Paul Wattles, Sr. Analyst, Market Design & Development at Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), offers insight into the barriers and opportunities currently impacting energy management:

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

Low-cost electricity, the result of low natural gas prices, dilutes the business case for energy management and DR. Also, in the areas of ERCOT open to competitive choice, aggressive retail competition makes it challenging to ensure cost recovery for energy management/DR devices.

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

Load serving entities (REPs, municipally-owned utilities and co-ops) can tap into residential DR as a hedge against high prices in the wholesale energy market. Offer caps are currently $7,000/MWh and will increase to $9,000/MWh on June 1, 2015.

Paul Wattles will be speaking on the panel “Integrating Demand Response into the Smart Home” at 4:00 PM during Smart Energy Summit in Austin, TX, February 17, 2015. Other panel speakers include representatives from Comverge, EnergyHub, Integral Analytics, Inc., and Southern California Edison (SCE).

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

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