Residential
Electrical and home automation systems for an NZEB house
Power, automation and solar systems for a nearly zero-energy family home, designed in step with the mechanical services.
The problem
An NZEB house only works if its systems talk to each other. Heat pump, mechanical ventilation, solar, battery and solar shading, each left to its own controller, end up fighting one another — and you get a house full of technology that uses more energy than a plain one would.
What we did
We worked alongside the mechanical engineer and the architect from the first design meetings, with a single supervisory system that runs the heat pump against solar generation and battery state of charge. The washing machine and the car charger start when there is surplus.
On the electrical side we specified open-standard automation rather than a proprietary system, so that ten years from now the client is not tied to one supplier to replace a single component.
The outcome
The house covers roughly 81% of its annual electricity demand from its own generation, storage included. Between April and September, grid import is close to zero.
