If you've got solar panels and a battery, you might want to draw some power from the grid at times and be completely self-reliant at other times. What if you could switch easily in an app? That's the idea behind new features the energy tech company Savant introduced at CES 2024.
Savant is one of a growing number of companies promising consumers more control over their home's energy use, and it does so by using sensors and controllers built into smart modules inserted into your home's existing circuit breaker. Those connect to an app, which allows you to see where your energy is going and turn circuits off and on from anywhere.
At CES in Las Vegas, I saw Ian Roberts, Savant's vice president of market development for power, use an app to remotely monitor the energy system the company installed in New York. It showed how much of the system's energy was coming from solar panels, from the battery and from the grid. It also showed how much each appliance was using.
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What's new at CES is that Savant has created customizable settings that allow you to change how your home runs at a moment's notice.
Called "modes" and "scenes," these settings let you identify common configurations of what you want on and what you want off all at once. You can also determine where your energy system should be drawing power.
The modes include a default called "eco mode," which will optimize the use of energy from your solar panels. You can also take it completely off grid, selecting a mode that uses only solar panel and battery power.
Another mode, called "storm watch," will ensure your battery is fully charged in advance of a coming storm. You can also set it to power outage mode, which will reduce your system to just the bare essentials to support longer battery life.
As for scenes, these can be set up by an installer and then customized later. You can create a scene that cuts off all but the basics you would want running while you're at work, ensuring no other circuits are wasting energy. Or you can have one with just your essential circuits for winter, and another with summer essentials.
Catch all our favorite new tech from CES 2024.