The smart home certainly isn’t a new concept—it is one contractors and builders have been talking about for decades, as films, books, and industry have been touting the value technology can provide to homeowners. Now, we are seeing the rise of a new subset of smart homes: the smart-energy home.
Expect an 18% growth rate between 2023 and 2032 for the global smart-home energy management device market, according to a new report from Market Research Future. The size is expected to reach $4 billion by 2032.
As one example, in July, Schneider Electric announced the launch of a new modular, flexible solution to add smart panel functionality to standard home electrical systems. Here’s how it works. The technology includes new Square D Control Relays and the Schneider Energy Monitor. The claim to fame here is the solutions can be quickly installed by a licensed electrician and will ultimately allow the homeowner to monitor and control their energy use directly from their mobile device.
“This is just another step in our journey to bringing more value in this idea of connected energy,” says Brad Wills, director, strategic customers and programs, Schneider Electric. “We started with Wiser Energy, which was monitoring, so you could at least see what is going on in your home down to a granular level, but then that ends up begging the question of: ‘Great, now I want to control it.’ So, this is really the next step in the evolution of that value proposition.”
Where Is Demand High?
The demographic of smart-home buyers changes by both age and region. Millennials are naturally looking for more of it, but Wills also suggests there is a surge in boomers who are now retired, downsized, and all they want to do is maximize free time, so they are looking to leverage a smart home to take care of things at home.
Naturally, when I asked Wills which parts of the country were developing and building smart-energy homes most rapidly, the answer was an obvious one to start, but the second part of the discussion fleshes out the conversation a bit more.
“When we look at a state like California where solar is mandated, it turns into a tipping point,” Wills explains.
In 2021, the Square D Energy Center was launched for new homes in California enabling the convergence of residential distributed energy resources, including utility power, solar power, energy storage, and generators.
In January, the company introduced Schneider Home, a complete energy management solution, including a home battery for clean energy storage, a high-power solar inverter, a smart electrical panel, an electric vehicle charger, and connected electric sockets and light switches—all controlled by the app. Now, this launch of the Square D Control Relays and Schneider Energy Monitor follows those innovations, offering homeowners across the nation an affordable and easy way to control energy usage and live more sustainably.
“California is an obvious one,” he says. “But then you see areas like Texas with its deregulated electricity industry there. And storm events like we had not too long ago there are causing folks to not want to be reliant on the grid.”
He explains if you live in an area where resiliency is becoming an issue or unbearable pricing is put in place, then a solution like this would make sense. In Texas, for example, there are thousands of electrical rates, and it is “dizzying to figure out,” as Wills explains. Many people will often switch utility providers based on the time of the year to get the best rate possible. Technology such as this could take the complexity out of that process.
What Value Will This Provide?
The value for homeowners is vast and spans various areas of the country. He says with this system you don’t have to be home to optimize the battery and it is going to work in the background to allow you to maximize that battery.
Taking it a step further, he explains it can tie into utility information or weather information and then the system would actually start to say a storm is coming, I am going to go into battery preservation mode and I am going to do as much as I can to charge that battery so it is ready and my relays are going to help me optimize that battery during a potential storm outage. Ultimately, this could lead to a smarter and more energy efficient home.
“As battery technology improves, and capacity and output of those batteries improves, we will get closer and closer to a model that says, yeah you can power a whole house off of a realistically attainable battery system,” says Wills.
Looking to the future, he predicts we will begin to see a need or desire for community microgrids like the one Schneider Electric did with KB Home in California.
“A solution like this where you really do have more transparency as to how you are using energy and controlling it simplifies your life,” he says.
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