Performance Evaluation of Advanced HEMS

The proposed project is a laboratory evaluation of advanced home energy management systems (HEMS) that will quantify the electrical efficiency associated with advanced distributed energy resource (DER) management features and assess claims of interoperability across a range of communication protocols. These systems provide one or more of the following features: home energy and demand management; grid services such as event- or price-based load shifting and demand response; interoperability with other home appliances and appliance-specific controls; integration and consolidated management of DERs such as solar photovoltaics (PV) and battery energy storage (BES); and bi-directional, electric vehicle (EV) charging; all-of-which combine to deliver improved residential energy efficiency, load flexibility, and GHG reductions. In addition, these new systems can make homes more resilient during grid outages by automatically switching loads to local battery storage when the grid is unavailable. Advanced HEMS are currently under development by multiple companies and certain companies are marketing the technology today. Currently available technology is in prototype form and in need of independent testing to validate performance and quantify benefits.  The predominant metrics will include electrical efficiency (%), annual energy saved (kw-Hr), peak load reduction (kW), GHG reductions (focused on SGIP signal), and an estimate enabled load flexibility. Outcomes will also include recommendations for improving the technology to better ensure commercial products provide significant benefits that will justify utility program support and increase market adoption across California.