The next APP is family?

With the widespread promotion of smart grids, how to balance power demand becomes the key, and home energy management (HEM), as the last link in the chain, also begins to move from concept to practicality.

According to Derek Phillips, director of smart energy marketing at Freescale Semiconductor, for example, in the area of ​​electric water heaters in North America in winter, electricity consumption peaks at 6 or 7 points, and the electricity bill is relatively expensive. By using HEM, electric water heaters can be started before 6:30 pm. Can save electricity. If you are on a hot day, when you come home from work to open air conditioners, you will use peak power. If HEM allows the air conditioner to be turned on earlier, then it can be very cool when it comes to saving electricity at the same time.

Therefore, Derek Phillips is very optimistic about the HEM market: "Actually, smart energy investment has shifted from grid infrastructure investment to home facility investment. Following the high growth of AMI meter installation, the HEM market is also poised to take off. According to statistics, In 2016, shipments of HEM units will exceed 45 million units.”

Talking about the mode of operation, Derek Phillips explained that home energy management connects the corresponding electrical equipment, small generators, smart meters, thermostats, HEM hubs, or HEM-enabled Wi-Fi routers, etc., as control centers, smartphones or tablets. The computer can be used as the HEM user interface to transmit data to the cloud through Wi-Fi, and then control the corresponding devices in the HEM through the cloud.

The HEM appears to be within easy reach, but Derek Phillips also admitted that the current HEM market is not so driven. Although power plants at the business level want to use HEM to balance the supply of electricity at high and low peaks, they still need regulatory assistance and services. Provider's support, because it may save how much electricity does not drive consumers to pay, it needs to provide new high-value-added applications such as security, intelligence, etc., let the next APP (app store) become a family. And different regions have different requirements and spending habits, and therefore need to be customized for different needs.

“From a standard point of view, on the one hand, due to different application conditions and market demands in different regions, on the other hand Wi-Fi standards have been changing, but PLC has not changed, so these standards may coexist.” Derek Phillips mentioned .