Big Oil wants to conduct a big power experiment in your home.
Big Oil wants to put a box in your hall closet that works like a human brain, can cut the lights, stop the refrigerator and will know how you move about in the privacy of your home better than you do.
Sounds worrying? It’s one of the ideas the world’s largest oil companies are experimenting with to survive in a low-carbon world.
Companies like Lightsource BP, in which British oil major BP Plc holds a stake, are trialing smart systems in people’s homes that will do everything from generating solar power, storing it and managing consumption. Much like Spotify Technology SA gives users instant access to thousands of cool playlists without having to spend years building up their own collection, Lightsource BP wants to make sophisticated renewable power systems available to average people.
They are figuring out how to go big on electricity as demand surges with rising prosperity around the world while investors and activists put them under immense pressure to adopt green policies. However, concerns over climate mean the power industry of the future will be nothing like the past as focus shifts to efficiency and carbon-free electricity.
Todd Hill, an electrical engineer from Melbourne, lives in a four-bedroom house in a hilly town south of London with his wife and two daughters, represents what Lightsource BP thinks is possible.
After he moved into a new home in 2013, he installed 23 photo-voltaic panels on the roof capable of generating 5.3 kilo