Nucleus Energy Manager

Nucleus Energy Manager Helps Homeowners Monitor Energy Use

GE smart grid technologies help Martha’s Vineyard achieve greater energy independence.

On Martha’s Vineyard, the Vineyard Energy Project (VEP) and Vineyard Power Co-Op turned to GE for help with their long-term vision: to provide 100 percent of the community’s power with wind and solar energy during the off-season, when the destination is home to 16,000 residents.

During the summer, when approximately 110,000 people might be on the island at a given time, Martha’s Vineyard would purchase power to supplement wind and solar. Smart grid and demand response-enabled technologies could help the island balance its energy supply and demand, and maximize the benefit of its sustainable energy resources.

Martha’s Vineyard Utility Pilot

In a pilot program, GE outfitted more than three dozen households on Martha’s Vineyard with GE’s Nucleus energy manager and GE Profile appliances equipped with Brillion technology to help them more efficiently manage their energy use and costs. VEP, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of clean and sustainable energy, received nearly $800,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy to implement smart grid technologies—including smart appliances.

“GE’s Profile appliances, equipped with Brillion technology and Nucleus energy manager, could play a critical role in helping us achieve a more sustainable electric grid.”

Ted Bayne
Vineyard Energy Project

Nucleus, when used with a smart meter, provides a wireless home energy monitor that plugs into any standard electrical outlet. Once installed, Nucleus energy manager communicates with the smart meter to collect and store household electricity consumption and estimated pricing data.

To help utilities manage peak demand, the Nucleus and Brillion technologies can receive and respond to price and “demand-response” signals from power companies to lower or delay power consumption of enabled devices and appliances during certain hours of the day. Demand-response programs also can help utilities avoid building more power plants by incentivizing consumers to lower their demand during “peak” hours. Reducing energy use during peak hours also reduces the community’s need to purchase backup power to meet demand during energy spikes.

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The U.S. spends approximately $71 billion a year in electricity for lighting—22% of the total U.S. electricity bill

LED lights can have a lifetime of 50,000 hours—depending on usage—this translates to 6–30 years

LED lighting can save up to 85% of the electricity used by incandescent bulbs and up to 50% of the electricity used by fluorescents

The U.S. purchases about 2 billion residential light bulbs a year, or about 5.5 million bulbs a day

Source: LED Press; CREE

North America:
44,208 MW
, more than 200% growth over past 4 years

Latin America:
1,962 MW
, more than 300% growth over past 4 years

Europe:
84,741 MW
, 65% growth over past 4 years

Africa:
926 MW
, 100% growth over past 4 years

Asia:
59,722 MW
, more than 300% growth over past 4 years

Oceania:
2,598 MW
, more than 100% growth over past 4 years

Source: The Wind Power

The U.S. is responsible for nearly 1/2 of worldwide CO2 emissions from aircraft

Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transport sources, compared to 74% from road transport

Air travel is growing at some 5% a year, meaning numbers of air passenger miles will triple by 2030

23% of operating costs of airlines is spent on fuel; up from 13% in 2001

Source: Scribd; Christian Science Monitor; Center for Biological Diversity

20% of the energy reaches the wheels in gas-powered cars, whereas 75% or more reaches the wheels in electric cars

For every 5% of EV market share, about a 1% increase in electricity use is expected

75% of U.S. drivers drive less than 40 miles per day

Less than 2% of electric power in the U.S. is generated from oil

Source: Zpryme Research & Consulting; Car Junky; Coda Automotive; Energy Information Administration

87.4% of likely EV drivers would pay a premium for fast charging

37.2% of U.S. drivers are very or somewhat likely to buy an EV in the next 2 years

93.2% of likely EV drivers say it is very important to be able to charge at their residence

40.6% of U.S. consumers are willing to pay a premium to rent an EV

Source: Zpryme Research & Consulting

Oregon's population is projected to increase by more than 1 million over the next 20 years

Oregon ranks 7th in the nation in irrigation water withdrawals

27% of Oregonians receive their drinking water from Clackamas County surface waters

Population in Clackamas County: 380,576—10% of Oregon’s population

Source: Clackamas County Soil and Water Conservation District; Google; Oregon Public Radio

Wind now accounts for 3.3% of total U.S. electricity capacity; up from less than 0.3% 10 years ago

Four states accounted for 51% of total U.S. wind capacity: Texas, Iowa, California and Washington

With twice as many turbines as the next-closest state (13,211), California produces 1.5% of its electricity from wind

Wind energy increases accounted for 63.3% of all energy capacity gains in 2009

Source: Energy Information Administration; The Wind Power; The California Energy Commission

LEDs could help communities save more than $750 million per year in energy costs

Currently, only 1% of U.S. streetlights are LED

LED streetlights last up to 5 times as long as traditional streetlights

While streetlighting accounts for less than 1% of all electricity use in the U.S., some cities spend upwards of 60% of municipal electricity on streetlights

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; National Geographic

Over the next 25 years, demand for freight-moving capacity will increase by more than 90%

Every 1 mph faster a freight train travels, a railroad can save up to $200 million a year in capital and expenses

RailEdge can increase the average speed of trains by 10–20%, which translates into as much as 4 mph

If just 10% of long-distance freight now carried on highways were switched to rail, national fuel savings would exceed 1 billion gallons a year

Source: GE; Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The U.S. smart grid industry is projected to grow from $69.3 billion in 2009 to more than $171.4 billion by 2014

Smart grid data analysis expenditures are projected to rise from $356 million in 2010 to nearly $4.2 billion in annual revenue by 2015

At current smart grid trends, by 2015, utilities will process 35 petabytes of information annually, a 300% increase in data storage needs

The 2009 movie Avatar used over 1 petabyte of local storage to render its 3D CGI effects —
1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes

Source: News Daily; Pike Research; UtilPoint

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