Using the iPad in a Smart Grid
There has been quite a debate in the legal blogosphere about the utility of Apple's new iPad for a legal practice. Long time legal blogger Nicole Black has started a new blog about the iPad, as has Josh Barrett, a Portland, Oregon business attorney. They are generally positive about the iPad. On the other side of the spectrum are Scott Greenfield, a New York lawyer, and Brian Tannebaum, a lawyer in Miami.
Whether or not the iPad is a good tool for the delivery of legal services is beside the point to me. One area where I see the iPad, the iPhone (or any other smart phone for that matter) providing value to electric energy utilities and consumers is in the convenient utilization of smart grid technologies.
Energy conservation is the cheapest and easiest method to reduce energy consumption and ameliorate environmental problems associated with energy production. Smart grid technologies such as Google Power Meter offer consumers the opportunity more readily control their energy consumption by monitoring usage and highlighting things and times of high energy usage.
Control4 has an app allowing consumers to control things like security systems, access lighting, and temperature. An app integrating that control with software systems like Google Power Meter and extending it to allow to conveniently control when the dishwasher, clothes dryer, and other household appliances operate would be a step in the right direction of energy conservation. Moreover, feeding that information to the utility in real time would better equip them to flatten the demand curve, thereby reducing the need for spinning up plants for stand-by capacity.
Let Me Know: If your home was smart grid enabled, would you use an app that gave you more control over your energy usage?
