Smarter breakers, safer home: Intelligent electrification of smart home electrical systems.

One of the most dangerous events is the arc fault, which causes $1.4 billion in property damage, annually. Early arc detection relied upon breakers tripping when a fault occurred. While effective, breakers did not ensure 100% reliability. But today, conditions that cause an arc to occur are much more varied than before, and not all of them create dangerous conditions. A significant benefit of intelligent systems is their capacity to differentiate between genuine arc faults and transient ones triggered by the inductive kick of a large appliance or circuit, or a power surge resulting from multiple devices simultaneously consuming electricity.

Additionally, there are high-current devices and conditions such as EV charging stations, bidirectional grid interconnect, solar systems, grid fluctuations, power surges, and the higher energized conditions of smart homes. Thus, smart panels need to be able to discern the potential hazard events from routine and take appropriate action.

The smart interrupter

Modern smart home systems now integrate non-destructive smart interrupters that can react to such system behavior. These circuit interrupters communicate with the smart panel via Wi-Fi, ZigBee, or some other protocol. This allows them to communicate with the panel and break and reset intelligently, for example. This adds an elevated measure of safety to the energized home.

What it takes

This technology behind this new home ecosystem is the microprocessor (MPC). MPC-based intelligent panels monitor the smart home’s electrical system. Such panels contain embedded processing devices such as TI’s MSPM0G5187 microcontroller with the TinyEngine™ neural processing unit. These systems continuously monitor the home power network and can make real-time decisions as needed. This means they can determine between dangerous and non-dangerous arcs and other conditions.

These MPC-base systems utilize advanced arc- and ground-fault detection algorithms, combined with precisely timed circuit-interrupter banks. Wired and wireless connections—including Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and cellular—link the panel to the grid, solar power, battery backup systems, and devices throughout the home.

Signals from an intelligent circuit interrupter or meter, or other smart sensors, provide critical information that the smart panel uses to determine conditions. The smart panel’s edge AI processing then analyzes the data to identify any anomalies, such as broken equipment or malfunctions. The smart panel can also examine usage history and analyze whether consumption levels in a particular part of the home are out of the norm.

Conclusion

Smart home electrification systems have taken home energy management to a new level. Today’s smart home energy systems are no longer just dumb go-no-go systems; they are fully interactive and manage home energy efficiently. They also provide energy management to get the most out of the system at the lowest cost.

And soon your phone will visualize and manage what your system is doing, well beyond just simple notifications or limited on/off/timed abilities of today. Energy data management will become an important element of this as well.

Smart homes will be a critical element of the evolving global electrical infrastructure. It will optimize the home’s power usage, manage energy costs, and contribute to energy conservation as an integral component of the global power infrastructure.

The evolution has only begun. As energy costs rise and energy demands ramp up logarithmically, heightened awareness will be placed on intelligent energy management and the evolution of intelligence in the energy infrastructure. Not just for the home, but everywhere. The switch has been flipped.