Whirlpool to make electronically controlled appliances smart grid compatible
Appliances will be able to receive and respond to signals from smart grids.
By Control Engineering Staff -- Control Engineering, 5/8/2009
Benton Harbor, MI – At the 2009 EE Global Forum & Exhibition in Paris, Whirlpool Corporation announced its commitment to making all of its electronically controlled appliances smart grid-compatible by 2015.
According to Bracken Darrell, president of Whirlpool Europe, and executive
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vice president of Whirlpool Corporation, this means that all Whirlpool electronically controlled appliances will be capable of receiving and responding to signals from smart grids.
Darrell also highlighted the company's longstanding leadership in energy and water efficiency at the conference and stressed the critical importance of a collaborative effort among industry, government institutions, NGOs, utilities and other stakeholders to drive truly meaningful energy conservation.
Global standard for appliance communication?
Whirlpool’s ability to successfully deliver on this commitment in this timeframe was dependent on two important public-private partnerships, according to Darrell:
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The development by the end of 2010 of an open, global standard for transmitting signals to and receiving signals from a home appliance; and
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Appropriate policies that reward consumers, manufacturers and utilities for using and adding these new peak demand reduction capabilities.
"Whirlpool believes this bridging technology is so important that we are going to invite the appliance industry, the utility industry, policymakers, NGOs, and relevant technology companies to come together at the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference to discuss how we can accelerate the adoption of these new capabilities," said Darrell.
Read more from Control Engineering on smart grid developments.
Also, podcasts of Bracken Darrell and others who attended EE Global can be accessed at: http://eeglobalforum.org/updates.
– Edited by David Greenfield, editorial director
Control Engineering News Desk
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