Paris, France- Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, is launching a new Artificial Intelligence feature within its Wiser Home app to help homeowners further optimize their energy usage and consumption. The new feature of energy consumption optimization for key appliances, such as EV chargers and water heaters, can lead to savings of between €100 and €500 annually. This is a major step towards developing smart home technology that caters to both solar and non-solar homes.
First in Energy Management Market
The Schneider Electric Wiser Home app is already an advanced energy management solution, given that it allows users to monitor and act on their home energy consumption. The new AI-powered feature goes one step further to automatically optimize energy consumption. It learns user habits, weather data, energy tariffs, and solar energy production through predictive algorithms, allowing dynamic energy management with regard to household needs and energy availability.
The AI feature is designed to handle most of the highly energy-intensive home appliances, like EV chargers and water heaters. While these loads used to be manually managed-through active adjustments and scheduling-Schneider’s AI-powered system automatically and efficiently handles the process to help users get the best use out of their energy, while minimizing the costs. In annual savings, Schneider Electric lab tests show that with the Wiser Home app and solar panels, a homeowner can save between €400 to €500 per year, while up to €100-150 for a home without panels. These savings are based on French market data, so they can vary depending on the local energy providers and tariffs.
Intelligent Energy Scheduling with AI
One exciting thing about the new AI system is that it projects and timetables energy usage for maximum savings. For example, the AI system will know at what time an EV or heat water should be charged. This will be determined based on several variables: real-time energy tariff, the prevailing weather conditions, solar energy production, among others. This capability is quite important for any market if dynamic energy tariffs continue fluctuating during the day.
The AI capability adapts in real time with the weather and solar production forecast to optimize when energy should be used in homes using solar. It maximizes at the use of solar energy in the household while minimizing drawn energy from the grid at peak pricing hours. It can also learn the daily routines of the homeowner to predict the best times to do the most energy-intensive tasks, thus aligning energy use with daily needs.
Besides automatic scheduling, customers can at any time manually override the AI system on depending situations that are peculiar to a person, like vacations or meeting energy appetites. That, in essence, provides sumptuous flexibility in approach since homeowners are still in a place of control with their energy consumption, yet receiving AI-optimized recommendations.
Meeting the Growing Complexity of Home Energy Systems
The introduction of AI in managing home energy is timely. Buildings account for 37% of the global CO2 consumption, and homes represent a full 20% of that figure. With electrification and renewable energy solutions like solar panels and EV chargers becoming more prevalent, the systems of home energy are growing increasingly complicated. Where once homeowners in single-family residences had to think about single energy loads, they must now sort through complex energy tariff fluctuations and variable weather conditions that greatly complicate how energy is used efficiently.
This new AI feature from Schneider Electric sanctions the disentanglement of this process from numerous monitoring and manual adjustments. Efficient energy management automation will benefit homeowners with a reduction in their impact on the environment while saving money without compromising their comfort and convenience. The system was purposely designed to serve as an easy-to-use solution, totally integrated to work with the existing functionality of the Wiser Home app, where energy usage could be optimized with the least amount of effort.
Supporting sustainable energy practices
This AI innovation lies within Schneider Electric’s broader commitment to sustainability. With the cost of energy gradually shooting up, and the devastating effects of climate change clearly felt across the globe, there is a growing concern among homeowners on the need for tools that will aid them in reducing their power consumption and consequently their carbon footprint. Integrating AI within the Wiser Home app platform, Schneider Electric has enabled the homeowner to better act on managing energy uses and promoting sustainable behaviors in this process.
The AI system also encourages the use of renewable energy and electrification, which are trends currently happening worldwide. As more and more households begin to install solar panels and use EVs, the need for energy optimization will continue to increase. Schneider Electric’s AI solution has been designed to support householders in this new energy world and ensure that they can maximize the benefits of their renewable energy systems while minimizing costs.
Future Developments and Availability
This AI feature is live today for users of the Wiser Home app in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and Austria and requires the following hardware: Wiser Hub, Schneider Electric PowerTag sensors, an EV charger, and a water heater controller. Keen on innovation until recently, Schneider Electric says it is also ready to help launch further updates that would go to greater and greater lengths in expanding the technology’s capacity to save people with remarkable energy needs.
With this new AI-driven feature around energy management, Schneider Electric continues to be at the forefront of smart home technologies, providing practical solutions for homeowners to reduce their energy costs and make their homes more sustainable.
Conclusion
The fact that Schneider Electric has introduced an AI capability in the Wiser Home app represents a giant stride in the home energy management. It will automatically optimize the energy consumed by EV chargers and water heaters to let homeowners save energy and reduce their electricity bills and carbon footprints. As home energy systems become increasingly complex, the AI-powered solution offers a user-friendly way for consumers to manage energy loads and adjust for dynamic tariffs, solar production, and weather events. It is already available in several European markets and is set to play a central part in the future of sustainable home energy management.
Source: Schneider Electric