Forbes
05.04.10, 06:00 AM EDT

Making Every Plug Talk
An electrifying vision for painlessly reducing energy consumption.
By: Ron Dembo

Sometimes relatively simple inventions can have a profound impact on the world. Think of the light bulb, or bar codes. Every now and then there’s a key invention that unlocks the potential of an evolving area, as the Internet browser opened the door to the extraordinary world of the Web. We have seen how the connectivity that the Internet and mobile phones bring can unleash a tidal wave of creative development.

Today we are faced with profound challenges in terms of climate change and the need to dramatically reduce our energy consumption because of the carbon emissions that electricity produces. We need innovations that can fundamentally alter the way we control our use of energy—innovations that allow our modern world to continue to function while vastly improving energy efficiency and reducing waste.

Our world is filled with electrical and electronic equipment and appliances all operating in isolation, with no accountability for their energy consumption. We have TVs, computers, phone chargers, kettles, microwaves, washing machines, heating and air-conditioning, lamps and more. Most of these have to be physically switched on and off, and even when turned off, many continue to consume power in standby mode. A small proportion have timers that allow us to set their operating hours.

Our appliances don’t communicate with us, with each other or with the utilities that supply them with the power they need to operate.

Our electrical grid was designed over a hundred years ago on a simple supply and demand model that assumes users will demand electricity and the grid will supply it. That was OK when we were 2 billion people on the planet, with only a relative handful having access to electrical power and just a few appliances in our houses.

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