Recovery Act - The Lean Green Energy Controller Machine-A clustered Smart Controller for the Household Market

The full potential of Demand Response (DR) peak load shifting in the Smart Grid (SG) Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) will not be achieved without the ability to control points of consumption in the residential electrical consumer base. The electrical appliances in the home represent 40% of the DR potential identified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). These consumption points must be integrated with the DR capabilities of the Smart Grid. Monitoring and control of consumptions points is a core element of DR in the smart grid. Smart Electric Management Controllers (EMCs) that enable these and more SG services, applications, and business processes are needed. Integration of the EMCs with the sensors and actuators within the household provides a managable cluster of smart controllers. People Power is implementing a Smart Controller cluster technology that allows DR services to be integrated as the level of the residential energy consumer. The quantum of control presented to the grid is that of integrated whole rather than disparate household appliances. The consumer is in control of these grid resources and, through People Power services, empowered to deploy those resouces to the benefit of the DR services within the Smart Grid. People Power Company is developing an EMC, the GreenPump, to be provided to the residential energy consumer. The GreenPump is designed to support standard communications, cyber security, and interoperability capabilities as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST). The GreenPump is the central element of the People Power distributed energy management system and provides an extensible, open platform for deployment of SG services, applications, and business processes. Point of consumption energy management devices, the GreenX devices, are dynamically associated with the GreenPump to provide a clustered, distributed smart controller for electric energy management in the home. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: The platform is to support modular extensions for specific communications protocols and services. People Power will provide proprietary implementations of application, service, and business process modules through this extensibility framework. People Power business objectives with respect to the Smart Grid are to be refined and further defined during the course of this Phase 1 SBIR project.