GE Works on the "Model A"

Self-sustenance has seemed something of an antiquated idea for over a century. Since the Industrial Revolution showed us how much more efficient large-scale production is compared to the small-scale, few people have seriously considered self-sustenance a practicable reality. We are all inter-connected and all reliant upon technologies, people, factories, and energy located far from home.

With the increased focus on OMG Global Warming Is Going to Kill Us All!^TM, energy-efficiency finally is coming to the fore as a topic of serious consideration. The ugly truth is this: Energy is our capacity to produce. The more energy we have, the more we can produce. Reduce our consumption of energy, and you have reduced our economy and our lifestyle. This is where focusing on energy-efficiency, reducing the amount of energy that gets burned up unnecessarily and turned into waste heat, is appealing: If we can reduce the amount of energy produced for each unit of energy actually consumed, we can have our cake and eat it, too.

GE is betting that the best way to accomplish this (in the home) is to link together every energy-consumer in the house on a network, then try to strategically control the consumption of energy. This accomplishes a few strategic things:

1. It involves the resident in his energy consumption in a way that makes him more conscious of it and encourages him not to engage in wasteful behavior
2. It allows for load-levelling of energy demand; by moving energy consumption away from "peak" hours to "off-peak" hours, the strain on local power plants goes down, allowing them to operate more efficiently (and hopefully saving the consumer costs, too)
3. It allows for intelligent integration of eco-friendly energy sources into a home; specifically, an unoccupied house during the daytime is receiving maximal sun exposure during a period where the only energy needed is to run climate control systems for food and humidity control; solar power generated during this time could be sold off to the "grid" which is currently sucking energy to keep offices, etc. running in exchange for off-peak traditional power at night when the consumer is actually home

The whole package is a few years off and the price-tag makes it more of a luxury than an economic purchase, but this is precisely how cars got off the ground. Nobody who bought a Ford Model A bought one because it was the most economical transportation choice--it was a luxury. No one will (initially) buy a home-power system from GE, but as prices fall and the technology improves, expect consumers to start localizing their energy and installing a GE "Model T" at home.