Vermont public power utility Stowe Electric Department is joining Connected Homes, the innovative residential demand response program offered by the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company.
Stowe Electric Department is the first municipal utility from Vermont to join the Connected Homes program.
Connected Homes allows residential customers to better manage Wi-Fi-connected devices in their homes while reducing their carbon footprint.
Connected Homes, launched in April 2020 with an initial group of 11 local utilities, is offered through MMWEC’s electrification and decarbonization program, NextZero.
NextZero works through Connected Homes to allow customers of the participating local utilities to leverage the technology of smart appliances and devices into energy and cost savings for the utility and its customers.
By enrolling a smart device in the Connected Homes program, customers agree to allow their local utility to make brief, limited adjustments to their devices during times of peak electric demand, such as temporarily reducing the charging rate of an electric vehicle during peak hours.
Customers are informed of possible adjustments in advance via email or text message and given the choice to opt out of each adjustment. Customers are rewarded for their enrollment via quarterly bill credits.
Stowe Electric Department joins 18 Massachusetts-based consumer-owned utilities currently participating in Connected Homes, including those in Belmont, Chicopee, Concord, Hingham, Holden, Holyoke, Ipswich, Mansfield, Marblehead, Peabody, Princeton, Reading, Shrewsbury, South Hadley, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield, and West Boylston.
Specific brands and models of thermostats, home batteries, electric vehicles and chargers, electric hot water heaters, and mini-split controllers are eligible for incentives under the Connected Homes program.
Connected Homes is helping Stowe Electric Department and its customers navigate the clean energy transition by making the electrification of residential heating, transportation, and cooking put less stress on the electric grid, while reducing end use carbon emissions.
Through participation in Connected Homes, the growing number of customers moving toward electrification can easily and conveniently manage their home’s energy use by adjusting the device’s energy usage remotely, or by setting an automatic schedule.
"Connected Homes offers Stowe Electric customers an opportunity to leverage their compatible smart home devices to help shave peak energy use and achieve real savings through reduced usage and monthly incentives provided by the utility,” says Stowe Electric Department Manager Jackie Pratt. “This innovative program is just one way Stowe Electric is supporting an equitable clean energy transition for our customers."
“Connected Homes is an effective way for customers with smart technology devices to help their local light department take control of the cost of energy and keep their utility rates low,” says MWMEC Sustainable Energy Program & Policy Senior Manager Zoe Eckert. “We are excited to begin offering this program in Stowe, Connected Homes's first utility participating in Vermont.”
Since 1911, Stowe Electric Department has provided reliable electricity and superior service to the community of Stowe. Stowe Electric Department currently serves 4,448 residential and commercial customers.
MMWEC is a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created by an Act of the General Court in 1975 and authorized to issue tax-exempt debt to finance a wide range of energy facilities. MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state’s consumer-owned, municipal utilities.
