Big news on the smart home system front. Sunrun is expanding its program with SPAN, the company that reinvented the electrical panel. At the same time, SPAN is expanding its product offering to EV chargers and a drop-in meter panel replacement.
Many U.S. households are built with obsolete combination electrical panels, which often present significant challenges for customers interested in installing rooftop solar, home batteries, and electric vehicle chargers. Through the program, Sunrun is including SPAN home electrical panels as part of their home solar and battery offerings in select markets to drastically reduce installation hurdles when adopting on-site generation and other all-electric appliances.
“Widespread home electrification is vital to achieving our decarbonization goals but required main panel upgrades are often a significant hurdle for customers wanting to shift away from fossil fuels to clean-energy-powered alternatives in their homes,” said Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun. “This program will accelerate the adoption of home solar and batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and so much more. SPAN’s home electrical panel, with its intuitive app interface for homeowners, will reduce costs and installation complexities while providing improvements to Sunrun’s customer experience through improved visibility and automation of our customers’ energy needs.”
Combined with Sunrun’s offering, SPAN smart home electrical panels enable customers to improve the energy resiliency of their home with solar energy, create fully customizable backup power switches, better manage home electrification upgrades, gain circuit-level visibility, and support the grid. Product pricing will vary according to market and installation requirements.
New from SPAN
SPAN Drive, a Level-2 car charger, works with any EV and can be installed in any home with a SPAN Panel, allowing for real-time coordination with all home energy loads. Using SPAN’s app, users can choose which energy source to use to charge their EV, seamlessly switching between grid and solar power. SPAN Drive also supports “Level 2.X” charging speeds at 48 amps without costly home electrical upgrades, regardless of the home’s utility connection. Other key features include:
● Automatic load management to throttle down other low-priority circuits in real time for rapid EV charging
● Charge scheduling based on utility rate and desired range
● Dynamic charging speed during outages when paired with a home battery
● Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G/LTE communications via the SPAN Panel
Around 1 in 3 U.S. homes are built with antiquated combination meter panels, which present added barriers for consumers who wish to install rooftop solar or battery backup. With the new SPAN Meter Panel, homeowners can now completely replace this out-of-date technology and realize circuit-level energy insight and control.
the SPAN Meter Panel, a drop-in replacement for the vast majority of U.S. home panel types. Both products will use the company’s PowerAssist platform to synchronize and manage demand response requests from utilities. Because SPAN learns the usage of all home appliances and knows homeowners’ preferences, it can seamlessly manage demand response requests from utilities.
-- Solar Builder magazine
