Watteco launches enPowerMe software (2010/05/26)

enPowerMe™ Software Monitor Energy Usage of Any Major Appliance, Can Be Used in Wide Range of Smart Metering, In-Home Gateway and Display Applications

Paris, France, May 26, 2010 - Watteco, a leading System on Chip (SoC) manufacturer of Ultra Low Power Line Communication (PLC) for energy efficiency and intelligent home control applications, today announced the world's first software solution that enables users to monitor the energy usage of a home's water heaters, HVAC systems and other major appliances, using a non-intrusive energy-analysis algorithm. The software requires only a single hardware connection at the smart meter or breaker box to provide access to information of a home's major electrical loads.

According to international research firm Parks Associates, over 80 percent of U.S. consumers are interested in learning about how to cut their energy costs, 50% of U.S. households are very interested in an energy-monitoring device, and 80-85% of households are willing to pay $80-$100 for cost-saving equipment if they are guaranteed to save 10-30% off their monthly electricity bill.

"Energy applications are popular now because of the need for cost savings, but in the end, all home systems will need to be interconnected," said Bill Ablondi, director, home systems research, Parks Associates. "By embedding their technologies into energy-related appliances and systems, controls and monitoring companies can get a foothold in the home and start to build traction on a mass scale with consumers."

"Watteco's enPowerMe software enables OEMs to build energy-monitoring solutions that make it easy to give consumers information and alerts about energy costs and savings opportunities," said Didier Boivin, CEO at Watteco. "enPowerMe provides visibility into the energy usage of individual appliances that, in aggregate, represent 80 percent of a home's typical power consumption, and which now can be monitored by providing users with disaggregated data for per-appliance energy-consumption analysis," Boivin added. "OEMs can use it to build solutions to make it significantly easier for consumers to understand the importance of energy monitoring, and to actively participate in reducing their household energy consumption."

EnPowerMe software is ideal for smart meters, home displays and home area networks (HANs). It is the only solution that uses active, rather than both active and reactive, power measurement, which reduces costs. It combines a robust inference engine with statistical time analysis and a probability index that was created from the energy-usage profiles of an exhaustive list of thousands of appliances. The profiles were generated over the course of five years real-life residential surveys. It can be used to generate information at the meter or in a home display about cost and savings opportunities which can be used to trigger early warning alerts. It also can also fuel HAN gateway systems in command-and-control applications with activity index monitoring.