When my husband Tom and I decided to build our home in Salisbury, Massachusetts, we knew that a super-efficient, even “zero energy” home was the goal. We worked with Brightbuilt Home to design a modular, all-electric home that was modeled to use about as much energy as the 8.83 kW solar array generates over the course of a year. This November, it will have been two years since we moved into the house.

The nutrition label for a banana that’s pictured below is a familiar example of standardization; these labels provide transparent reporting based on established testing.  Our society trusts this information, and uses it routinely for cooking and comparison shopping.

In the home automation space, innovations are abundant. Cool new gadgets and gizmos that simplify your life, provide an increased sense of security, and - as if an afterthought - help you save energy are popping up everywhere. While NEEP and other efficiency stakeholders have used the phrase Home Energy Management System (HEMS) to talk about products that can save energy within these ecosystems, customers are - for the most part - purchasing these devices, software, and systems for other reasons.