New South Wales-based energy technology company Solar Analytics is set to roll out a new and improved suite of smart home software and hardware that will help consumers use of their solar, battery storage and hot water systems to maxmise efficiency and slash bills.
The company said on Thursday that it was in the final stages of pilot trials for new software services and is establishing key strategic partnerships with other Australian innovators that should see it launch the new Smart Home Energy offering within the quarter.
The changes will allow customers using Solar Analytics monitoring to plug in a variety of third party components – including battery control and hot water diversion – to create what the company describes as “a smart home energy ecosystem,” delivering more bill savings, including as much as $150 a year on hot water alone.
On the water heating side of the equation, Solar Analytics CEO Stefan Jarnason said the company had consolidated a key partnerships with local company Apricus Hot Water.
The deal with Apricus, he said, was set to yield a new range of smart hot water products designed to reduce energy demand, increase hot water supply and store excess PV energy in a smarter, connected platform.
Another partnership is with solar diverter start-up Catch Power, on a collaborative product that intelligently soaks up excess PV energy as hot water. The companies are finalising testing on the offering that combines the analytics and monitoring power of Solar Analytics with a simpler, even more cost-effective diverter.
“These partnerships are the next step in creating a much bigger and more valuable ecosystem of intelligent energy and cost-saving products that deliver smarter energy solutions,” said Solar Analytics’ business development director Nigel Morris.
“To say I’m excited is a massive understatement – this is truly game-changing innovation, right here in Redfern.”
The new offering from Solar Analytics comes at a time of considerable activity in the home energy management market. Other home-grown outfits like Melbourne-based GreenSync and SunVerge, Canberra-based Reposit Power and Brisbane-based Redback Technologies are all competing in a space that is widely regarded as the final piece of the renewable energy puzzle, getting the best out of technologies like solar and battery storage.
The value of the companies’ smart platforms is being reflected in the amount of investor interest, with big energy industry players like AGL snapping up shares in both Solar Analytics and Sunverge – Sunverge has provided the platform for AGL’s huge solar and storage virtual power plant trial in South Australia; and GreenSync’s monitoring system was selected by AusNet for a first-of-its-kind Melbourne trial that aims to take an entire suburb completely off grid.
ARENA has also recognised the value of the sector, and last week extended its funding support to Solar Analytics with a $2.1 million grant.
Solar Analytics, which is best known for its sophisticated solar monitoring and battery calculation tools, is currently monitoring almost 100 batteries across Australia, with this number growing rapidly alongside consumer demand for battery storage.
The company’s solar battery calculator – developed in Australia by a team of eight energy data scientists – helps customers determine the right time to invest in a battery, and the best battery sizing for their needs, based on their solar production and household energy consumption patterns.
They have also won praise for their combination of sophisticated analytics with an easy to use and engaging dashboard, making potentially complex energy management tasks – like solar self-consumption optimisation and peak demand minimisation – easy.
“Most home energy products are complicated and hard to understand. We have selected the best third party energy products to integrate into our Smart Home Energy offering,” said Jarnason.
“We are currently working with three hardware partners (including WattWatchers and SwitchDin) to provide comprehensive battery control,that is far and above anything offered in the market today. We expect to have our first batteries under control in the next month, and to launch more broadly across the market within the quarter.
“A home using all of these energy saving technologies, coupled with the usable data and valuable insights from Solar Analytics monitoring, will see significant energy reductions and cost savings,” he said.
The company said there are also several other energy-saving product features that are currently in development – being built directly into Solar Analytics monitoring – that will be announced in the next few months.
“Increasing our customers solar savings are at our core, and our incredible data insights will unlock savings potential across the Smart Home Energy spectrum for Solar Analytics customers – simply and regularly,” Jarnason said
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
This post was published on March 31, 2017 12:23 pm
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I wonder can this system direct a heat pump to operate when 'spare' solar pv is available?
Not yet Ian, but stay tuned!
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There is are several products on the UK market that can turn on a heat pump when there is sufficient PV power available, such as the Immersun power diverter.
There appear to be two variants of the PV power diverter. The first (and the Immersun seems to be in this category) uses relatively expensive power electronics to produce a variable output voltage, varying as the available PV power, to suit the fixed resistance of the electric heating element in the hot water tank (in the UK this is called an "immersion heater")
The second type of power diverter uses a little known characteristic of digital power meters where energy used is not recorded until it reaches an amount of 1Wh, after which the meter is incremented and the process repeated for the next one watt-hour used.
The power diverter is simply a microprocessor driving an electronic switch in series with the heater element, together with a current sensor fitted to the cable going to the meter.
The heater element is initially connected to the full mains voltage and draws power until the microprocessor (using the output from the current sensor) senses when the critical one watt-hour use is approaching and then turns it off. At this point any PV energy being produced by a grid connect PV inverter is fed back into the grid, reducing the energy in the watt-hour "bucket" until it is close to zero at which point the heater element is turned back on and the process repeats.
One drawback with this method is this continuous switching of the relatively heavy heater load perhaps once every few seconds which can cause the mains voltage to vary at neighbouring premises. This would cause annoying fluctuations in light from luminaires where incandescent bulbs are fitted, but may not affect modern CFL lamps where some form of electronic internal regulation is usual. Computers would probably not be affected either for the same reason. AC motors, for instance in table fans, would experience slight speed fluctuations which would be audible as a change in pitch.
The first type of diverter does not have this problem as the PV power is fed directly into the heater element and no grid power is used. (Nevertheless at the end of a cloudy day if the water temperature is too cold there is usually provision for the element to be switched to grid power until the water is up to temperature.)
Of course different brands of power meter may have different thresholds for energy recording and power companies may be sensitive to even small but regular fluctuations in the supply to customers so the long term future of the second and cheaper form of power diverter, IMHO, is a little up in the air.
There seems you have a lot to learn about SHW systems! They don't boil as the pressure (900kpa) stops that. Only crap designs use antifreeze. Pumping a little hot tank water through the collector is of no consequence.
Water will still boil at 900 kPa (9 atmospheres) but it boils at 175 C. I would imagine that well insulated (evacuated tube) collectors could get to this temperature as totally uninsulated surfaces get to 100 C. (Anyhow what kind of glass ET can handle 9 atmospheres?) My comment was regarding the added complexity of solar thermal. With PV, if you don't need it you just turn the switch to OFF and on a cold night no further action is required.
The water becomes super heated, but doesn't boil. Collector temps rarely get that high anyway.
At no time are the glass tubes subjected to any pressure or water. I have 9yrs of experience with ET SHW systems, I have one myself and I have been selling them as long too.
Pumping hot water through the collector would only use about 30 watt hours/night. As I said, of no consequence.