Local Appliance Manufacturer to Join Smart Grid

Whirlpool Set to Launch Smart Grid Compatible Appliances by 2015

Whirlpool is positioning itself to take advantage of the growing interest in Smart Grid technology with an announcement that all of its electronically controlled appliances will be Smart Grid compatible by 2015.  Whirlpool has an appliance factory in the Iowa City area in Middle Amana, Iowa.

The home appliance manufacturer, famous for brands that include KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, and its namesake, Whirlpool, among others, will form public-private partnerships to create an open, global standard for home appliances to transmit and receive signals by 2010. Once the standard is in place, the company will roll out compatible, electronically controlled appliances over the next five years.

The partnerships also will design policies that reward and incent manufacturers, utilities and consumers for offering and using the peak demand reduction abilities.

"Whirlpool believes this bridging technology is so important that we are going to invite the appliance industry, the utility industry, policymakers, NGOs, and relevant technology companies to come together at the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference to discuss how we can accelerate the adoption of these new capabilities," Bracken Darrell, Whirlpool’s executive vice president, said while announcing the company’s new goal at the EE Global Forum and Exhibition in Paris.

The modernization of the electricity grid to enable two-way communication and real-time monitoring is hailed as a way to both improve efficiency and accommodate the deployment of renewable energy systems that will feed energy back to the grid. President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill includes $4.5 billion for Smart Grid projects.