“Oh, the toaster just went on!”
Through an app on her iPhone, Karen Rubin can see the energy use of individual appliances throughout her home in Somerville, Mass. — even when she’s miles away.
As Rubin sat in Ocean State Media’s Westerly bureau during a recent demonstration of Rhode Island Energy’s newest tool for customers, a bubble suddenly appeared on her screen.
Back home in Somerville, a member of her family had just clicked on the toaster. The app recognized it almost immediately.
Rubin, chief operating officer of the energy-monitoring company Sense, tapped the screen.
The app showed that the toaster was drawing nearly 800 watts — a lot of power. But because toasters typically run just a few minutes at a time, the app estimated its total cost to her at about a dollar per year.
The same screen showed separate bubbles for all of the other energy consumers in her household, almost down to the lightbulb — including refrigerators, window air conditioners, an electric vehicle, the dishwasher and the washer-dryer.
The Sense app identifies these devices by recognizing characteristic patterns in the electricity flowing through a home.
“Essentially it’s a software installed on the smart meter that monitors the voltage and the amperage,” Rubin explained.
“Every device in your home has a unique pattern. And Sense has been trained to make that available for you in real time on your phone,” she said.
That kind of information may take on new importance as higher utility rates begin appearing on Rhode Islanders’ bills.
The state Public Utilities Commission recently approved higher electric and gas distribution rates for Rhode Island Energy. Regulators approved one year of higher rates but softened the blow, at least temporarily, by returning more than $170 million in customer credits.
Those credits stem from commitments PPL Corporation made when it acquired the former Narragansett Electric from National Grid.
Camilo Viveiros, executive director of the George Wiley Center, a utility watchdog group, said Rhode Island Energy customers should start to see a $14 monthly electric credit beginning with their October bill, plus a larger gas credit beginning in December for customers who receive both services.
But, Viveiros said, make no mistake: customers will still be paying higher distribution rates.
Viveiros said he welcomes tools that help consumers take more responsibility for their own energy use, but argues that should not obscure the larger affordability problem.
“I’ll use the app,” he said. “But information isn’t power — isn’t literally power — if you can’t afford energy and the bills keep on skyrocketing.”
The new tool does put more information in the pockets of Rhode Island Energy customers, and that may help them control household costs.
"It just gives really good insight for customers of what's driving that bill," said Nicole Gooding of Rhode Island Energy. "Qhen you get your bill every month, you see you used X amount of kilowatt hours, and now you can use the Sense app and say, okay, this is a big component of that."
The Sense app works with smart meters that Rhode Island Energy has installed in households across the state, not only revealing patterns of energy use but also tracking costs month by month.
During the demonstration, the app showed Rubin’s electric vehicle was by far the largest draw in her home, followed by her refrigerators. It also showed laundry equipment, a box fan and a television operating in real time.
The app showed that her electricity consumption for the month was running 23 percent below the previous month and allowed her to compare her usage with other households.
“It’s not so much a control app as it is an awareness app,” Rubin said.
The idea is to give customers information that an ordinary monthly electric bill cannot: which choices inside the house are actually costing money.
“When I first got Sense installed, I found out that I had a space heater in the basement that was running all of the time, and it had happened because it was malfunctioning,” said Rubin.
“Our electrical bill had gotten quite high, and it was able to help us understand and identify what was causing that,” she said.
Rhode Island Energy is making the service available to residential customers without an additional charge.
But Viveiros argues there is a limit to how much responsibility can be placed on individual households, particularly people already struggling to afford housing, food and utilities.
He said many of the people who come to the Wiley Center for help are seniors, unemployed or disabled, and may already have cut their energy use substantially. Some of them are not exactly computer-savvy, and Rhode Island Energy has yet to create the promised customer service center to answer people’s questions about their bills.
Pointing to the compensation paid to the chief executive of PPL, Rhode Island Energy’s parent company, which Viveiros put at between $10 million and $13 million for 2025, he argued that customers should not be the only ones tightening their belts.
“Let’s see some commitment to cut some of the profits and share the pain,” Viveiros said. “We also want to see a commitment across the board, right? Not just from the consumers.”
For Rhode Island Energy customers, the new app offers considerably more information about the portion of their bill they can control: their daily use.
It can show them when the toaster goes on — and almost exactly what it costs to run.
What it can’t control is the rate customers pay for that energy.
