Schneider Electric will develop a ‘remote control relay’ through a partnership with Savant Power to provide more monitoring and control of a homeowner’s power loads directly to the homeowner. The new smart circuit innovation should launch in Q1 2022.
When wired to the QO Plug-On Neutral breaker, the connected relay device will enable homeowners to see, monitor and control their home energy at the individual circuit level, all from the Wiser Energy app. With more granular insights on home activity, homeowners will have the ability to take action from anywhere with a richer automation experience. The relays will optimize backup source capacity, notably providing flexibility for homeowners when navigating outages.
“With home energy use constantly on the rise, managing demand is more important to potential homebuyers than ever before, in turn giving builders an opportunity to increase the value of their new builds by offering energy management technology,” said Richard Korthauer, Vice President, Home & Distribution, Schneider Electric. “Incorporating this technology at the building stage offers a new step up in load level control to distinguish new homes that minimize energy costs for homeowners in this dynamic energy market and provide new level of energy resiliency and safety at the breaker level.”
The new connected relays will allow homeowners to monitor and control their energy at the circuit level, including electric water heaters, ovens, HVAC systems, or any other circuit. For example, if a homeowner was concerned that they left the oven on after leaving the home, this would allow then to check, then turn that appliance off at the circuit remotely, preventing a potentially dangerous situation.
These relays will also help optimize non-utility home energy resources – including solar power, energy storage and generators – in the event of an outage. By creating a virtual configurable critical load panel for each backup power source, available power can be maximized by sending it to only a few priority circuits until the utility power is restored. Automated through the Wiser Energy app, these configurations provide true smart energy management for today’s homeowner.
“These relays will also help optimize non-utility home energy resources – including solar power, energy storage and generators – in the event of an outage. By creating a virtual configurable critical load panel for each backup power source, available power can be maximized by sending it to only a few priority circuits until the utility power is restored. Automated through the Wiser Energy app, these configurations provide true smart energy management for today’s homeowner.”
The options are growing for smart C.B. panels, Eaton, now Schneider and all smart panels like SPAN, one should be able to connect to the communications on a microgrid HMI and automatically shed power and leave only critical circuits online for autonomous resiliency in power outages.