Reliant 'smart house' tests the future of electrical usage

Even the washer and dryer are controlled by an app at the house Reliant has transformed into a high-tech testing ground for the company and for consumers.

The refrigerator plays music from Pandora and takes pictures of its contents. The security system sends a text when someone's at the front door.

The goal is to find out how emerging technologies affect electricity use and how they integrate with other home-automation products. Reliant provides some of the devices, like the thermostat and home-security system, but it tests outside products as well. Voice commands given to Amazon's Echo, for instance, can lock the back door through Reliant's security system.

As homeowners generate more of their own electricity and use technology to manage their usage, Reliant wants to ensure it remains integral to customers' power needs. It is testing energy creation and storage devices at the house it owns in the Heights.

"Part of it absolutely is a test bed for what we offer today," said Elizabeth Killinger, president of Reliant and NRG Retail, "but also to test those other solutions that will eventually be part of people's homes."

Warren Leon, executive director for the nonprofit Clean Energy States Alliance, said utilities like Reliant need to prepare for the changes ahead.

"There's potentially a very large role for the utilities in the future even though there's going to be these new technologies," said Leon, whose group includes public agencies and organizations working to advance clean energy.

Reliant purchased the home in October, though it used a leased property for eight years before that.

The original house was spurred by an industry transition to smart meters, which can be read wirelessly and don't require someone physically going to the property. It was used to develop products and services that give customers a better real-time look at their electricity use and avoid surprise bills at the end of the month.

The house has evolved to also test products that Reliant's energy efficiency consultants can recommend to customers.

The app-controlled washer and dryer, for instance, can be loaded with laundry before leaving the house and then turned on when there is less demand for power, and prices drop.

As for generating its own electricity, the house has a micro combined heat and power unit hooked up to a natural gas line. This generates cooling, heating and electricity for the house.

The property also has solar panels. If those panels generate excess electricity, power is stored in batteries and can be sold back to the grid.

Homeowners will ideally generate more of their own power, Leon said, but they still need to be connected to a system in case they generate too much or not enough electricity. Managing this will be complicated, but it presents an opportunity for utilities.

He said some companies, like Reliant, are experimenting with these technologies or assisting home-owners who are starting to use them.

"These technologies, potentially, make things better for everybody, but they also can make it more complicated for the utility," Leon said. "And if utilities don't plan ahead, don't experiment, there's a risk that they could be caught off guard."

Wayne Morrison, Reliant's principal of emerging technologies, is in charge of the Heights smart home. Some of his tasks there include programming window shades, doing laundry to test the washer and dryer and selling electricity back to the grid.

"A lot of people have never heard about these technologies," Morrison said during a tour Tuesday. "They're out there. They're being developed."