Smart Appliances

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The core idea of sustainable living pertains to energy generation, use, or waste. Environmental engineers have investigated opportunities for energy saving inside homes and other buildings. One of the most familiar opportunities comes from Energy Star appliances that have been designed and certified to ensure they conserve energy compared with older appliances. The next step in energy savings will be in the emergence of smart appliances, which consist of home appliances, such as refrigerators or washing machines, equipped with computer chips that sense energy usage and regulate the energy consumption of the appliance. For example, a smart refrigerator may contain a chip that tells the compressor to go into a rest mode when the unit’s light (which indicates an open door) stays on for longer than a minute. This action prevents electricity waste during the refrigerator’s use.

Other appliances can employ similar rest modes in which the appliance partially shuts off to save energy. Freezers, washers, dryers, water heaters, dishwashers, ranges, and microwave ovens would be helped by this technology. Most homes in the United States have all of these appliances, and most of them run at the same time. By adding up all the homes on a single block, then totaling the households in a moderate-sized town, it takes little imagination to guess the effect these appliances have on a community’s power grid when they all run concurrently.

This unique smart appliance combines a toilet with a washing machine. The wastewater from the washing machine goes to the toilet tank for flushing. (Peazyshop.com)

The next generation of homebased smart appliances will probably connect by Internet to the municipal power grid to reduce power drains during the heaviest usage periods. This type of appliance–power grid connection provides two advantages: overall energy conservation and alleviation of demand on grid infrastructures during peak times when they are most vulnerable to breakdown. These same appliances may also sense when the power grid is at its most stressed and automatically go into rest mode. A household filled with smart appliances would balance the community’s power use and waste automatically for the homeowner.

Electronics in addition to large kitchen and laundry room appliances have also been planned for automatic energy regulation. Televisions, video equipment, home entertainment systems, telephones, and computers all draw energy even when they are turned off. Many people have learned to unplug these devices when not in use, but new smart electronics will make this unnecessary and be more dependable in conserving energy.

Smart appliances resemble any innovation in technology in that their costs will be high at first and then become more affordable as the public purchases them. Rob Pratt, a program manager at an appliance testing laboratory, remarked to MSNBC in 2007, “If this becomes cheap enough, even your coffeemaker can help the grid out.” The MSNBC report concluded that if the majority of homes in the United States converted to smart appliances, the country would save about $70 billion in new power plant construction and power distribution costs in 20 years. By turning energy-saving control over to appliances, people may receive an overall benefit in energy and money savings.