BROOKLYN, NY, March 9, 2023 /Meltek.io/ — New Yorkers like saving money. And in the face of mounting energy price inflation, they are signing up for the free service of a Brooklyn-based climate tech start-up called Meltek that pays residences and small businesses for reducing electricity usage at peak demand times, such as on the hottest days of summer.
Meltek hit an all-time high for user growth this past week when it expanded its free money-saving and pollution-reducing service to PSEG Long Island and Orange & Rockland Utilities (O&R), beyond the place it got its start in 2022, Con Edison’s territory in New York City and Westchester County.
Through Meltek’s iPhone® or Android™ apps or simply via the Meltek website, area residents and small businesses can get paid to save electricity during peak demand hours.
For many years, large commercial and industrial electricity customers have been able to participate in utility company “demand response” programs, through which the utility pays them for reducing electricity usage during a set of hours that they are alerted to, often a day in advance. Meltek, a demand response “aggregator,” has been approved by ConEd, PSEG Long Island, and O&R to provide these incentive payments to area residents and small businesses. Unlike other companies providing demand response services, Meltek is a software-only company, so customers that enroll do not need to install any smart thermostat or similar smart home devices. Electric utilities fund the reward payments, often because the payments save money for the utility compared to the cost of providing peak-demand electricity, and the reduced load improves the electrical grid’s reliability.
Once a user signs up with Meltek and connects their utility account number, Meltek can send easy-to-follow text or email alerts, letting them know when they can earn money by postponing large appliance usage, such as washing machines and dishwashers, adjusting thermostats (including pre-cooling their home/business before the demand response window), switching off unneeded lights, or unplugging electrical devices. The exact ways of saving electricity are up to the customer. The utilities and Meltek have structured the demand response programs so that no customer can lose money by signing up (for free) with Meltek. Signing up with Meltek does not change a customer’s electric service provider or otherwise alter the customer relationship with the utility.
“When we hit over 100 new users in a day, we knew we were onto something,” says Frank Bruckner, Co-Founder and CEO of Meltek. “People are tired of seeing their electric bills go higher and higher, and we’re empowering them to save money and fight climate change at the same time.”
The electricity produced during peak hours by so-called “peaker” power plants is often the most polluting and carbon-intensive, so the energy savings also reduce air pollution in local communities and greenhouse gasses in general.
Peaker plants’ environmental and air quality impact hits home for many people in the New York metropolitan area. Peaker plants are expensive to maintain and typically emit a lot of pollution due to their age and use of fossil fuels. Using these power plants on hot summer days to meet air conditioning demand can exacerbate poor air quality conditions in nearby communities. Within ConEd territory, there are 15 oil- or gas-fired peaker plants, stretched across all five boroughs of New York City. On Long Island, there are at least 18 such plants, including in Babylon, Northport, and the Hamptons. In Orange and Rockland territory, there are 3 predominantly gas-fired peaker plants.
With Meltek’s recent territory expansions, the company can now serve the more than 3 million customers (both residences and businesses) of ConEd, 1.1 million customers of PSEG Long Island, 230,000 customers of Orange and Rockland customers, and 70,000 northern New Jersey customers of O&R’s subsidiary Rockland Electric Company.
Signing up for Meltek’s free service is straightforward, and can be done by the Meltek app in the Apple App Store® or on Google Play or by visiting app.meltek.io.
Although users can sign up with Meltek any time of the year, PSEG Long Island customers who sign up by April 1 and O&R and ConEd customers who sign up by April 3 receive the highest incentive payments under the utility companies’ programs.