Recovery Act - Springboard Engineering's Smart Grid Controller for Non-Smart Household Electricity-Consuming Appliances

The Smart Grid opens the door to the development of many companion devices which will in turn enable the development of a variety of devices for household electricity-consuming appliances that can communicate with it; especially, many major appliance manufacturers (such as Whirlpool and General Electric) have made public commitments to design their appliances to be Smart Grid-compatible over the next several years. Yet during the same time period, customers will purchase many millions of long-lasting appliances which are not compatible with the Smart Grid. This proposal seeks to bring significant Smart Grid compatibility to previously-installed appliances that were not specifically designed for any Smart Grid communications, in a way that is both economical and attractive for users who want to share in the energy cost savings and reduction of peak power demand opportunities provided by the evolving smart grid infrastructure. The goal of this effort is to identify and develop smart controllers which take advantage of the effective strategies of demand-response (DR) communications from utilities [including time-of-day (TOD) and peak-demand pricing options] and function apart from any need for operational changes to be designed into the non-smart appliances themselves. In Phase I, the initial plan is to determine the feasibility of developing a family of microprocessor-based controllers that function in series between an appliance and its electrical power source, removing power from it and/or indicating the electricity cost based on the utility company