Toronto – This new partnership will combine the benefits of Blue Line’s meter agnostic sensor and PowerWatch’s communication agnostic Home Energy Management System.No matter the meter or AMI – PowerWatch & Blue Line have a way to work with any utility or customer utilizing a modular communication interface (MCI) specification developed by the USNAP Alliance and EPRI. This specification enables any product to connect to any type of demand response system, such as AMI, SEP, Open ADR, and/or home or building network utilizing ZigBee, WI-FI, Z-Wave, ClimateTalk, LonWorks, HomePlug, etc.
“Blue Line’s meter optical sensor is agnostic, said Stodulski.” “Whether a new AMI, Smart Meter or traditional analog meter, Blue Line’s optical sensors will fit on almost any electricity meter. Why is this so important? It allows our already communication agnostic PowerWatch to reach any consumer. PowerWatch, with Blue Line’s sensor, enables easy mass uptake & deployment for utilities.”
Whichever connection method is used, the PowerWatch/Blue Line energy gateway solution offers customer feedback & control through a wireless connection with an attractive Android tablet which acts as the in-home display, or “IHD”. This is where the end-user receives extremely valuable information such as up-to-moment energy usage, estimated end of month bill, historical energy usage, & energy budget tracking.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with PowerWatch, said Porteous. It’s an exciting time for this relatively young energy conservation space. We have a lot of experience working with +125 utilities and +200,000 homeowners & there are a couple of real certainties – better information leads to better decisions in the home which leads to energy usage reductions; families engaged in energy conservation are hungry for more robust solutions. The PowerWatch solution really hits the mark & helps a family grow to a truly “smart” connected home”.
This energy user-interface is also available on Web-connected computers & smart phones. The energy gateway also controls appliances in the home, either directly to the appliance or via a “load control module” which sits in front of the appliance cutting power when desired by the consumer, either automated, manually or occasional “demand response” calls from the utility when the grid is stressed. The PowerWatch/Blue Line package does all of this wirelessly, without ever requiring the utility to “roll the trucks”.
To learn more, please visit www.powerwatch.com