Whirlpool Corporation, a manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, has demonstrated their new smart-grid compatible clothes dryer at the International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas.

 

The purpose of this demonstration is to show how the smart grid-compatible dryers will operate in consumers’ homes, reacting intelligently to peak-demand signals from a smart electrical grid and automatically modifying energy consumption. The demo also accompanied an interactive smart appliance simulation, a preview of soon to be released smart-grid appliances from Whirlpool.

 

It is been estimated that the overall energy use of home appliances account for about 85 percent of residential electrical use. Smart appliance technology will help reduce this high power usage and help electrical utilities shed load during peak usage periods without compromising core product performance and while keeping control in the hands of consumers.

 

Marc Bitzer, president of Whirlpool North America has stated that they believe that that the smart grid and smart appliances are the next big opportunity in energy savings and are to make significant strides in the development of smart grid-enabled appliances.

 

The company’s smart-grid compatible dryer can communicate with the utilities and automatically modify energy consumption. This will reduce unwanted energy consumption and bring down carbon emissions. The dryer comes with built-in sensors that can detect peak electricity demand, allowing the heating element turn off and on during drying while the spinning continues. Whirlpool has claimed that it will save up to 95 percent in energy. The machine can also be programmed to run only when power prices are at the lowest.

 

Whirlpool has stated that smart grid technology provides a significant opportunity to make renewable energy sources such as wind and solar more usable. These sources of energy are inherently more variable, but fit well with smart-grid technology which can more easily take advantage of this energy when it is available.

 

Whirlpool has also announced that it will offer Smart-Grid compatible versions of all of its appliances by 2015 around the world. Recently it was awarded a $19.33 million federal matching grant by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Investment Grant program to accelerate its smart appliance development.