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Free solar, behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

By Melissa Mahony | March 5, 2010, 11:11 AM PST

This year, there will be at least 100 homes in the windy city going solar.

They are part of a new ComEd project to assess how customers regulate their energy consumption when they have a better grasp of how much energy they use, when they use it, and how much it costs them.

The utility will install smart electric meters and price the homes’ electric use by the hour. Half of the homes will be able to gain credits by sending stored solar power back to the grid. The other half won’t be able to store their energy.

ComEd’s vice president for marketing and environmental programs told the Chicago Sun-Times:

“We want to see whether consumers have the ability, with this technology, to become little utilities. They will be able to buy and sell electricity at a real-time hourly price, which is very close to the wholesale price, from their homes.”

The larger project–up to 131,000 homes–involves wireless communication between smart meters and in-home usage displays to alert customers of their consumption patterns. The utility will evaluate how this knowledge affects consumer behavior in 8,000 of the homes.

Within this group, 3,100 customers will have a basic display device, 1,500 households will get touchscreen consoles connected to Internet, and 400 homes will have programmable thermosats that can automatically change home temperatures through the course of the day.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or Stimulus bill, provided the majority of funds for the project, with ComED and its vendors funding $3 million.

The project will also be the first of its kind to offer tiered electric rates to participants. The options include:

the current flat rate
rates that rise with more-than-average use
hourly rates based on wholesale rates from the day before
rates that rise during hours of peak demand
rebates to reduce consumption during peak demand
time-of-use rates based on peak and non-peak periods

After 12 months, how these Chicagoans engage their new gadgetry and take charge of their habits should be interesting.

Image: Flickr/urbanwoodswalker

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About Melissa Mahony

Melissa Mahony was a contributing editor for SmartPlanet from 2010 to 2011.

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RE: Free solar, behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

"Behavioral" is one of those terms that, unfortunately, means, among other things:
(a) caused by some form of mental illness; (b) something to be suppressed by a good whipping or long prison term.
s for individuals and families acting like "little utilities," Enron and its myriad subsidiaries leap to mind, along with reports of bills skyrocketing after the installation of such "smart" meters.
By the way, the electric companies, the biggest of which once bought the main gas supplier while both were supposedly regulated, then sold it at a nice profit, is the only business I, as a retired small businessman, know about that reports that its profits incresased because the cost of gas, its main fuel used to produce electricity, went up. I only have one earned doctorate and I cannot, and my contacts at our power company cannot or will not, figure out which of the rate plans they, much less they and others, offer would be best for us. That makes the alleged competition in an allegedly free market in power ludicrously non-existent for consumers and small businesses. Utility bills, like the cost of rice, pasta, toilet paper, and other essentials double and redouble overnight while the official cost of living and Social Security only increase 5.5%. Grave health problems arise because air conditioning when it's 106 or heat when it's around or below freezing are too expensive and people reasonably fear being unable to pay and being cut off.
It's not really practical for a two-earner family with kids in school to schedule baths, clothes washing, etc. at non-peak times at 4:00 or 11:00 A.M. Like the drink machines that vary prices by temperature, this is just going to be one more way for powerful companies to gig consumers.

Posted by Transaction7

25th Apr 2010

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RE: Free solar, behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

Very cool. Go Chicago!

Posted by CbassNY

6th Mar 2010

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RE: Free solar, behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

Ca. has a lot of sunshine on roofs of that face south into the sun most of the time. Getting the electric co's to do something like this is very hard to do. They don't want to lose power. Large and tall buildings could generate billions of watts of electricity

Posted by archieb@...

8th Mar 2010

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Communistic behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

One day people will write the story of how the U.S. was at one brief time the land of freedom and democracy and collapsed or dwarfed into the land of authoritative communistic fascism. People are no longer able to decide for themselves rather only the state knows what, when how and why it is best for you. So many people risked their lives to flee communist countries for the perceived freedoms of the west and yet the U.S. is adapting governmental policies which are communistic in nature. Reality is that communism did win the day and there was real merit in the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Logic dictates that if the total amount to be communed will not change then how is anything saved by forcing people to shift when it is not convent for them to do so based on work schedule, family commitments etc. at a time dictated by a cooperation? To whose benefit fit is this, the consumer or the cooperation? If the communities are paying for the service should we not dictated the terms of use as much as the cooperation? Or should be just pay without say? It?s that one of the main reason for the U.S. war of independence from Britain, that is taxation with no proper representation or say? If taxation with no right to negotiate terms and amount etc. was wrong then it is wrong now. Slavery can never be justified and it is certainly not justified now given we are aware that there is no danger from CO2 emissions. Never has been and never will be. This is a fact based on science not scepticism. It has been proven that the data was falsified by the very words of the researchers!

If you want to use solar power great by why should I have to pay more for it? Is not the suns rays sent to me by the sun free of charge? If we can bail out banks then we can pay for solar cells on homes while I cut my energy bill. I consume when and by which amount makes sense for me. This is my business not yours or anyone else?s. Then we have a true Win Win for all.

Posted by mario@...

9th Mar 2010

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RE: Free solar, behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

This is really interesting.

In Spain, many in the corporate and public sector are taking advantage of government subsidies by putting solar panels on their roofs of their buildings. I think it's a good way of encouraging people to contribute to helping the environment as well as helping themselves.

I live in Madrid, and just down the street, there are solar panels on the public elementary school. The huge company district (whose business has nothing to do with energy) down further collects so much surplus energy from its solar panels that it sells it to an energy company.

Posted by stonecoldfox

13th Mar 2010

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RE: Free solar, behavior-based rates for Chicago homes

Posted by Transaction7

25th Apr 2010

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