Christopher Kotting, Executive Director at USNAP Alliance, answers industry questions prior to speaking at Smart Energy Summit in February:

What do you think is the most challenging issue for your company as it relates to the residential energy management market?

As an industry alliance devoted to open standards, the largest challenge is the suppliers of consumer products being overly focused on the question of how their company will fare next quarter and maybe next year. This leads to a tendency towards proprietary solutions over open solutions, and inability to see the longer-term implications for both the individual company and the industry as a whole. Without a longer term and industry-wide view, we will see more proprietary solutions, more reinvention of wheels, and less real energy management capabilities for either the average consumer, or for their connected utility.

What are the major challenges that your business must address in 2015? in 2020?

As an industry alliance, our most significant challenge is in popularizing and promoting the adoption of open standards in a way that lets manufacturers compete on features and price. The biggest concern is that the longer that manufacturers rely on proprietary solutions and platforms, the more likely it is that there will be a government-mandated solution, that may or may not work well. This is the biggest concern both now and in the future.

What are the major barriers impacting consumer adoption of energy related products and services?

• Customer unfamiliarity with the opportunities, and fear of change.
• Regulator unfamiliarity with the opportunities, and fear of the customer's reaction to change.
• Huge societal benefits that are of insignificant value when broken down to the individual customer, or masked by existing rates and practices.

What are the biggest opportunities for the smart home industry to work with the electricity industry?

• Get your head out of "the cloud." It's not a solution or platform that the electric industry can or will rely on.
• Understand that what works for the most profitable customers for the smart home industry isn't enough for the electric industry. It needs to work as well, and as reliably, for any customer.

What impact will smart products and smart home services have on consumer adoption of energy solutions?

If we can get to the point that solutions are more platform-independent and truly interoperable, the potential impact is huge. When a consumer can buy any new appliance and know that when (s)he gets it home, that it will smoothly integrate into the existing home automation / energy management system, and intelligently work with utility systems to reduce costs and improve efficiency, many of the current issues / barriers will disappear. Adoption of energy management needs to be as simple (and as reliable) as plugging in the equipment is today.

Christopher Kotting will be speaking on the panel “Standards and Interoperability: The Foundation for a Consumer-focused Market” at 2:30 PM at the Smart Energy Summit in Austin, TX, February 18, 2015. Other panel speakers include representatives from Thread Group and USNAP Alliance.

For more information on Smart Energy Summit speakers, sessions, or topics, visit www.ses2015.com. Registration is still available!

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