Control Matters

“Power is nothing without control” – Pirelli ad campaign 1994

As true for energy use as for a tyre advertising campaign. We at energiebee can help your home or business monitor your energy use at a granular and global level but what comes next?

Once you know exactly how much energy you are using and where, the next stage is to change your behaviour in order save energy and/or money. This can be achieved in a lot of different ways and some require no specialist equipment at all. For example, you could start running processes overnight when electricity prices are lower to save money. You can start identifying wasted energy in standby modes or see how different pieces of equipment that do similar jobs compare in terms of energy expenditure.

All of this is good stuff and requires only a little of your attention but as we go deeper into the subject then more and more of your time will end up being used to save smaller and smaller amounts of energy.

This is where automation can help, you can set timers for heating and HVAC systems, thermostats to avoid over-heating or cooling. You may have solar and a battery already installed and some devices can help you trade energy using platforms such as Octopus Energy’s Agile. Again, you can add more and more devices chasing smaller and smaller savings on energy and bills. The cost of these products really adds up.

energiebee take a more holistic and less hand-on (for you) approach. With the energiebee device, companion products and online service, we make recommendations and decisions about your energy usage automatically. We take into account, market fluctuations in prices, forecast sunlight, temperature, wind strength and direction, your daily, weekly, monthly and annual routines (learnt and built up from installation). We can retrofit and integrate with all existing inverters and batteries.

To take an example of a house with solar and house batteries installed in a good scenario:

• Tomorrow is going to be a bright and sunny day, with little need for heating or AC.
• Your batteries are currently full.
• Your routine for tomorrow would leave you with excess energy during the day.

 

energiebee will act in preparation for tomorrow’s conditions, it will make sure the water in the hot water tank is hot, it will make sure your EV is charged, it will recommend you run your washing machine or dishwasher the following day and if there’s any spare capacity in your house battery will save only what’s needed before the sun starts to shine on your panels and sell the excess to the grid.

Taking an example of the same house in a different scenario:

• Tomorrow is going to be cold and overcast.
• Your batteries are flat at the end of today.
• Your routine tomorrow will use more than you can generate.

 

energiebee will act differently. It will heat the water to a necessary minimum, recommend you run your washing machine and dishwasher overnight and still make sure your EV is charged even if it needs to buy electricity from the grid in order to make best use of the lower rates. It will also fill your battery overnight to shift the energy bought at low rates to use while higher rates are in operation.

All of that runs in real-time 24/7 to make the absolute best of you self-generated energy and grid purchased energy.