Other ecosystem partners include Peak Power, which provides energy management services for commercial and industrial buildings, and Rainforest Automation, which has created an edge gateway for controlling pool pumps, water heaters, and other appliances. It is also working with cities and service providers to develop long-range capacity plans for EVs by identifying areas needing upgrades or that have excess capacity. The company is collaborating with Doosan GridTech and Washington’s Snohomish Public Utility District to maximize renewables in microgrids and leveraging EVs as a peak power supply. “The grid needs data and there’s not a lot of visibility into distribution,” says founder and CEO Mischa Steiner. The company’s goal is to reduce emissions by 10 million tonnes by 2022 and 100 million by 2025. The focus is on the distribution grid: the complex web that links cities and customers to power sources. Today, its Digital Energy Platform serves as the data curator for software, hardware, and services targeted at the energy transition.
It developed a solution-adopted by utilities such as BC Hydro-that combined an Arm-based line sensor and software for detecting faults and electricity theft.
Green Mountain Power, a Vermont electric utility, is currently collaborating with Span to study how making data more readily available to consumers changes power consumption.Īwesense: An Ecosystem Approach to Energyįounded in 2009, Awesense is decarbonizing the grid with data. Span helps avoid unnecessary and costly home wiring upgrades by intelligently managing the available power from sources like the grid, solar, and batteries. Replacing gas-powered water heaters or stoves with cleaner electrical fixtures also becomes more feasible and economical. The system can manage EV charging to match the power output of a home solar system, sell power from a battery storage system to a local utility so it can avoid turning on a dirty “peaker” plant, or improve resilience by islanding a home during blackouts or natural disasters. More importantly, Span provides a glide path to zero emissions living. It can also inform homeowners through its smartphone app when devices like water heaters or air conditioners show symptoms of pending failure. Powered by a quad-core Arm Cortex-A chip, Span’s smart panel lets residents remotely control all lights, outlets, and appliances or develop a long-term, automated savings strategy.
Span, a startup from Silicon Valley, has developed a smart panel with integrated edge computing capabilities for greater visibility and control over power consumption. The electrical panel-the grey metal box likely in the corner of your garage-has been a fixture in homes for nearly 100 years.
Span: A Nervous System for the Sustainable Home