Comverge, Honeywell and EnerTouch team to bring customer choice to energy buying for Gulf Power

Gulf Power Company is providing customers a new way to buy electricity with rates that are lower than normal 80 percent of the time. The program, called GoodCents Select, allows customers to trim their energy bills by paying less for electricity when overall demand is lower than normal and paying more for electricity during peak demand periods–such as hot summer afternoons.

Gulf Power is using a Comverge system called MainGate to enable the GoodCents Select program. MainGate employs a two-way communications gateway designed by Comverge and a smart thermostat from Honeywell to communicate and respond to pricing signals from the utility. EnerTouch handles MainGate system installation.

"For the past 74 years we have sold electricity the same way – customers pay a flat price 24-hours a day, everyday," John Hutchinson, Gulf Power spokesman said. "Now, with GoodCents Select, the prices will fluctuate according to a schedule set by the utility that varies with the time of day, day of week and season. This allows customers to shift electricity purchases to the lower-priced times and save money."

Hutchinson said because the program shifts electricity purchases to the lower demand periods it also helps defer the cost of building new generators and other facilities to meet high peak demand periods.

"With energy price increases in states like California, a solution like GoodCents Select clearly provides a win-win for customers and for the utility," Hutchinson said.

"Customers like the system and system performance has been good. We also view the MainGate communication equipment that is installed at the customer's home as a way for us to provide additional services, such as Internet control of home appliances."

The Comverge Technologies gateway monitors the price changes and the usage in the homes. Honeywell provides a smart thermostat to control temperature set points and appliance run times as a function of price signals. This provides the consumer with an automated response to allow air conditioning to run more during the low priced periods and less in high demand periods, and control water heating and other home appliance equipment. The highly trained specialists of EnerTouch install all the pieces.

"The convenience of automatic response to pricing, plus immediate override, provides customers with ‘set it and forget it' convenience," Jay Schrankler, vice president of Home Comfort products at Honeywell said. "There is also the important option of changing heating and cooling settings to respond to special circumstances, such as a dinner party."

Schrankler said Honeywell believes that the level of automation and the features of the system will make it very popular as more utilities try to differentiate themselves from their competitors by offering enhanced services.

Frank Magnotti, president of Comverge said his company is pleased that Gulf Power is committed to rolling the system out to customers in large numbers. "We believe the turnkey package of equipment from Comverge and Honeywell, combined with Enertouch's installation expertise will be attractive to other utility companies," Magnotti said. "We would invite anyone who is interested in learning more about the system to visit our web site or to stop by our booth at the upcoming AMRA conference in Tampa. Gulf Power officials will also be on hand to answer questions from a utility perspective"

Gulf Power is marketing GoodCents Select to other U.S. utilities. The company currently has about 800 customers on the program. Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, serves more than 365,000 customers in the Florida Panhandle. For more information contact; John Hutchinson at (850) 444-6750 or e-mail jlhutchi@southernco.com or Lisa Southerland at (850) 444-6750 or e-mail lbsouthe@southernco.com. Comverge serves as prime contractor for the previously announced deployment of 40,000 MainGate systems over the next several years at Gulf Power.

Edited by Stephen Heiser