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In this interview, FierceSmartGrid Editor Barbara Vergetis Lundin caught up with Bill Ash to discuss how the consumer impacts the smart grid. Ash talks about the end of first generation smart grid roll outs gets into the consumers' psyche.
In addition to his role as strategic technology program director at the IEEE Standards Association, Ash leads the IEEE-SA's smart grid efforts and coordinates the Association's activities internally and externally.
FierceSmartGrid: You've been coordinating the IEEE Standard Association's various Vision projects, mostly related to technology forecasts over coming decades. What does the consumer part of this equation look like?
[Image omitted] - (http://www.fiercesmartgrid.com/story/consumer-impacts-smart-grid/2013-11-26)
Bill Ash
Bill Ash: Though technology provides us an opportunity to make the grid more efficient, reliable and sustainable, we still need to understand how the consumer impacts the end result. We need to educate the consumer on how to interact with the technology to reduce energy costs and become part of a community that uses smart grid for their own and society's benefit. We also need to educate manufacturers, utilities, implementers and integrators on the consumer's role and their interaction with technology so there's a real partnership between utility operations and technology that enables consumer benefits.
FierceSmartGrid: How would you define "consumer socialization" in this context?
BA: Consumer socialization is the ability to evangelize information to the end customer -- whether that's a business, a home, a family -- and create an awareness of smart grid.
FierceSmartGrid: We've all seen surveys that reflect relatively low public knowledge of smart meters and smart grid. What is IEEE's take on this?
BA: We try to get a feel for what people know about smart grid. What do they interpret that term to mean? What are their perceptions toward smart grid as a concept and what are their related behaviors? Consumers ages 25 to 34, for example, are open to new ideas and technology. They display a willingness to try new services, if offered, and they tend to influence other consumers.
Research can be misleading...