This week, we have continued to refine our idea about energy reduction and efficiency within Vizag. We had previously presented a residential component of EcoSense. After more quantitative analysis and research, we realized that large buildings, such as businesses, governmental facilities, and large apartment buildings would benefit more from understanding their energy usage because they are using more energy. Therefore, we shifted our target market from residential homes to larger buildings and businesses.

We also realized that in order to cultivate the social change necessary to move forward in green energy practices and energy efficiently, we needed to develop a solution that would inform citizens and businesses about their energy usage. Current energy bills are not detailed enough and do not provide consumers with information about where and when energy can be saved. To address this pain point, we have partnered with Grampower, a smart meter company, to develop a mobile platform that displays hourly energy usage, the real time clean energy mix on the grid, and benchmarking of one’s building to other buildings of similar size. Additionally, we have included a feature that encourages consumers to use less energy during peak energy demand by providing rebates to their monthly energy bills. We have leveraged the principals of behavior change to incentive consumers to consume less energy, therefore making Vizag a cleaner and more knowledgeable city.

The Energy and Pollution Group
Chaitanya Mittal, Trevor Dowds, Natalie Chyba, Wendy Ho, Mischa Fritz, Amy Nguyen