Ahead of the roll-out of the BMW ActiveE electric car, the German carmaker has teamed up with Tendril – a cloud-based energy management platform provider – to demonstrate a smart energy home.
The smart energy home, in Mountain View, California, is meant to help refine the charging of the ActiveE – with Tendril’s energy management platform, known as Tendril Connect, providing connectivity to the electric vehicle charging station from local utilities and energy service providers. Meanwhile, Tendril Energize, a series of applications that include a web portal, will monitor the charging station.
The idea is that this will provide important insight into the location of electric vehicles on the grid distribution network and help to manage hotspots in the growth of energy consumption.
In addition, the BMW smart energy home will include a solar panel installation, smart thermostats, residential lighting, home appliances and other smart devices. Together, BMW and Tendril will integrate the battery charging station to help mitigate its impact during peak periods of electricity demand.
The Tendril Connect system has been built from the ground up with the aim of handling “big data” – it is currently licensed by 35 customers including the likes of Siemens Energy and a host of smart meter communications vendors.
