NRG Energy Inc’s (NRG) retail electricity business, Reliant Energy, has received a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop and deliver innovative energy solutions for Texas electricity customers. As a part of the contract, Reliant Energy plans to expand the rollout of smart energy solutions, using the smart grid technology, to Texas residents.
Reliant is the only competitive electricity provider in Texas to have been selected to receive a grant through American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
Reliant’s smart-energy suite of products give customers the tools to better understand and monitor their electricity usage. Customers with smart meters can now receive a free Weekly Summary e-mail that provides an overview of weekly and daily usage, an estimated monthly bill amount and a comparison to the previous week’s electricity use.
The company also offers its smart meter customers with a Time-of-Use plan, under which the price of electricity changes during the day based on overall demand for electricity, allowing customers to benefit from making choices about when and how to use electricity.
Other planned products and services include a web portal that tracks electricity usage as well as costs and can be accessed remotely to monitor energy use while away from home, and home energy monitors that communicate with the smart meter to display near real-time information including current electricity use, estimated bill, energy-saving tips and alerts when the bill reaches a certain point; and smart appliances.
Reliant is committed to revolutionizing the way people interact with energy through technology by continually pushing to develop and deliver innovative energy solutions to improve the lives of its customers. The company expects this grant to help in getting these services to more customers through 2013.
Reliant Energy, one of NRG’s subsidiaries, provides electricity and energy related products to more than 1.6 million customers in Texas. Its customers include homes, small businesses and large commercial, industrial and institutional clients in the state. As part of NRG Energy, Reliant Energy
is backed by one of the nation’s largest power producers. NRG Energy owns and operates more than 24,000 megawatts of generation capacity, including more than 11,000 megawatts of capacity in Texas.
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