Prior to attending the Smart Energy Summit in Austin, Dave Hurst, Director, Market Analysis for NextEnergy, answers the following industry questions: 

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

A big part of the challenge is low cost of energy. There just isn't a great business case for energy products at the individual consumer level. Add to that the difficulty in predicting energy costs, and consumers have a very hard time understanding how calculate energy savings or a return on their investment. Energy products are successful when they can be tied to convenience or other benefits aside from costs.

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

The electricity market is getting more complicated and consumers are going to need help making smart decisions. With the increase in distributed generation and energy storage, the consumer is going to need better information on the power being generated at home, the cost of electricity from the grid, and when is the right time to use electricity from which source.

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

More granular control of devices and appliances in the home will breed new opportunities for businesses and aggregators that can serve the utility market. However, consumers won't be attracted to these energy solutions, unless the value case can be made for the individual consumer. That's going to require a coordinated effort between regulators, utilities and smart product companies.

Dave Hurst will be speaking during the session "Interoperability, Integration, and Energy Management" on February 24 at 3:00pm, alongside speakers from Affinegy, the OpenADR Alliance, Sigma Designs/Z-Wave, and the ZigBee Alliance.

For more information on the speakers or sessions for this year's Smart Energy Summit in Austin, visit www.ses2016.com.

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