Smart Home - Home Advantage for Energy Utilities
Intelligent living plays an increasingly important role for the energy economy. Devices, systems,
technologies and services for handling energy more efficiently, more economically and more flexibly
for residential customers combine to define the term “smart homes”.
Lower energy sales and greater competition among the energy utilities poses questions about
new business areas. This study therefore investigates the market feasibility of services relevant to
invoicing in the area of smart homes for utility companies up to the year 2015. This involves analysis
of the combination of intelligent electricity meters and networks and those areas in smart homes
where energy utilities have already been active and will be so in the future.
Household devices and energy storage devices in
Smart grids
More than half (58%) of the energy utilities believe that the integration of household and energy
storage devices will become more important in the medium-term, and thus potential is developing
from the marketing perspective. Specific rates that assist with
optimized load control on the network operator or optimized energy procurement through energy
suppliers represent the real product in this area; not the devices themselves.
Influential factors in the smart home market and the
Position of utilities
Above all, the use of smart grids and the legal obligation to install smart meters in new buildings
and during renovation is driving the energy utilities to become active in the smart home market.
The end customer demand for services only has a minimal influence on this and is placed last in
the surveys.
Overall, the services offered by energy utilities for smart homes are at an early stage of
development, with the exception of the above-mentioned services and products for energy
metering and control. The survey shows that they are mainly waiting for the further development
of transmission technology and standardization.
Willingness to pay and end customer expectations
The issue of smart homes is indeed known to roughly two-thirds (64%) of the end customers
surveyed, however the use of intelligent home technology is quite diverse, which affects the
individual areas. Thus, intelligent products are primarily used for motion detectors and telephone
and communication technology (55% each, respectively), but only 14 percent use them for
opening doors and gates.
For the customers surveyed, reliability, device endurance and integration as well as a high level
of energy efficiency are the primary demands for smart homes. Surprisingly, this is heavily
underestimated by the energy utilities. They assume that inexpensive installation would be most
relevant for their end customers.
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