Aug 27, 2007

Watching every move you make

Home-equipped system monitors carbon footprint in real time

By Kristina Peterson/Daily News Staff Writer

The number of electronic sensors installed in the newest home to hit the Palo Alto market makes a Swiss bank vault seem unsupervised by comparison.

With 120 Waverley St. going on sale this past weekend, potential homebuyers now have a chance to buy the first dwelling equipped with the Resource Monitor, a system designed to track a home's carbon footprint in real time.

Created by the Palo Alto company Agilewaves, the system measures energy consumed in every room by individually monitoring water, gas and electricity through 120 separate sensors and displaying the information on a secure Web site.

Peter Sharer, CEO of Agilewaves, said the system is like a "dashboard for your house.

"The Prius display changes the way people drive," he said.

"The philosophy is that real-time feedback elicits behavior change without you even knowing it."

Customers can access their home's energy consumption data from any computer, and monitor usage by room or floor over the past hour, day, week, month or year. The system instantly translates the energy data into dollars spent on utilities or into the home's actual carbon dioxide emissions.

"It's like a human - you can take the heart beat or the pulse," Chief Engineer Lan Lin said.

Redwood City resident Julie Divita said she heard about the Resource Monitor at a soccer game and will have the system installed within the next two months in her remodeled home.

She said the goal is not to install an omniscient "Big Brother" to monitor her four children, but rather to add general awareness.

"I'm hoping it'll make the 14-year-old take a two-minute shower instead of a 20-minute shower," she said.

Palo Alto architect Peter Baltay had an early prototype of the Resource Monitor placed in his Topos Architects office.

"At one point the engineer said, 'Peter, you should be glad to know that all your employees wash their hands after they use the bathroom,'" Baltay said.

Baltay, the architect and builder of the Waverley Street home, said there is little difference in designing a home with the monitors installed, other than carefully organizing the separate sensors.

"In and of itself, it does not save any energy; it leaves you to do what you like," Baltay said. But he predicted that "by empowering people with this type of information, we will see a tremendous change."

Naturally, enlightenment comes at a price.

Residential installations start at around $2,000 to $3,000, Lin said, and the price rises with the system's complexity.

"Probably lesser versions are adequate for the average homeowner, but it's good to have one that's the ultimate," Walt Hays, chairman of Palo Alto's environmentally-focused green ribbon task force, said at an open house for the Waverley Street home last Thursday.

Nearby, Palo Alto resident Bill Straka said he has been monitoring his own home's broad energy consumption for the past 40 years. The Resource Monitor's detailed breakdown would be welcome "for those of us who are gadget freaks," he said.

Realtor Suzie Provo said she is not expecting this house to be her toughest sell.

"This is such a tech-savvy community," she said. "This is a concept people have been waiting for."

E-mail Kristina Peterson at kpeterson@dailynewsgroup.com.