GE Consumer & Industrial, Louisville, Ky., believes the day when homes can be built to produce as much power as they consume is only six years away, and the company intends to drive the market in that direction.
The company announced this week that it’s developing a turn-key product portfolio that will enable home builders and owners of existing homes to consume, manage and generate electricity for an overall net-zero annual energy cost. GE said it plans to add residential power generation products like solar photovoltaic (PV) and residential wind products to its existing array of energy-efficient lighting and appliance products and demand response technology already under development.
“We have a long, trusted relationship with consumers, strong presence with home builders, demand response appliance technology and, the extremely critical, smart grid technology leadership of GE Energy that makes the GE net zero energy home an exciting prospect for our future growth,” said GE Consumer & Industrial President and CEO James Campbell.
The GE net zero energy home offerings will comprise three major groups within the portfolio: energy-efficient products, energy -management products and energy generation and storage products.
The energy management and demand response technologies under development are designed to give consumers the power to manage their energy consumption while helping to reduce utility demand peaks if the utilities follow suit.
“GE plans to be the first manufacturer to offer a full suite of demand response appliances that will work with utility smart meters to help shed load from the grid, while helping consumers save money during peak demand usage and pricing times,” said a GE release announcing the net-zero vision.
GE said as soon as 2010 it will introduce the Home Energy Manager — a central nervous system for the home that will work with all the other technologies to optimize energy use. On the same timeline, GE will introduce a line of smart thermostats.
In collaboration with GE Energy, the company’s distributed generation products to be introduced over the coming years, including solar PV, advanced energy storage, thin film solar and small wind generators will be integral to making the net-zero home a reality.