Eragy Debuts Energy Management Software for Control4 Platform

The Eragy system interface can be via touchpanel, website, mobile device or TV.

Energy management will be a key area of growth for integrators in the coming years. And new affordable energy management software from Durham, N.C.-based Eragy, Inc. was on display in Control4's booth at CEDIA Expo.

Eragy unveiled a suite of applications for Control4 dealers that deliver home energy monitoring, intelligent home energy management and smart home monitoring services.

Manipulating Electrical Devices
The dealer simply needs to upload the Eragy driver (from Control4’s 4Store app marketplace) on to the Control4 controller and select the area of the country in which the job is located. The software immediately provides a real-time graphic display of energy usage in the home (via on-screen display, mobile device, website or touchscreen) for both the homeowner and the integrator. Homeowners can also receive historical usage information. The system will soon offer a “Power Use by Area” filter that can isolate different circuits in the home.

The system automatically alters electrical usage in the home to cut energy bills by as much as 30 percent. In areas of the country where time-of-day and/or demand-usage electrical billing are in place, the software temporarily activates or deactivates lower-priority items, such as hot water heaters and pool pumps, to cut the homeowner’s utility bills. When the peak demand time period is over, the devices are turned back on in reverse order. The software accommodates for sensitive items like air conditioning compressors that cannot be turned on and off frequently without risk of damage.

The Eragy software makes its decisions based on information from sensors in the home and by aggregating the ever-changing rate structure data from the local utility that is housed on the company’s servers.

20% of U.S. Households Affected
According to Mark Komanecky, vice president of sales, about 20 percent of all U.S. households live in areas where utility rates fluctuate based on demand and time of day. “This will become much more prevalent in years to come,” he says. “Meanwhile, the cost of adding energy management and energy monitoring to a dealer’s portfolio of offerings is minimal. It’s a slam dunk.”

That “slam dunk” he describes comes in the form of recurring monthly revenue for the integrator, since dealers must charge clients monthly for access to the rate structure data housed on Eragy’s “cloud” network. Pricing has not yet been established for the product, but Komanecky says it will be “competitive.”

The system will have limited ability to provide status monitoring for other devices in the home. Other applications in the works include:

• Electrical vehicle management and monitoring
• Personal health and fitness monitoring
• Pool and spa monitoring

Eric Smith, chief evangelist for Control4, is high on the system, noting that “innovative apps like these truly enhance the usability and functionality of a Control4 system.”

Craig Heim, general manager for CE Pro 100 company simpleHome, believes the system fits his business model. “Recurring service revenue has become a very important component of our business model," he says. "We are very excited to offer Eragy’s home energy management and monitoring applications as they provide us with very compelling service offerings for both new customers and our existing Control4 clients.”