Intelligent energy management to reduce emissions

The latest National Greenhouse Accounts, released in June, demonstrated the need to turn Australia’s emissions around. According to the document, Australia’s emissions are increasing — particularly in the energy sector. Emissions from the sector have increased by 42% from 1990 to 2007 and by another 1.5% in 2008. As a result, the government is set to drive the investment in clean technology in a variety of ways.

One of the in-home technologies that can assist both consumers and power companies with the proliferation of energy efficiency options is the ‘Really Smart’ smart grid technology, developed by DS2, a provider of semiconductors for high-speed communications over existing power and phone lines.

Smart grid enables individual consumers to manage their own energy efficiency and helps power companies to limit energy demands and meet targets for reducing CO₂ emissions. It aims to establish two-way communication between in-home devices and appliances and the electricity distribution grid.

‘Really Smart’ has the ability to achieve two-way data transfer at rates of up to 200 Mbps, which provides the stability and security of communication required to operate a resilient smart grid.

This powerline networking technology requires no new infrastructure implementation and can network an entire building quickly and easily over existing facilities. This makes implementation low cost and efficient and enables any building or individual homeowner to get onto the smart grid instantly. Power companies in the US and Europe are already taking up DS2 technology and it is being presented to the Australian market as a viable technology to assist in reducing our CO₂ emissions.