Smart solar PV system
While Poland and the whole of Europe are facing the energy crisis, it has become extremely important to use electricity reasonably and efficiently. A handpicked home automation system ensures the safety and optimal consumption of electricity produced by a PV installation. Proper and effective functioning of PV panels is possible only if the system is monitored and individual processes are controllable.
What is home automation?
Home automation integrates all devices in one system. This allows them to interact with each other. Automation of processes saves your time, improves safety and comfort of life and reduces consumption of energy from the grid:
- It can decide when it is worth waiting for energy from the PV system, and when to draw energy from the power grid.
- It allows you to prioritize devices. If there is insufficient energy, only the most important devices will turn on.
- It can determine if and how the electricity produced can be used.
- It can determine when to turn on a device to make it profitable.
- It can schedule devices to run at certain times to ensure optimal use of electricity.
- It monitors the amount of energy produced and consumed, so the user knows how much energy has been taken from the power grid.
Why is it worth implementing an automation system that optimizes the use of energy produced?
Photovoltaic systems usually produce the largest amount of energy at a time when the demand is lower than the supply. Producing your own electricity is profitable when it is used at the moment it is generated or banked for later use. This means that during peak production hours, i.e. when the sun is shining, free energy should be used efficiently by various devices. Unfortunately, that is when most of us are away from home. Peak energy use comes in the morning and evening when we cook, take a shower or do laundry.
Feeding excess power back to the utility grid and then pulling it from the grid is no longer so profitable. For this reason, the surplus energy produced must be intelligently managed. A home automation system that is designed and executed well ensures you get the most value from the energy generated by your PV system.
A suitable home automation system enabling full integration of the inverter and energy storage of home devices makes their work automatic depending on the current surplus of solar energy and load. This fully exploits the potential of a photovoltaic system and achieves highest cost-efficiency.
If the system produces more energy than is currently consumed, additional devices are turned on automatically. The device with the highest priority is turned on first, and if there is still enough surplus energy, the system turns on the next one. This is how you can heat water in a boiler or charge an electric car for free. If the energy produced is not needed, the battery is charged and used in the evening. The result of cooperation of all these systems is a building that is self-sufficient even on a cloudy day or at night. This means that you will need to buy energy from the grid only when it is absolutely necessary.
With many years’ experience built up over several prestigious investments like villas in Switzerland and in Malta or a 17th-century manor and farm complex near Warsaw, we are able to design a home automation system that will optimize the use of solar panel output. See for yourself!
BLACK IN Team