TechPulse 360

Whirlpool intends to ship millions of smart gird enable appliances over the next six years.

Participating homes will be outfitted with an energy monitor that also shows movies and roams the Internet

But first, the company wants to figure out if people will use them. The manufacturer kickoffs a 40-home pilot in Houston within the next four months to study the smart grid habits of consumers.

The pilot will be conducted jointly with energy company Direct Energy, Lennox, Best Buy and OpenPeak.

It is designed to “pull together some of the fundamental technologies” and ask the question, “are consumers really going to use them,” says Warwick Stirling, global director of energy and sustainability at the company. “It’s sort of an unanswered question.”

The question isa big one for an industry expected to grow to billions of dollars as countries such as the U.S. stress energy efficiency to battle global warming.

The pilot is the first of its size and scope at Whirlpool. An earlier test in the Northwest of the United States in 2006 involved just dryers. The company plans an even greater trial in this summer involving up to 200 homes in Michigan.

For the Houston pilot, Whirlpool will replace the washers, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators and water heaters at the 40 homes with products designed to communicate over a network. It also will install an energy monitor so that people can keep track of and adjust energy use.

The monitor is to be connected to the Internet and will let people also watch movies and fetch info. As Whirlpool attempts to integrate energy conservation into the American lifestyle, he results should offer useful insight for companies trying to feel their way into the market.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.