Clipsal Cortex Home Energy Management System

Energy in the home is complex and becoming harder for homeowners to manage whilst they introduce more DER into their home as they embark on their electrification journey. DER can include Solar PV, Batteries, Hot Water, Air Conditioners and Electric Vehicle Chargers. This creates a challenge for homeowners to not only be able to extract the most value out of these assets, but also how to control these devices intelligently; often requiring multiple user interfaces resulting in a poor user experience with no interoperability. The resultant is an unmanaged, non-optimal home with sometimes unintended higher electricity bills...

This comprised of the development of the Clipsal Cortex HEMS. An agnostic platform involving software, hardware and a mobile application designed to help homeowners minimise their energy costs, have one consolidated user experience, take back control of their home and reduce the cognitive burden. The Clipsal Cortex HEMS controller is installed on site and communicates with DER via open protocols and interfaces to the Clipsal Cortex cloud based optimisation engine. Inputs from Utilities & Electricity retailers for grid requirements like export limits and market price signals are fed into the optimisation respectively. The outcome being an optimised, cost efficient home.

The Clipsal Cortex HEMS has the following positive impacts: 1. A homeowner can save up to $700 on their electricity bill in the first year. They feel confident and in control as they transition to a fully electric home. Furthermore, they can gain a better insight to the energy use in their home via a consolidated user experience. 2. With integrations with utilities via IEEE 2030.5 and Electricity Retailers via API’s, a more reliable and resilient grid can be ensured as higher penetrations of renewable energy, electric vehicles added to the network which keeping energy prices down into the future.