Since the move toward a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid picked up speed last year, it's been a land grab for goliaths like General Electric, IBM, Intel and Cisco Systems. Today, there's a new player on the field: Major appliance maker Whirlpool is promising to deliver 1 million Smart Grid-compatible clothes dryers by 2011.
Prime competitor General Electric has long been vocal about its line of smart appliances, particularly thermostats and water heaters, but has failed to set timelines. This is a solid challenge from Whirlpool: Clothing dryers are a good place to start, as one of the average household's biggest power sucks. The company also has the backing of the U.S. Department of Energy's Smart Grid Investment Grant program (though it didn't specify what shape its support would take).
The new dryers will be able to receive signals from home energy grids telling them whether to turn their power consumption up or down or off entirely based on what else is going on with the grid or in the building. For example, during expensive peak energy periods, it could tone down how much power it is drawing from the grid (by switching to no-heat spin cycles), or choose to dry the clothes at a different time in order to conserve energy and, more importantly, lower people's electricity bills. Whirlpool says its smart dryers could save people $20 to $40 a year. At the same time, 1 million of them (about a quarter the number of dryers the company produces each year) could save the equivalent of the amount of power generated by 10 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants. That accounts for a chunk of greenhouse gas emissions savings as well.
This actually isn't Whirlpool's first experience with the Smart Grid. It has been running small pilot projects in this direction since 2006. In fact, it has invested enough in research in this area that it says it will offer Smart-Grid compatible versions of all of its appliances by 2015 around the world. This was previously the target year for the dryer as well, but development progressed so fast, that it was reset to 2011. Advancing deadlines is a pretty rare occurrence in this business.
Of course, all of these promises are contingent upon the adoption of a universal set of Smart Grid standards that would allow all devices, networks, meters and utilities to communicate freely with one another despite brand, region or size. Just last week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) rolled out a draft of preliminary standards for the industry to provide feedback. But there's still a long road ahead. In order for Whirlpool to hit its milestones, interoperability needs to be well on its way by 2010.
VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize winner Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Get your early-bird tickets for $495 before Sept. 30 at GreenBeat2009.com.