Amber Solutions announced the Power Traffic Control Module to provide efficiency and stability to the building’s electrical grid. Utilizing smart solid state technology, Amber’s solution will ensure smart selection of renewable energy source, and improve efficiency. In an interview with EEWeb, Thar Casey, CEO of Amber Solutions, explained how the new solution will enable rapid switching of electricity sources in buildings to maintain energy efficiency while saving money. Casey said the compact device will be installed next to the switch box to allow for easy integration. The device will provide data processing while improving costs and power stability, depending on peak hours and load. “The Amber powertrain control unit enables bidirectional current regulation to manage multiple simultaneous input sources,” he said. “The intelligent cloud-integrated data controller evaluates the best power source based on available data from each source, such as the current cost of network energy and the demand for current use.” Smart management For more than a century, electricity has been mainly produced by large power plants through the use of fossil fuels, nuclear power or hydropower, which are responsible for 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions. These power stations continuously distribute massive amounts of energy to users, keeping central control and a constant flow. Energy consumption worldwide is steadily increasing, with a strong demand for alternative ways of supplying energy through new energy sources such as solar, wind energy and even forms of electrical storage. Awareness of environmental protection has increased, bringing governments and citizens closer to renewable energies, such as solar energy, to power buildings, and thus increasing the installation of photovoltaic systems, which have an inherently variable output. The explosive growth in renewable energy sources requires that electricity grids adopt digital communication technologies that can provide the necessary flexibility to users and utilities. Saving money is a big draw for alternative forms of energy. The interaction between different energy sources enables consumers to manage different periods of peak demand, and at the same time, to resell energy at low load situations. This interaction between these different energy sources and the home is critical to managing energy demand and use at the micro and macro levels. At the micro level, the consumer will use alternative forms of energy to power his home. On the macro level, the consumer will use alternative forms of energy to power the grid in the smart grid vision. Today’s power grids need to be flexible enough to accommodate any peak in renewable energy generation (for example, in midsummer), while at the same time ensuring that the electricity system does not collapse completely in the shorter generation times. The alternative is to use the capacity of the existing network in a more efficient and smart way. With this new approach to the electricity grid, new methods of managing, controlling and protecting it can be introduced to ensure better ability to integrate large quantities of electricity, improve the level of safety and reliability of the entire system and implement load control measures and the active participation of end customers. “In the near future, solid state electrification with built-in intelligence will enable building owners to seamlessly and intelligently control electrical power supply, efficiency and affordability decisions, which were previously out of their hands, and only at the macro grid level with utilities,” Casey said. This leveraging and innovation takes place at the small grid level, the impact and the value will be felt across the total grid landscape. As this new autonomous control of micro grid in buildings, smart building network becomes more widespread, it will have a cumulative effect upstream on the overall utility network, making Allows greater stability and energy efficiency across the wider electrical landscape. ”Figure 1: The smart home with everything connected to the Amber Solutions powertrain controller: The expansion of distributed generation from renewable sources and the proliferation of new facilities, even in homes, has resulted in A radical change in energy distribution. The synchronization of energy sources enables the use of several energy sources simultaneously. Figure 2: Amber Solutions Power Traffic Control Module The power grid is no longer just a conduit for the transmission and distribution of electricity from large power plants to end customers but has become a “smart grid”. The smart grid is a smart grid that is able to accommodate two-way energy flows, allowing producers and consumers to interact, determine consumption requirements in advance, and flexibly adapt to the production and consumption of electricity. The grid is able to communicate by exchanging information about power flows, managing peak demand more efficiently, avoiding power outages, and reducing load when necessary. Amber Solutions’ power traffic controller can extract a percentage of its energy from solar, battery and grid, defining a dynamic decision-making process that recognizes the quality of energy coming from these various sources. The controller weighs all sources, and automatically recognizes the optimum ratio that should be pulled in to support the building’s demand. Casey said the new device, along with a full suite of devices offered by Amber, allows buildings to be automated and optimized directly from the network. The combination of sensors and IoT functionality will make the building smarter by providing independent decision making and control. “Amber’s power motion controller will intelligently and automatically switch or combine power from solar, wind, home batteries, liquid fuel generators and grid sources – all on the go – to achieve optimum efficiency and cost,” he said. “Whether retrofitted to existing buildings or installed in new buildings, the Amber console will sit alongside the existing circuit breaker board, but at a fraction of the size of that panel. Additionally, when complemented with Amber powered outlets and switches throughout Across the building, it provides complete energy awareness and insights. It is a design example of how Amber’s breakthrough changes the intelligence embedded in building electrical grids and thereby transforms the value that this infrastructure provides. ” The sudden increase in demand puts tremendous pressure on the network, especially at certain times of the day. Amber Solutions Energy Traffic Controller can significantly mitigate these peaks by aggregating various data, thus directing the network towards better resolution. Casey explained that this built-in dynamic machine learning intelligence is analogous to how the autonomous vehicle concept works. Each vehicle is able to assess the road around it but also understand what the other vehicles intend to do before doing so. The speed at which information is processed and handled is almost instantaneous and almost imperceptible to the person in the vehicle. On the same level, through a proactive understanding of demand and recognition of energy sources at the building level, other buildings on the same grid will be able to understand and interact accordingly. This digital awareness will reduce fluctuations in peak demand as well as energy quality in an increasingly green future where energy efficiency and reducing polluting vehicles will be important. .
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