Entrepreneur Empowers Homeowners to Save Money on Electric Bills

By Judi Hasson

New business enables consumers to monitor energy use from anywhere

Luke Fishback is a young entrepreneur with a good idea about energy conservation. It's cheap, easy to do and saves money on electricity use.

Hoping to tap into the growing environmental conservation movement, Fishback founded a company to install electric meters in kitchens and set up Web links so that residents can see, at any given time, how much power they are using.

His company, VisibleEnergy, is now in its infancy. His early goal was to have 100 households signed up for a pilot project, but until he completes a research and development phase, he is keeping the number to about 10. It will test out his theory that informed energy users are smarter consumers.

"When I bought a house, I found there were lots of opportunities. There was a lot of low-hanging fruit in so many homes on the energy-efficiency front. I wanted to figure out how to save money on my own house," said Fishback, who is 28.

And he did. He installed a $30 meter in his kitchen and linked it to his Internet site. By monitoring his own usage, he was able to cut his $150 monthly utility bill to $90. Some months, he has dropped his bill even lower, to $65. Overall, since he has been monitoring usage, he has cut his electricity costs in half.

"When you know how much energy you are using, it prompts behavior changes. When you know just how much it costs, you are more likely to turn off a light when you leave the room," Fishback said. When not focusing on kitchen electric meters, he is creating Web-based tools to give people real-time feedback on home electricity use. "In the simplest terms, we are Weight Watchers for home energy," he said. "We analyze home energy use and show people how to cut their electric bill in half."

With little money of his own to plow into the business startup, Fishback hopes to raise $200,000 from investors willing to take a chance on a little company that just might take off. He is developing the electric meter that he expects to patent.

He also hopes to attract private companies to advertise other conservation products on his Web site and to convince utilities to promote energy-efficiency to his customers.

THE PATH FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Entrepreneurs always have been the pillar of America's economic growth. Microsoft Corporation founder Bill Gates started by working in his parents' basement when he was a teenager. Today, he is one of the world's richest men, according to Forbes magazine.

There are plenty of other entrepreneurs in the United States trying to develop their own creative ideas, just like Fishback. On average, 437,000 people created new businesses each month over the last 10 years, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

Fishback embarked on his first business at the age of 14, in his hometown of Lincolnton, Georgia. Like Gates, Fishback worked out of his family's basement.

With his neighbors having to take their trash to the local dump, Fishback saw an opportunity and took it. He started a garbage-collection business for 25 homes in his rural neighborhood.

He made a few thousand dollars in high school with a rented dumpster that he stored on his family's property.

Fishback had an entrepreneurial role model in his father, who started a home oxygen business, which he sold about 10 years ago. Fishback's brother, who advises startup tech companies, also has been helping him.

Fishback, who gave up the trash business when he graduated from high school, went to Dartmouth College, where he earned undergraduate and master's degrees in engineering. After four years working on space-systems engineering for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in California, he moved to North Carolina with the seeds of his new idea.

Without a paycheck, he and his wife are living on savings and eating lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while she attends business school at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

But when Fishback speaks of the soundness of his business model, he exudes optimism: "When we look at all these cool new technologies, we're kind of forgetting there are things we can do today to actually start addressing the energy issue better," he said.

Fishback has a Web log about his company at www.visibleenergy.blogspot.com ( http://www.visibleenergy.blogspot.com/ ).

For information about the attributes of entrepreneurs, see "What Makes Someone an Entrepreneur ( http://www.america.gov/st/econ-english/2008/May/20080603211853eaifas0.5751001.html )," from the Bureau of International Information Programs publication Principles of Entrepreneurship.

Staff writer Sarah White contributed to this article.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)