Whirlpool wants to pull plug on 'dumb' appliances
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10386123-54.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave
Whirlpool plans to develop home appliances that can connect and communicate with municipal smart grids. The machines will be able to receive signals from a smart grid, letting it know of off-peak hours, a good time to turn on and run.
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In addition to the smart dryers, Whirlpool has pledged that by 2015, it will discontinue making appliances sans the ability to communicate with smart grids. It will no longer make "dumb" appliances at all.
That promise, however, is dependent on a few things happening.
"This commitment is dependent on two important public-private partnerships: the development by the end of 2010 of an open, global standard for transmitting signals to, and receiving signals from, a home appliance; and appropriate policies that reward consumers, manufacturers, and utilities for using and adding these new peak-demand reduction capabilities," Whirlpool said in a statement.
My emphasis added.
Comments (1)
Oct 31, 2009
Neil Cherry says:
From the article: "This commitment is dependent on two important public-privat...From the article:
"This commitment is dependent on two important public-private partnerships: the development by the end of 2010 of an open, global standard for transmitting signals to, and receiving signals from, a home appliance; and appropriate policies that reward consumers, manufacturers, and utilities for using and adding these new peak-demand reduction capabilities," Whirlpool said in a statement.
And there's the rub, I'd guess it's now our assignment to find out what this "open, global standard" is. I get a little nervous when companies begin to talk about open standards. Most are encumbered by patents which means they're open (for all to see) but you need to pay up to use them. Still this is a step in the right direction - energy management.
Lastly I have some doubts about the complete phase out by 2015 but we will see. That seems to be pretty quick for a large corporation.