LIT 2: foresee™

Residential buildings generally lack sensors and building automation systems, which leaves operating decisions up to individual appliances' controllers and to homeowner discretion. Because homes are the largest segment of electricity use and dominate peak load, the opportunity for energy savings and cost reduction are significant—and is increasingly possible due to the rapid adoption of connected "smart" appliances. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has developed foresee™, software that automates connected residential devices to deliver these and other benefits, customized for every home. Lab experiments have shown that over 20% utility cost savings can be achieved, and firm, reliable demand response service delivered in a homeowner-friendly way.

Market Needs

Homeowners lack a tool to simply and uniformly manage connected devices in their homes. Today, they are instead forced to use individual appliance/manufacturer apps, and/or program rules themselves. foresee™ helps by coordinating across communication protocols to seamlessly integrate many devices and automate how they run. It prioritizes that operation based on homeowner goals and values, such as saving money, improving air comfort, increasing hot water service, conveniently operating schedulable appliances, and reducing environmental footprint. Finally, foresee™ enables higher PV penetrations vs. utility practice today.

Value Proposition

foresee™ simplifies operation of a smart home and delivers outcomes based on homeowner-provided preferences and incentives from third parties like utilities. This results in at least 10% utility cost savings (typically $200+/year saved) and a payback time less than 3 years. It also can deliver several kW demand response reliably from a home, depending on the equipment and weather.

Benefited Parties

Homeowners will be able to get more benefit from connected products than any one product or manufacturer can do on its own, in line with their values and goals.

Utilities will achieve higher DR participation, knowing that there is low risk of customer dissatisfaction.

Builders will have a strong selling feature and reduce utility challenges to high-penetration rooftop solar installations.

Outcome

NREL is finalizing our initial R&D effort, and discussing field trials and commercialization strategy. Several companies have expressed strong interest in licensing foresee™.