BROOKLYN, NY, February 28, 2023 /Meltek.com/ -- A New York-based climate tech startup has launched its free money-saving and pollution-reducing service for Orange & Rockland Utilities customers. 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, such as on the hottest days of summer.
For many years, large commercial and industrial electricity customers have been able to participate in Orange & Rockland's “demand response” program, through which O&R pays them for reducing electricity usage during a set of hours that they are alerted to, often a day in advance. Now, Meltek, a demand response “aggregator,” has been approved by O&R to provide these incentive payments to area residents and small businesses. O&R funds the reward payments 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 O&R 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, and O&R and Meltek have structured the demand response program 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 Orange & Rockland.
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 combat climate change.
Peaker plants’ environmental and air quality impact hits home for many Orange & Rockland customers. 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 O&R territory, there are three predominantly gas-fired peaker plants in the City of Middletown in Orange County, the Villages of Hillburn (in the Town of Ramapo), and West Haverstraw (in the Town of Haverstraw) in Rockland County.
All 230,000+ Orange and Rockland customers (residences and businesses) are eligible to sign up for Meltek’s free service by downloading the Meltek app in the Apple App Store® or on Google Play or by visiting app.meltek.io.
Today’s announcement also makes Meltek’s service available to the over 70,000 New Jersey customers of O&R’s subsidiary Rockland Electric Company.
Frank Bruckner, Co-Founder and CEO of Meltek said “Expanding our money-saving and environmentally-positive service to Orange and Rockland, including its affiliated customers in New Jersey, is a great development for Meltek, but even more importantly for the over 300,000 more customers we will be able to help reduce energy costs.”
Orange & Rockland approved Meltek as a demand response aggregator in part based on Meltek’s success in serving customers of O&R’s sister company Con Edison, which covers all of New York City and most of Westchester County. Residents and businesses in ConEd’s territory continue to sign up in anticipation of the summer 2023 demand response season.
Although users can sign up with Meltek any time of the year, O&R and ConEd customers who sign up by April 3 receive the highest incentive payments under the utility companies’ programs.
Not serviced by Orange and Rockland but want to get paid for saving energy?
Meltek plans to expand nationally across the United States in the near future. You can sign up today, and we'll notify you as soon as we're operating in your area.