happen.
Technology is the big one of course. Much better broadband (well I hope the NBN will ultimately get there) means homes can easily hook up, link and monitor hordes of connected gadgets and sensors so we watch our homes perform in real time & run them from any where in the world.
Smart energy thermostats linked to our smartphones is an absolute revolution to how we use and control energy at home-and by linking them to the electricity grid we get a powerful, interactive way to handle supply and demand that is no longer passive.
The other big one is clean energy-from how we make it at home to storing it and even sending it back to the grid.
Solar panels are rapidly being reinvented as high efficiency, super thin roof tiles at the same time storing all that clean power for latter use later is getting easier and cheaper-and yes thank you Elon Musk, but there are also great Aussie products these days too.
But the sheer range of products and appliances coming on to the market that are not only more energy efficient, but far greener is mind boggling. Heating and cooling is being disrupted by technologies like geothermal or air source, while energy harvesting and recycling is shaking up how we handle what was once seen as waste.
And making our homes and gadgets use this new clean source of electricity has also got simpler, cheaper and more reliable by embedding networked systems, wiring and intelligent software. Which also means we can add sensors to all these products-and even the pipes and wires-to see what they’re doing and fix it up if we need to.
Big companies or offices are already doing some of this but the UK plan wants to bring it home and nudge the energy suppliers to get on board.
We need the same sort of vision from government here.
You can see the UK plan here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plan-launched-to-bring-smart-energy-technology-into-homes-and-businesses