Manufacturer to Provide 40,000 Thermostats for Utility
INDIANAPOLIS — Carrier Corp. will supply approximately 40,000 ComfortChoice® thermostats to Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E) for its SmartHours® program. The thermostats will be provided through the Silver Spring Networks smart energy network as part of an energy demand management program facilitated by OG&E. The SmartHours program aims to reduce peak demand for electricity and avoid building any new, incremental fossil-fuel-fired energy generation until at least 2020. Thus far in the program, OG&E residential SmartHours customers with programmable thermostats have achieved an average peak reduction of about 2 kW per home. The program achieved approximately 70 MW peak demand reduction from 40,000 SmartHours customers in 2012, reaching a total of 110,000 homes by the summer of 2014.
“Managing energy consumption programs like SmartHours is an exciting prospect and opportunity for Carrier to further establish our expertise in energy management,” said Chris Nelson, president, North America HVAC Systems & Service, Carrier, which is part of UTC Building & Industrial Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp. “Carrier is committed to working with utilities across the country to create smart, sustainable communities where industry and utilities partner for the benefit of consumers.”