Homes need a lot more digital smarts nowadays to manage rooftop solar, backup batteries and electric vehicle chargers. It’s nice if those distributed energy resources (DERs) can be integrated with household electrical load controls via smartphone or Alexa or Google voice-activated devices.
Then there’s the need to optimize these DERs and loads against utility time-of-use rates, net-metering tariffs and EV charging rate structures. And in worst-case scenarios, homeowners want to keep critical loads powered via battery or backup generator during outages that can last for hours or days at a time.
This mix of future-forward list of home energy control capabilities is increasingly in demand in markets including California, the epicenter of both DER deployment and wildfire-prevention grid outages. And while mass-market home electrical equipment tends to be optimized for low cost and reliability, both startups and global vendors alike are starting to see an opportunity to upsell contractors and homeowners on integrated systems that can take on all of these tasks at once.