But a few days ago, a handful of us bloggers were invited to come see how Meralco was innovating, using available technology to empower its consumers and shape a world-class standard of living. We got a glimpse of what they are looking into to employ digital technology and incorporate it into home living.
As a consumer of electricity, walk through these possibilities with me and see which ones you’d like to see Meralco introduce soon to your home.
Innovation #1: Meralco’s Current Distribution Automation
Think of this situation. A power outage suddenly occurs somewhere in Meralco’s web of grids. In real-time, using information on their screen, they are able to pinpoint the source of the outage, shut down that malfunctioning grid, and even re-route power, if needed. The red and green icons on the screen reflect where the grids are closed or open. With these equipment, Meralco can monitor and control distribution systems from remote locations, including the overall health of the electric grid. All in real time.
They are now looking into other innovations that may be introduced to consumers. These innovations try to take advantage of existing and developing technologies to empower the consumer to manage his own energy consumption by making this information accessible even when the consumer is away from home.
I know that in North America, in particular, many green homes are already equipped with these technologies. Let’s take a look at some innovations.
Innovation #2: The Smart Meter
Think prepaid load. If it can be done with mobile phones, why not power? If you can top up your phone via SMS, it can now be done for electricity as well. Here’s how it works:
The lighted meter has load while the unlighted one does not. |
Software allows you to monitor your usage and load |
A light’s energy consumption reflects on this devic |
Simply send out an SMS indicating how much you want to top up.
When you’re done, this is the confirmation you see on your phone
|
Innovation #3: The Energy Management Portal
Imagine that now, you can have a device in your home that is able to check your energy consumption (by room or per appliance), compare your consumption to a previous month or previous year — all in real time. Via an energy management portal on a computer, you can analyze your consumption so you can turn appliances on and off to meet your power budget.
Illustration of what a smart home could look like |
From your device, monitor your energy consumption timeline… |
…and your utility consumption — in real-time |
Innovation #4: The Smart Home
Here’s what a future smart home would look like. Add a “smart plug” to your TV, DVD player, ref or any other appliance and you can program it to switch on and off. Use your computer at home or when you’re away, use your phone or tablet to manage which devices at home turn on and off. All in real-time.
The demo below showed that with the device, you can actually set an electrical budget, say for a month. And by means of the software, lights and other pre-programmed devices can be turned off when it nears your electric budget.
Innovation #5: The Home Area Network
The prospect of a home totally controlled with the flick of a remote control was quite fascinating as I spoke with the people from Cisco. They walked us through different ways you could control your home in terms of security, entertainment and energy remotely. Your handheld device, whether it is an iPad, iPhone, Androids, etc can be transformed into control devices.
3 ways to open the door: 1) remotely via iPad 2) manually by inputting a code
3) manually with the use of a normal key
|
Meralco Appliance Calculator as seen in the App Store |
But aside from this app, there are more apps coming to your device. Take a look…