Better Together? Electrification, Efficiency, and the Smart Home

Electrification -- the process of replacing technologies that use fossil fuels with electric sources -- is a necessary but insufficient path to decarbonization. As we electrify more systems in our homes (from stovetops to vehicles) the need to manage load responsibly increases as well. A dependable electrified grid also requires demand response and load flexibility capabilities to address the temporal needs of energy distribution, which can be enabled greatly by smart home technologies. Conversely, the smart home has a lot to gain from electrification. Leveraging smart home products for load flexibility enable these products to function not just as convenient cool gadgets but as necessary pieces of a carbon neutral future. An efficient, electric and smart home provides added value to consumers through improved insight into household energy usage and customized recommendations for saving money on energy bills. In this session, a panel of expert speakers will demonstrate the vision and value proposition of efficient, smart, and electrified homes and identify ways various actors in the home building space can contribute to more reliable energy delivery, enable an improved user experience, increase comfort at home, and help prevent and repair equipment failures via this better together pairing.