Is It a Good Business Model to Pay People to Use Less Electricity?

The Internet of Anything: The System That Pays You to Use Electricity

I found this article about Ohmconnect, a sustainable energy management company. What’s interesting about this company is their business model: they will pay you to use less electricity. Ohmconnect partners up with ISO, the organization that manages California’s electrical grid, and gets user authorization to access the user’s home smart meter and any supported internet-connected devices. It can then track the user’s energy consumption and alert the user of energy spikes, asking you to cut back on power consumption. Based on the user’s baseline energy consumption, as set by the ISO, Ohmconnect can determine the reduced electricity consumption and the amount of money you will be paid. The money saved is split between the energy companies, Ohmconnect, and the user.

This is a unique business model that benefits all parties: the user gets paid for less energy consumption, energy companies save money, Ohmconnect makes money, and the carbon footprint is reduced. With this in mind, can you guys think of any other companies or industries that would benefit from a business model like this? Do you think that there is a better business model that Ohmconnect could be using instead? I personally think this is an effective business model for Ohmconnect to use. I would think that cutting back on your electric bill would be enough to reduce energy consumption, but getting paid to do so would certainly be a good incentive for most people to reduce their consumption. What do you guys think?