Smarter breakers, safer home: The hidden technology within your energy-abundant house

An electric vehicle (EV) charges in the garage while the coffeemaker hums to life. As the sun rises, solar panels generate energy for the house and return excess energy to the grid. Throughout the day, smart thermostats adjust automatically, and batteries store unused energy.

“If you own a home, you might not think about energy until something goes wrong. But as our homes become more electrified, we’re paying closer attention to how they get powered and where the energy comes from,” said Henrik Mannesson, general manager of energy infrastructure at TI.

A home might be the biggest investment you’ll make in your lifetime. They are also becoming central energy hubs for technologies you use every day.

“As many of us invest in EVs, solar panels or battery energy storage systems, we’re energizing our homes,” said Brandon Kanter, systems manager for monitoring and protection at TI. “On top of that, there are now more fault protection requirements – such as safety standards like UL1699 – to help prevent fires, lower energy usage, and guard homes.”

But what does all of this really mean for homeowners?

Maintaining safety as energy usage grows

As we add applications that require high energy loads into our home, we want to feel confident that our family and belongings will still be safe. Intelligent protection systems can identify potentially dangerous conditions early and help stop an arc fault, which can cause fires. These arc faults are unintended electrical discharges that can happen when something, such as a wire or connector degrades.

Arc faults cause $1.4 billion in property damage annually – but not all arcs are dangerous. So modern home energy systems must distinguish between normal electrical current behavior and dangerous conditions in real time.

Safety devices such as arc fault and ground fault circuit breakers aren’t new. But as modern homes become smarter, more energized, and the number of high-voltage electrical devices in our homes increases, breakers must incorporate smart features too.

“Accurate arc fault detection requires complex intelligence, which can be achieved with edge-AI enabled microcontrollers,” said Evan Lew, marketing manager for MSP microcontrollers at TI. “Our microcontrollers are cost-effective and small and add the necessary computing and performance for accurate detection.”

Improving everyday convenience

Has your hair dryer ever suddenly shut off due to a false trip, bathing your home in darkness while you’re still getting ready? Products with brushed motors, such as hair dryers or vacuums, can generate arcs. A traditional circuit breaker may detect that electrical behavior and create a false trip, cutting all power in the name of safety.

“Edge AI models can identify those arc types and help reduce the number of false trips,” Evan said. “Convenience comes from having a more reliable system.”

Smart connected breakers can also make a tripped breaker easier to manage. Instead of searching your garage for an electrical panel, you could reset a breaker from your phone or get a notification if your fridge’s breaker trips before your food spoils.

The convenience the energized home delivers doesn’t stop there. Smart circuit breakers, smart meters and connected appliances can communicate and coordinate with each other to complete tasks such as running the dishwasher automatically when energy costs are low to save you money.

Managing energy intelligently in a connected home

If you have an EV, you want to charge it when energy rates are low. How do you understand where exactly you’re spending energy and where to optimize?

Semiconductor technologies are the key to providing data that empowers us to make smarter consumption decisions. Load monitoring and control devices can help identify the optimal time for charging your EV, and load-management devices can turn non-critical appliances off if no one is home.

High-precision analog technology extract valuable data from a smart meter’s or breaker’s signal. Then, edge artificial intelligence processing can process that data and identify any anomalies such as faults or failing equipment. Or it can explore whether consumption is higher than usual in a certain part of the house and collect the data for your use.

“If you have an energy storage system or portable battery pack, you can even put your house in low power mode during a power outage, turn off some appliances and extend the battery’s life with intelligent load monitoring,” said Brandon.

What’s next for the energized home?

In the next five years, solar energy will account for 80% of global renewable energy growth.

But our expectations won’t change. We still want our families to feel safe at home. We want the lights to turn on, the car to charge, and the systems behind the walls to work without a second thought.

As we put more appliances into our homes, circuit breakers, smart meters and other intelligent technologies will be the driving force behind keeping our energy consumption smart and our lives safe and convenient.

“Imagine if one app on your phone could visualize and manage all your usage and overall consumption,” Brandon said. “That’s becoming a reality. In the next several years, energy data will go downstream to homeowners instead of just upstream to utilities. But regardless of where the intelligence sits, TI will have the technology to enable it.”