There are several options when it comes to choosing an alternative energy system for your home. There is of course the type of system that you would like to install. You can choose from solar power to wind power. Once you choose the type of system that you would like to install, you’ll need to figure out how much electricity you would like to produce. To get an idea of how much electricity you need to produce you will need to check your past power use. This can be accomplished by contacting your electric company and asking for the number of kilowatt hours you have used in the past couple of years. They will read off the numbers for each month. Take note of extremely high months such as summer and winter.

Read over the qualifications for claiming the energy Star tax credit by visiting the energy Star website. Here you will find the information needed to choose an energy Star qualified system. Shop around and see what is available. Before making a final decision, and sure that the system you are interested and qualified for the energy Star tax credit. The last thing that you want to do is purchase a system and not receive the tax credit because it is the wrong type. In addition, you may also want to look at additional tax credits being offered by your state. Many states such as California are offering other tax credits in addition to the federal tax credit.

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“Upon completion, this will be one of the top 10 energy-efficient houses in the country,” said architect Steven Baczek of Reading. “The house is virtually a hot air balloon.”

The standard of building called passive house is based on a European model that is becoming more popular in the United States. There are currently only 14 certified passive houses in the country.
An active passive approach

The idea is to build a home that is heated mostly with natural sunlight, super-insulated to maintain the heat, and ventilated with a mechanical system that transfers out the stale air and moves in fresh air, maintaining ideal temperatures and humidity levels within the house.

“If you talk to old-time builders, they’re going to say that you don’t want to build a house too tight, you want it to breathe,” Mr. Baczek said.

“I agree with that, but where I differ from them is when I say the house is going to breathe, I predict and control where it’s going to breathe from.”

Comparing the house to a human body, Mr. Baczek said where the air and water enter and exit the home are carefully designed for maximum efficiency.

The house is so tight that the only air leakage is from a maximum of five holes in the exterior, equaling the total area of a three-by-five inch index card, he said.

The home will be heated by large south-facing windows that warm the house during the day, and by a mechanical ventilation system that moves the air throughout the house using the bathroom fans.

A heat exchange unit functions as an air conditioner in the summer and a heater in the winter, transferring the energy from the hot or cool stale air to the fresh air.

From the exterior, the home looks just like any other construction site. A metal roof and photovoltaic solar panels are the only indications that the home is intended to be energy-efficient.

Inside, although there are no windows, doors, or mechanical components installed yet, the builders have already begun to insulate the house with a rigid foam insulation.
Zero-net energy

The Valle Group in East Falmouth is the contractor. Christian T. Valle toured the house on Wednesday morning as sunlight dappled across the roof and southern-facing facade.

When complete, the house will have R-100 insulation in the attic, R-60 in the walls, and R-70 in the floor, he said. The construction is actually a frame within a frame, with 17 inches for insulation between the exterior wall and the interior of the house. There will be three layers of insulation in the walls, a rigid foam layer, closed cell foam, and blown in fiberglass insulation, he said.

Construction began in August, and will be completed this spring, Mr. Valle said. The builders are currently awaiting a special order of triple-glazed windows from a Canadian company called Thermotech windows, which will allow sunlight and heat into the home, but minimal heat to escape.

The interior of the home is a simple two-story structure, with one central staircase, and an open floor plan on the first floor and bedrooms upstairs.

It can be about 20 to 25 percent more expensive to build a passive house, Mr. Baczek said, but the design is not without benefits.

When complete, Mr. Baczek said, the home will use 80 percent less energy than a similarly sized house. Add to that the photovoltaic solar panels and solar-heated water, and the home is expected to be a zero net energy home.

The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath-house will have 1,900 square feet of finished space with no basement. The house is built on a slab with a crawl space filled with insulation.

A similarly outfitted house might cost $300 per square foot to build, he said, while the passive house costs an estimated $350 per square foot.
A tight envelope

Michael B. Duclos, a consultant in passive houses from Stow, created a computer model of the house to test the heat loss and mechanical ventilation system before construction.

During construction, the house is tested for air-tightness by using a blower door test. On Tuesday, the blower door test showed only a few leaking spots.

“We’re building and testing it as we go,” said Mr. Duclos. To reach the passive house standard, the builders and engineer must show that the house met the standard at each construction phase.

The building standard has gained popularity in Europe over the past 10 years, according to Paul Eldrenkamp, a passive house consultant in Boston. In Austria, he said, 25 percent of all new construction is being built to the passive house standard.

Mr. Eldrenkamp, founder of the Boston-based Byggmeister, which is the Scandinavian word for master builder, said he took the first course ever offered in passive house consulting in the United States in 2008.

There are only 14 completed passive houses currently in the country, with another 50 to 60 homes in the planning or construction phase, he said.

The key to a passive house is the heat ventilation system, which passes the heat from the outgoing stale air to the incoming fresh air.

“In a well-designed system, it can recover 75 percent of the heat from the exhaust air,” Mr. Eldrenkamp said.

Needless to say the house will not have a fireplace. There will also be no gas burning devices. Even the clothes dryer is a condensing dryer that has no vent to the outside to maintain the air envelope within the house, Mr. Baczek said.

Buildings are responsible for 48 percent of greenhouse gas emissions annually and 76 percent of all electricity generated by United States power plants goes to supply the building sector, according to data from the United States Energy Information Administration provided by the Passive House Institute of the United States.

Passive house certification carries no tax incentives or rebates, but the house will be a tier four, Energy Star home, which qualifies the owner for some rebates, Mr. Baczek said.

The home is on Upalong Road in Davisville on Bournes Pond and can be seen from the Menauhant Beach area.

The 5.7-acre parcel and existing cottage were purchased in 2009 by Daniel Kahn of Needham for $1.19 million in 2009, according to town records.

One drawback might be that the house relies so much on mechanical ventilation, that when the power goes out, the air will become stale. The solution is simple. “Just open a window,” Mr. Valle said.

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The audit — conducted on a cool October morning — marked step No. 1 to make the 24-year-old home more energy efficient. The process is designed to help homeowners find small problems — improperly sealed roof vents, for instance — and, later, correct the issues. The result: savings on utility bills.

“To cut our energy use by 30 percent would be huge,” homeowner Dan Wilkinson said.

So, Wood peeked inside the furnace and descended into the crawlspace, checked windows and light bulbs, deployed a high-tech infrared camera to measure temperature differences and — for the pièce de résistance — conducted a blower door test.

The test depressurizes the home using a large fan at the entryway and then measuring the airflow into the structure. The process allows auditors to check the amount of air leaking from the home.

Wood said a home energy audit educates homeowners about often-unseen parts of their residences.

“The more you understand, the more you can understand about how things fit together,” he said.

Home improvement

Ronnie Kweller, spokeswoman for the Alliance to Save Energy, said the audits allow homeowners to set the pace for home improvements.

“You get a very good picture of where you stand energy efficiency-wise, and you can decide what steps you might want to take immediately,” she said.

The nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy is a coalition of business, environmental and government leaders based in Washington, D.C.

Malcolm McCulloch, Puget Sound Energy market manager, likened the auditing process to a physical or a 75,000-mile tune-up — a top-to-bottom assessment to root out and foil potential problems.

PSE initiated the audits in late 2008 and has since expanded the program under the HomePrint label. The utility relies on Wood and a network of independent contractors across the region to perform the audits.

Regulations require utilities to boost efficiency or use more renewable energy — a costly option, McCulloch said, because PSE might need to build power-generation facilities to meet the mandate.

“When we look at the least-cost alternative for our customers, efficiency pencils out really well,” he said.

McCulloch acknowledged the conundrum of promoting conservation, because a drop in energy use hits the bottom line for PSE and other utilities.

“By doing conservation, yes, we are reducing the usage of our customers, which seems sort of counterintuitive, but it allows us to deflect the additional capital expenditure” to build additional power-generation facilities, he said.

The city, PSE and Sustainable Issaquah — a community group — partnered to offer free home energy audits throughout the fall. Backed by a federal stimulus grant, the city offered 100 free audits.

“We think this project is super cool, because it’s an opportunity to take that message and all those tools, and get them directly into the hands of the local economy by focusing on local auditors out there working with our local community and teaching our local community how to either do it themselves or where to find the resources to become energy efficient,” city Resource Conservation Coordinator Mary Joe de Beck said.

Wilkinson, the Squak Mountain homeowner, learned about the program after a neighbor received a free home energy audit.

‘Green’ pioneers

The audit effort is part of a push initiated by the City Council in 2008, at about the same time officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the zero-energy zHome townhouses in the Issaquah Highlands.

Though the city has undergone a tremendous building boom in the past 15 years, experts said even recent construction can benefit from audits and subsequent energy tune-ups.

“Now that we have zHome going — and carbon neutrality is such a big part of that — it just made sense for us to focus on the existing building stock,” zHome Project Manager Brad Liljequist said.

The initial group of Issaquah residents requesting audits tended to be a “green”-minded bunch — a common characteristic among the early adopters.

“The early adopters are the folks that are very technically savvy or ‘green’ that really want to know more,” McCulloch said.

Alliance to Save Energy spokeswoman Kweller said the prospect of smaller utility bills might also be a draw for homeowners.

“It’s a tough economic time for a lot of people,” she said. “Maybe they realize that saving on energy bills is something that’s within their capability to do, and they want to do it.”

What to know

In addition to a home energy audit, homeowners can take other steps to save money and support renewable energy.

PSE has information about rebates for appliances, heating and cooling systems, light bulbs and insulation here.

PSE also offers a Green Power program to support renewable energy generation. Learn more about the program here.

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“In the winter time, it’s very cold in this house regardless of what I have the thermostat at,” Ward said. “I know my gas bills are always high.”

Ward called Columbia Gas to perform a home energy audit on his 71-year-old home, 10TV’s AJ Smith reported.

Kimberly Barnhart, an energy advisor, performed the test on Ward’s home.

She started the $50 task with a test that sucked the air out of the home. The blower door test determined potential leaks. Then, she checked every room inside the home.

Finally, she used an infrared camera to see drastic temperature differences.

“If I’m seeing that the walls are colder because it’s a little colder outside, it’s telling me that the cold air is infiltrating into the home,” Barnhart said.

Barnhart then recommended actions to make Ward’s home more energy efficient and cheaper to heat in the winter.

As part of the $50 fee, a homeowner’s thermostat will be replaced with a new, programmable one. Up to three high-efficiency shower heads will also be replaced, Smith reported.

Ward said that he still needs to fix his fireplace, add insulation to the walls and reseal the windows but he hopes the effort will leave him more comfortable with his energy bill.

“We’ve got a total energy savings of $867 a year,” Barnhart said.

“Hopefully I won’t have to sit around with my coat on,” Ward said.

On top of the yearly savings, homeowners who make the recommended changes can receive rebates from Columbia Gas of up to 60 percent.

A spokeswoman for American Electric Power said that it hopes to launch an energy audit program later this year.

Stay with 10TV News and 10TV.com for additional information.

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The Showcase Home, an annual highlight of the twice-yearly home show, this year is located at 5512 Callaway Lane in the Williamson Place subdivision off of U.S. 71 South at Old U.S. 71. It is one of 29 new homes in and around Fort Smith that will be open for viewing daily from noon to 6 p.m.

The Parade of Homes began Saturday and will continue through Oct. 24. The Showcase Home will be open through Oct. 31.

Built under the supervision of Denton Contractors and listed by Bradford & Udouj at $259,900, the 2,180-square-foot Showcase Home boasts a long list of high-end and high-tech amenities, plus several features that promise significant energy savings: a hybrid gas water heater, insulated vinyl windows, insulated garage door, cellulose wall insulation and high-density attic insulation with a thermal barrier.

Dave Hughes, executive director of the Home Builders Association, said the challenge for builders is to find the energy “sweet spot” that reconciles a home’s operating cost with its construction cost.

Energy-efficient homes can be expensive, and homebuyers want to enjoy a reasonable and relatively quick payback for their purchase.

“Customers need to do more homework to seek out loans that reward energy-efficient purchases based on a home’s operating cost,” Hughes said. “This allows the buyer to achieve a higher loan. … An energy-efficient home costs less to operate, so that leaves more money to devote to the purchase, and they can buy a more expensive house.”

Energy Rating

The Showcase Home received a 58 score under the Home Energy Rating System – significantly better than the score needed to earn an Energy Star rating, said Chapen Rucker, a home builder and a HERS-certified energy inspector.

A HERS score measures a house’s energy efficiency compared to a standard house built to code. On a 0-100 scale, the standard code-compliant house rates 100. To earn the Energy Star rating, a house must achieve an 85 or lower score.

“The lower the score, the better the score,” Rucker said. “A 70 means the house is 30 percent more efficient than a normal house built to code today.”

Rucker said he has built Energy Star homes. The 85 score is not difficult to achieve, and scores between 65 and 75 are “pretty attainable.” To carry an energy rating, a home must submit to third-party verification.

Before earning its 58, the Showcase Home had to go through a three-phase inspection process that began when Rucker viewed the construction plans early this year.

At that stage, the builder can specify what level of efficiency is sought, and the HERS consultant can advise on how to achieve that level.

The second inspection happens at the pre-drywall stage – after insulation but before sheetrock. The object of the game is to minimize or eliminate air leaks in the walls.

“The most important part is when I come in at the end and perform a whole house test,” Rucker said.

For the final “duct blaster” test, the inspector tapes off the grills and blows air through the ductwork. The Energy Star rating calls for less than 6 percent duct leakage.

Rucker said he donated his services for the energy inspection, but normally builders pay a fee based on the house’s size. A one-story house like the Showcase Home would run about $550, he said.

Hot Water

Supervising contractor Melissa Denton said the gas heating and electric air-conditioning system are better than 90 percent efficient, and the house has the first hybrid water heater in Fort Smith.

Eddie Fox, director of commercial customer development with AOG, said the hybrid water heater provides energy-saving and user-pleasing benefits by combining features of tankless and tank-type water heaters.

“The hybrid gas water heater costs about three times as much as a standard gas water heater, but the standard heater has only about 60 percent efficiency,” Fox said. “With the hybrid, you can get efficiency above 90 percent, so there’s about a 30 percent savings.”

The 90 percent efficiency measure means that for every $1 spent on drawing and heating water, the user gets 90 cents worth of water.

Fox said the hybrid water heater pleases customers by eliminating two problems experienced with tankless heaters – a delay in getting hot water, and a phenomenon the pros call “sandwiching,” as when two people take showers in quick succession, and the second person gets a slug of cold water before the hot water comes.

Denton said between 40 and 50 suppliers and subcontractors contributed to the Showcase Home by discounting or donating products and services. She obtained the construction permit April 8, and the house was completed early this month.

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Not only does the efficiency of these systems spare energy — which has been in short supply in some areas lately — but it adds to the money left in your pocketbook after paying energy costs.

The first step to taking a whole-house energy efficiency approach is to find out which parts of your house use the most energy.

A home energy audit will show you where these are and suggest the most effective measures for reducing your energy costs.

You can conduct a simple home energy audit yourself, you can contact your local utility, or you can call an independent energy auditor for a more comprehensive examination.

Formulating Your Plan

After you have identified places in your home that are losing energy, assign priorities to your energy needs by asking yourself a few important questions:

* How much money do you spend on energy?
* Where are your greatest energy losses?
* How long will it take for an investment in energy efficiency to pay for itself in energy savings?
* Can you do the job yourself, or will you need to hire a contractor?
* What is your budget and how much time do you have to spend on maintenance and repair?

Once you assign priorities to your energy needs, you can form a whole-house efficiency plan. Your plan will provide you with a strategy for making smart purchases and home improvements that maximize energy efficiency and save the most money.

Another option is to get the advice of a professional. Many utilities conduct energy audits for free or for a nominal charge. For a fee, a professional contractor will analyze how your home’s energy systems work together as a system and compare the analysis against your utility bills.

He or she will use a variety of equipment such as blower doors, infrared cameras and surface thermometers to find inefficiencies that cannot be detected by a visual inspection. Finally, they will give you a list of recommendations for cost-effective energy improvements and enhanced comfort and safety.

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Of course, it all depends on if the state can convince Wall Street to invest in the four offshore wind projects that have been proposed off the coast of New Jersey. State regulators plan on testing the financial waters next Tuesday in Trenton.

The hearings are aimed at implementing the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, a law that rather swiftly won legislative approval earlier this year, before lawmakers recessed for their summer break. The legislation allows the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to develop the financial framework to encourage banks to invest in the offshore wind farms, all of which carry a hefty price tag approaching or surpassing $1 billion.

The vehicle selected by the offshore wind developers and lawmakers was to allow the agency to set up a program in which Offshore Renewable Energy Certificates (ORECs) would be issued for the electricity generated by the offshore wind farms. The scheme is similar to the Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs) given to owners of solar power systems for the electricity their panels generate.
Enough Investor Incentive?

The unknown question hanging over the stakeholder hearings is whether the ORECs, which, under the law, will be set by the developers at a fixed price over 20 years, will be enough incentive for deep-pocket investors to back the wind projects.

“People are not going to be building these projects on spec,” said Paul Patterson, an energy analyst with Glenrock Associates in New York. “They are going to be looking to regulators for assurances of an economic return on their investment.”

Whether the ORECs will provide those assurances is another question. In the past, many alternative energy projects have relied on power-purchase agreements in which regulated entities, such as electric utilities, agree to buy the energy produced by the systems in long-term contracts, Patterson noted. Such a scheme was debated during hearings on the bill, but was discarded by key participants.

Erich Stephens, an executive at Offshore MW, which is proposing to build a 350-megawatt offshore wind farm 14 miles off the coast, said the ORECs might be able to achieve the certainity provided by such contracts.

“At the end of the day, we need a contract in some form that assured us a fixed price for 20 years to finance these projects,’’ Stephens said. “Can the OREC program be structured in a way that mimics how a power-purchase agreement works?”
Setting the Right Price

Even if investors are convinced the ORECs are sufficient, there also are risks to developers when setting their prices. If set too high, no will buy the certificates, said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. If set too low, the project will fail on its economics, he said.

Nonetheless, some clean energy advocates are optimistic, citing Google’s decision to invest in the offshore wind transmission project, which has been dubbed the Atlantic Wind Connection.

“It’s great. It’s cool to see a company as big as Google get behind offshore wind,” said Matt Elliott, clean energy advocate for Environment New Jersey. “From our perspective, we want to see there’s a long-term market for wind energy. We don’t focus so much on the specifics as long as it is done in a way that people can afford.”

Affordability of wind and solar energy, however, has been a big concern of business lobbyists, who point out the commercial and industrial sectors consume about 64 percent of the electricity used in New Jersey. They worry offshore wind will add to an already expensive energy expenditure for businesses.

The business community was happy to see the law include a provision requiring a project to produce a “net economic benefit” for New Jersey before it could be approved by the BPU. How the agency ends up defining that term could be crucial, according to Sara Bluhm, an assistant vice president of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association. “We’ve heard a commitment [from the administration] that it won’t adversely affect ratepayers and it will create jobs,” she said.

The other key provision in the law deals with a $100 million tax incentive that could be given to a wind turbine manufacturer if it locates in the South Jersey Port District or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Tittel said it is important to encourage wind manufacturers to locate here, but not to the point where we are subsidizing the projects at taxpayers’ expense.

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-Make sure your home is properly sealed and insulated. Check any areas that could allow air infiltration, such as vents, chimneys, and even light fixtures and electrical outlets.

-Windows and doors can let plenty of cold air in and heat out, so seal those areas up with weather stripping and caulk. Adding storm windows or plastic film are additional fixes to seal up windows.

-Dirty furnace filters cause the furnace to work harder to move air through the house, causing the furnace to run longer than it has to. Regularly change the filters to keep the furnace running efficiently.

-Turn down your thermostat at night and while out of the house for an extended period of time. This will keep the furnace from running unnecessarily and keep energy usage down. A programmable thermostat is a great way to schedule thermostat adjustments.

-Simple no-cost solutions include wearing a sweatshirt or throwing on a blanket instead of turning up the thermostat, and opening the blinds or curtains during the day to allow sunlight in, helping heat the house.

For more information on energy saving tips, check out these web sites:

www.togetherwesave.com/index.php

www.energystar.gov

www.energy.gov/energyefficiency/index.htm

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The Building Automation program is one of few available statewide and trains students to use the technology required to manage more energy-efficient buildings – a field in which skilled workers are in high demand, professors said.

“They’ll need to learn these skills in order for them to earn a living and keep up with technology,” said Darrow Soares, director of career and technical education initiatives. “It was the air-conditioning and refrigeration program, but we had to modify the curriculum in order to move us into the 21st century.”

The program is in collaboration with Rio Hondo College, which will offer electronics classes and Chaffey College, which will provide instruction through its industrial motors program.

Before taking building automation courses, students also take classes in the areas of air conditioning and refrigeration and computer networking and programming, Richardson said.

The about 40-unit certificate program takes a year to complete. Students also participate in a internship program paid through the college’s grant resources.

“We live in the state of California and the biggest push is to be energy efficient to save money,” said Lanny Richardson, a program professor. “For students to gain this knowledge makes them much more qualified.”

Large buildings like major supermarkets, use this type of technology to control energy systems like air conditioning and lighting, he said.

Technicians can also monitor energy usage in these types of structures and modify the system to increase its efficiency, Richardson said.

In turn, building automation can can save 30 to 45 percent in energy use and costs.

Richardson said the industry is in high demand for workers with this skill set. In fact, some companies will use incentives to attract a valuable employee from another company, he said.

Many of the students in Mt. SAC’s new program are retraining for a career in building automation so that they can re-enter the work force.

This includes Jonathan Pena and his 23-year-old son, who lost their jobs just a month apart from each other.

With a family to support and bills to pay, the two hope the certificate will land them successful jobs.

“We combine our money right now to survive and pay our bills, but we have hope,” Pena, 51, of Baldwin Park said.

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Talk to people about using less energy–and saving money–and nearly everyone thinks it’s a great idea. So it stands to reason that home-energy management systems will be a hot item for 2010. It’s an appealing prospect: Wireless networks, working with smart meters and smart appliances, shift energy use away from peak times, when it can cost 10 times the off-peak price. Instead of turning on the air-conditioning at 5 p.m. with the rest of the neighborhood, for example, the system could automatically precool the house when there’s less demand for energy, making it cheaper. Sounds great, right?

The potential of the energy-management market is huge. By 2014, the global smart-grid market is expected to be worth $171 billion, according to Zpryme Research & Consulting; if the U.S. fully utilized a smart grid, we could cut our carbon emissions 12% by 2030, the equal of eliminating 66 power plants, according to the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Already, upward of 30 companies, including GE, Google, Microsoft, and a host of eager startups, are rushing to get a foothold in the increasingly crowded space.

There are just a few snags: Smart appliances won’t be widely available until 2014, according to Kevin Nolan, VP for technology at GE Appliances & Lighting. And smart meters? Thanks to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 40 million American homes will have them by 2015, but that’s not even half of U.S. households. For now, the real work of managing electricity consumption still falls to the consumer. However attractive the idea of cutting back, doing it on a sustained basis, says Nolan, “is like New Year’s, when you decide to go on a diet. Your natural lifestyle creeps back in when the novelty goes away.”

The trick is how to engage with customers today, when energy managers can supply information but can’t really manage anything. Some companies plan to attract people with sleek and sexy devices that offer energy management as a bonus. OpenPeak’s Home Energy Manager, which is expected to cost about $100, has an Apple-like interface with apps for energy advice and management (if you have smart devices), news, and weather, and an app store with free downloads of Facebook as well as apps for sale. “If we can put the actual energy in the background and integrate it into an existing lifestyle, we’ve got a chance of this working,” says David Dollihite, VP of product and technology development at Direct Energy, which, along with Whirlpool, Lennox International, and Best Buy, is doing a pilot project with OpenPeak.

Some players are tacking energy management onto broader services. Home-automation company Control4, for example, is known for linking up home-entertainment and security systems. But its technology also allows smart plugs (around $120 apiece) and thermostats (around $250) to communicate to its platform through a wireless Internet connection or ZigBee network (the industry standard for low-power wireless connectivity). That way, consumers can program networked appliances to run when power is more affordable. “Early adopters–maybe 15% of people–will purchase smart plugs, and that’s an interim step,” says Clint Wheelock, managing director of clean-technology company Pike Research, “but it’s going to take time to get this infrastructure in place.”

Price is an issue, points out Zarko Sumic, an analyst with Gartner Research: “The break-even point for buying a device is far away.” Several software companies are sidestepping that problem by working through utilities that will subsidize the platforms so their customers get them free or at a discount. EcoFactor, one software-as-a-service firm, focuses on heating and cooling, which account for half of all home-energy use. The program monitors user input, collects weather data, and connects with relatively inexpensive Internet-connected thermostats to manage the home’s temperature. EcoFactor has partnered with Texas-based Oncor, which subsidizes the service for customers who sign up.

Microsoft’s free Web-based platform, called Hohm, uses analytics licensed from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and data from utilities–Seattle City Light, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Xcel Energy have signed on–to provide targeted information and advice to users who don’t have smart equipment. “People like to throw technology at the problem, but realistically, will consumers invest thousands in connected devices to save a few hundred on an energy bill? No,” says Troy Batterberry, product unit manager for the Hohm project, which is now in beta testing. (Google’s PowerMeter is also free to consumers, though it requires that users have a smart meter or monitor.)

Programs like Hohm will likely attract middle-of-the-road consumers who want to conserve energy but don’t want to spend money to do it. But to attract the consumer who has never uttered the words “smart grid,” companies may have to depend on the good old American desire to keep up with the Joneses, which studies have repeatedly found to be a huge motivator.

That is Opower’s approach. The company prepares monthly reports comparing a household’s energy use with that of similar surrounding households. Its utility partners send the reports free to customers. It’s low-tech, but it gets results: 80% of targeted recipients reduced energy use; the total energy saving, averaged across all customers, was 3%. “This is truly a paradigm shift of industry,” says Ogi Kavazovic, director of strategy for Opower, who notes the participation rate in utility-run programs is typically less than 5%.

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