BMW’s smart energy home pilot will include smart thermostats provided by Tendril, a solar panel installation, home appliances, residential lighting and other smart devices. All of these will be centrally managed by Tendril's cloud-based energy management platform, Tendril Connect, and made accessible via Tendril Energize, Tendril's suite of applications including a home energy management web portal. The smart home project will also integrate a battery charging station to help manage the intermittent energy produced by the solar panel and to mitigate the home’s impact during periods of peak electricity demand.
Tendril aims to connect various groups with its software and platform--utilities, their customers, device manufacturers and application builders looking to connect devices to the grid. "The idea is that with greater visibility, improved communication and greater control of devices, the grid can become dramatically more efficient," says CEO Adrian Tuck. "So, for example, what I want out of my fridge is cold food and ice. The fridge can make ice at 3am instead of 3pm and, provided I still get my ice, I benefit because I can get cheaper energy at off-peak times. And as a planet we benefit by being able to tap into things like wind energy at night."
The company has a similar approach when it comes to integrating electric vehicles into the home. An electric car, when it’s plugged in and charging, consumes about the same amount of energy as a home with its air conditioning running. No one is predicting that everyone will buy electric vehicles, but if that were to happen, the impact on the grid would be catastrophic. Even if EV purchasing happens in the manner most analysts are predicting--roughly following Prius ownership patterns--the clustering of EV owners in distinct areas could cause problems for the grid, particularly in places where the grid is already struggling to meet demand (like California, where EVs are almost certain to be popular).
To enable broad adoption of EVs without major interruption to energy use patterns, Tendril aims to connect vehicles to the rest of the devices in one's home, and network all devices to better manage energy. Consumers will start by setting a series of parameters: their mandatory safe distance (the number of miles they will always need their car to be able to drive, e.g. the distance to the nearest ER), when they typically use the car and the average distance they drive (e.g. I need the car by 6am to drive 20 miles to work), and their energy preferences (e.g. I want the cleanest energy available). After setting those parameters once, consumers can let Tendril do the rest.
"We'll already know from their home thermostat what their preferred temperature is, and just by orchestrating the load between those two things--the car and the air conditioning--we can manage the energy demands in that home in order to make sure that we don’t hit peak," Tuck explains.
Tuck adds that most utilities have agreed to give EV owners with a smart home system such as Tendril's, that will keep them from running the air conditioning and charging their car at the same time, and thus avoid overly taxing the grid, discounted rates on EV charging.
The system also links the car and the AC to the rest of the devices in the house. So if there's a solar panel on the roof and it's sunny out, the EV can charge faster. And if the washing machine needs to do a spin cycle, it can cue the EV to stop charging for awhile.
Eventually, this sort of technology will also enable EVs to live up to their potential as mobile energy storage devices, although Tuck cautions that this sort of capability is a good five years out. "Energy is a famously non-storable asset," he says. "And it could eventually be possible during moments of peak consumption to, instead of pulling energy off the grid, pull it off the car."
That's not happening yet largely because battery life is one of the primary concerns of first-generation EV owners and automakers don't want to push their luck just yet. "The EV guys are not yet interested in having additional load and discharge cycles on their batteries in order to support the grid because they're worried it could have a negative impact on battery life and then no one will remember that it was the grid's fault and will instead have negative ideas around the car," Tuck says.
Tuck says the company has several partnerships in the works that it plans to announce over the coming months. In some cases, Tendril software will enable capabilities that will command a price premium, but in others Tuck says enough benefits accrue to the manufacturers that they're willing to absorb the additional cost. A fridge that automatically orders new filters for its water dispenser, for example, bolsters the company's filter business enough that it might spare its customers the additional cost. An oven that you can scan a recipe too, however (and according to Tuck this is soon to be a reality), provides a value-add that some consumers are willing to pay for.
It's all part of a promising new trend to make home energy monitoring sexy. A networked, smart home doesn't just save on energy costs, it can also make life more convenient ... and infinitely cooler.
