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In the spring of 2006, as part of a supply contract with Hydro One Networks (the largest utility in Ontario, Canada), Blue Line Innovations successfully launched an initiative to deploy 30,000 PowerCost MonitorsTM to the residential market in northern Ontario. The ongoing success of this initiative represents the largest deployment in the world of real-time feedback display devices for tracking single-unit residential energy consumption, resulting in Blue Line receiving the AESP award for Outstanding Energy Efficiency Technology Deployment of the Year (2006). The annual base case residential consumption without the PowerCost MonitorTM is 11,284 kWh and with the PowerCost MonitorTM, that number is 10,154.70 kWh. A Total Resource Cost Analysis based on 30,000 participants shows an annual savings of 1,128.30 kWh, based on a 5 year lifetime at a cost of $150. Studies have shown that real-time feedback can save between 6.5% and 20% on energy costs on average. Blue Line is using a conservative number of 10% to calculate the estimated savings. Blue Line’s PowerCost MonitorTM provides a feasible and effective way to begin harnessing the conservation potential of real-time feedback from electrical meters. Hydro One recognized this potential when initially approached by Blue Line to implement a demonstration project. During 2004/05 in a pilot project, Blue Line provided PowerCost MonitorsTM to 500 Hydro One customers. The demonstrated result, which was monitored rigorously, demonstrated that homeowners who used the PowerCost MonitorTM saved up to 15 per cent on their electricity bill. Participants expressed surprise at the ease of installation and the effectiveness of the real-time feedback device. With that success, Hydro One identified the PowerCost MonitorTM as a valuable tool for demand-side management and energy conservation, especially if it could be implemented at a large enough scale. Their challenge to Blue Line was to develop and implement an initiative to convince residential Hydro One customers in northern Ontario of the benefits of real-time feedback on residential energy consumption and to attract 30,000 of those customers to request and install the Monitors on their residential electricity meters. Blue Line showed its innovative nature in adapting its technology to be compatible with all of Hydro One’s residential electrical meter types; that meant modifying their original electromechanical meter product to work with digital meters. They also pre-programmed each unit with Hydro One rates, further simplifying the process for the Utility’s customers. There are other manufacturers of real-time feedback technology for the residential marketplace. The competitors’ products require an electrician for product installation. But Blue Line’s PowerCost MonitorTM is the first such device that homeowners can install easily themselves. Since the spring of 2006 when Blue Line launched the initiative, they have successfully deployed more than 28,500 of its unique PowerCost MonitorsTM to Hydro One’s northern Ontario residential customers, or 20% of the population in Northern Ontario. This year, Blue Line anticipates placing PowerCost MonitorsTM in the homes of First Nations residents in Hydro One’s territory. On the subjective scorecard, Blue Line has actively sought feedback and has received hundreds of unsolicited feedback messages from customers with an overwhelmingly positive message. Many of the customers calling up to enter the program were activated by word of mouth from other customers who had installed the PowerCost MonitorsTM on their own homes. A recent study conducted by Hydro One found that 92% of customers who had ordered their PowerCost MonitorTM would recommend it to family and friends, 87% taught family members how to use it in an effort to conserve energy and 91% found the product easy to install. |
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