The Square D Energy Centre has been introduced by Schneider Electric as part of its Wiser collection of smart home solutions.
The Square D Energy Centre unveiled at CES 2021 is designed to be a central home energy management solution providing monitoring and control across the home’s systems and devices and ultimately reducing its CO2 emissions.
Distributed resources such as rooftop solar, storage and electric vehicle charging added to the home’s heating and cooling systems, perhaps a swimming pool and growing smart appliances is bringing complexity to the management of the energy consumption.
The Square D Energy Centre is intended to overcome this with load control from the grid to the plug.
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Two modes are offered, critical and normal loads. If an outage is caused by adverse weather, for example, the panel switches to ‘critical load’ mode. At this point, it decides if appliances like the fridge are ‘essential’, then the energy supply is switched to those appliances only.
The Energy Centre also provides monitoring of solar energy usage and tracking against the costs of utility power to optimise energy sourcing to reduce costs. The panel can identify the best time of day to charge an electric vehicle or switch to solar for charging to avoid higher energy rates.
“Our homes are expected to become the single largest greenhouse gas emitters over the next decade,” said Manish Pant, executive vice president, home and distribution division at Schneider Electric.
“As consumers equip their homes with more connected devices, the ability to control and manage home energy consumption will be non-negotiable. A secure, interoperable power management system is key to ensuring consumers live sustainably even at home, by keeping energy cost and CO2 emissions to a minimum.”
Schneider Electric says the Square D Energy Centre embeds seamlessly into properties and the pre-wired panel arrives already assembled for ease of installation. Both the home’s smart meter and smart thermostat can be connected to the panel.
