Intelligent Energy Storage: The Smart Home Brain
Intelligent energy storage is the key component that links smart home systems and devices to optimize their value and efficiency.
Smart homes consist of internet of things (IoT)-enabled technologies that are meant to improve homeowners’ quality of life through increased convenience and cost-efficiencies. They do this by sending and receiving data to enable homeowners to monitor and automate their smart devices’ functions. General examples include smart lighting, smart heating and cooling, and smart security systems to name a few.
The problem is that nearly all smart home technologies are manufactured and sold by disparate companies and can't communicate with one another outside their specific functions. In addition, device security has become a major concern. This means you need separate apps, passwords, and protocols to control your smart lighting, HVAC, and security systems all at once. The unfortunate result is that a typical "smart" home is merely a regular home filled with smart tech gadgets and a weak set of security measures. This undercuts smart homes' mass appeal as well as their ability to optimize homeowners' quality of life on a large scale.
Intelligent energy storage as a hub for smart home technology
You can think of basic energy storage technology as a battery attached to your home's electric system. It stores energy from either the grid or renewables, and then uses that electricity when it makes the most sense, such as when electricity rates are higher throughout the day, when there's little sun or wind to generate renewable energy, or during power outages.
The difference of an intelligent energy storage system is that it can also integrate a home's dissimilar smart technologies so you can monitor and control them from a single display. In addition, it can use machine learning and complex algorithms to predict exactly how much electricity you need and the best time to use it to optimize your energy costs. Finally, it can automate your entire smart home to fit your lifestyle, making your smart home respond organically to your needs according to your lifestyle.
The economic benefits of smart homes enabled by intelligent energy storage
There is already a bright economic outlook for smart homes enabled by intelligent energy storage. Investment magazine Motley Fool recently published an article that predicts home energy storage, when used as a centralized hub to automate smart homes, could be the key to the success of the smart home industry. This would be no small feat, as the global smart home market exceeded $24 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $53 billion by 2022.
There is also substantial demand in the marketplace for automated intelligent energy storage systems for smart homes. In fact, Accenture's New Energy Consumer research report from 2017 indicated that 75 percent of consumers are interested in home energy management systems and many are willing to pay for it.
The major drawback of current smart home technologies is that they're segregated by technological constraints. Intelligent energy storage is a solution that optimizes your home's cost efficiencies and conveniences by integrating your otherwise disparate smart home systems. This way, you can integrate your smart home technologies to create the true home of the future.