Helping homeowners increase their awareness of energy usage and effectively reducing that usage has been an elusive goal. Achieving it requires a monitoring and control solution that involves makers of home appliances, home controls, and in-home displays. To accomplish the necessary monitoring and control, appliances must be connected to a home area network (HAN). This network would also enable utility companies via smart meters to remotely control and monitor consumer energy usage and directly communicate to homeowners.

Three key technologies enable the energy-aware platform for developers:

1. A powerful and flexible field-programmable, gate array (FPGA) to serve as the core of energy aware appliances.

2. Power-line networking and specialized software that effectively eliminates both wiring for the HAN and consumer fears over complex installation.

3. An integrated, high-performance, graphical-user interface (GUI) technology to keep consumers informed. (See Fig. 1).

Traditionally, developers have used FPGAs to verify design concepts and build initial product prototypes. However, with the recent advancements in semiconductor submicron process technology, low-cost FPGAs have entered into many high-volume consumer household products.

Appliance manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to reduce the bill of materials cost for these products. An ideal cost reduction solution is an FPGA that combines several components into a single integrated circuit and can be programmed in the field after manufacture. FPGAs are made up of an array of configurable logic elements (LEs) that can be configured or programmed to perform one or a variety of simple functions. FPGA LEs are used as building blocks to implement the functionality desired.

Using a single FPGA, such as an Altera Cyclone III with a Nios II embedded processor, multiple microcontroller units can be easily replaced. Custom functions can be created with intellectual property (IP), providing a future-proof solution that supports new features, last-minute changes, and rapid adaptation to changing market requirements, thus providing the basis for this appliance platform.

On the power line networks side, Echelon’s ShortStack API leverages the FPGA to replace four function-specific microprocessors with a single FPGA and a power line, smart transceiver. This reduces cost, complexity, and development time, while simultaneously adding network communications to an appliance that enables utility companies, home appliance OEMs, and consumers to effectively manage and control energy consumption. The API works in conjunction with Echelon’s power line smart transceivers to use the existing electricity wiring in a home for communications, making the solution a “no new wires” approach.

The smart transceiver features a narrow-band power line transceiver, an 8-bit processor core for running applications and managing network communications, and a choice of on-board or external memory in a very small form factor, available for the most cost-sensitive consumer products.

The appliances on the power line network form the backbone of the HAN — providing reliable HAN communications across an entire home or property. Other devices, such as RF-based sensors, perform better by leveraging the power line backbone to span greater distances and get by RF signal blockers, such as brick walls. The power line signaling technology and the communications protocol for the HAN incorporated into Echelon’s smart transceivers utilize the ISO/IEC 14908 global standard to ensure longevity and enable interoperability among different manufacturers.

This solution expands the market by enabling manufactures to include greater functionality and processing power at lower costs. For example, the single FPGA with embedded processor serves as a processor, intellectual property (IP) host, digital signal processor, and touchscreen display driver.

Touchscreens represent the new face of home appliances, providing a rich, interactive experience for the consumer. The graphical user interface, or GUI, like the one developed with Altia Design and DeepScreen tools, supports multiple languages, colors, varying size fonts, resolution, as well as other potential features. Appliance manufacturers can leverage a single GUI across multiple brands and multiple product lines. Through downloadable software, manufacturers can remotely change and update a new version of the GUI as well as feature sets.

Enlarge this picture Fig. 2. The Altia HMI provides homeowners with a single location to receive messages from household members, the local utility company, and appliances connected to the HAN.

The two major components of this GUI are:

1. A platform-independent embedded graphical engine enabling rapid porting from the targeted hardware platform to the Windows simulation with identical APIs.

2. A WYSIWYG GUI-building tool leveraging highly optimized portable graphics that outputs complete C source code suitable for deploying on low- or high-end products.

With a development tool suite, GUI design and deployment happens in a cohesive and streamlined manner, thus eliminating development cycles, diminishing overall project risk, and reducing the high costs associated with the graphical application development.

Electronic touchscreen displays are becoming the primary human-machine interface and product control mechanism for many consumer appliances, replacing the traditional dials and push buttons. These appliance displays are being supported by utility providers who want their customers to alter energy consumption behavior based on electricity availability, as shown in Fig. 2.

A flexible interface with upgradable features goes hand-in-hand to deliver greater service and higher value to consumers over time. Innovative, but as yet unrealized, programs from service providers are likely to take advantage of the design flexibility in the upgradable GUI for energy aware appliances.

Smart utility meters play an important role in the energy aware scheme. Utilities worldwide are investing in smart grids and advanced metering infrastructures (AMI) that use two-way communications for improving the efficiency, reliability, and safety of power delivery and use. The backbone of the smart grid is the AMI that typically involves the installation of smart meters that read electricity consumption remotely, detect outages, identify electricity theft, remotely connect and disconnect service, and deliver prepaid electricity to customers who may require this service.

Smart meters give utility providers immediate access to data to better project electricity demand from the grid. When demand is high, the grid is strained and forces utility providers to either reduce electricity consumption or possibly increase energy production by using environmentally unfriendly, coal-fired plants.

Utility providers that have deployed smart meters typically introduce two new programs to consumers:

• Time of Use (TOU) pricing programs. These programs provide differential pricing for peak and off-peak electricity use with the goal of discouraging electricity consumption during peak periods, while encouraging consumption during off-peak periods. This implementation requires a certain level of energy awareness by consumers. They need to know when prices change based on the time of day. While many utilities focus on the adoption of in-home displays to notify consumers, the most practical way to create awareness is by providing the information directly in the appliance.
  
  
• Demand Response (DR) programs. These programs are a key part of energy management policies that ensure a balance between supply and demand. In electricity grids, any significant imbalance between electricity consumption and production causes grid instability or severe voltage fluctuations and possible failures. DR programs allow utility providers to notify customers of a pending electricity shortfall and ask them to reduce energy use. In return, end-users are offered reduced electricity rates and/or other financial incentives.

DR programs can be automatic, with utility providers having the right to reduce or turn off certain energy consuming appliances, such as air conditioners, swimming pool pumps, and hot water heaters for a short time in customer sites. Signals are transmitted from the utility to the smart meter and then to the consumer products connected to a HAN.

Why are these programs important to makers of consumer appliances? With over 100 million smart meters slated for installation worldwide over the next five to seven years, there will be a huge demand by homeowners for cost-effective solutions to manage their energy usage, which in turn will have a dramatic impact on yet-to-be developed, energy-efficient consumer products that have lengthy development cycles.

Additionally utility providers are likely to implement economic incentives for consumers. Today many of these providers offer consumer rebates for the purchase of Energy Star-compliant appliances in the U.S. Such practices will likely become more common in other countries.

Enlarge this picture Fig. 3. The energy-aware platform gives homeowners a simple means for monitoring in-home energy usage. With this information, homeowners can take practical measures to reduce the overall energy consumption by powering off unused electrical appliances or running appliances at off-peak hours.

The energy-aware appliance platform described delivers benefits to home owners, appliance manufacturers, and utility providers. Homeowners benefit in the following ways:

• They are in control. They receive power warning messages from the electricity providers via smart meters and determine if, and how, their smart appliances will respond to the energy event. They program certain home appliances not to be operated during peak times, reducing the total household energy cost.
  
  
• They gain knowledge of energy usage. This includes how many watts are being consumed by each household appliance connected to the power line network and the individual cost. (See Fig. 3.) Home owners take a proactive approach determining operation of what appliance at a certain time during the day.
  
  
• Convenience is improved, less times is wasted. The communication via HANs enables homeowners to stop wasting hours or even days while service technicians schedule multiple visits with the wrong part or incorrect software. Better reliability, software updates, and preventative maintenance combine to deliver peace of mind to the customer.

Benefits to manufacturers of home appliances include:

• Increased revenues and customer loyalty that stem from the additional services provided without the customer needing to place a phone call, as the smart appliance automatically sends a service request to manufacturers via power line network.
  
  
• Improved margins on warranties are achieved by remote diagnostics and repair, as remote software updates improve the operating modes of the appliance to better match a consumer’s use pattern.
  
  
• Reduced service costs by remote upgrading of new software or diagnosing a malfunction.
  
  
• Reduced total development cost and improved time-to-market achieved with product scalability, as multiple end products can share the same hardware platform, with software features added or deleted to create end product differentiation.
  
  
• Faster reaction time to competitors. Last-minute design changes accommodate bug-fixes, and new features can be added after production using the inherent flexibility and programmability of FPGAs.

The electricity providers also gain benefit from this solution by being able to remotely control and monitor consumer energy usage or directly communicate electricity alert messages to homeowners in the event of outage detection or theft identification.

Companies that partner to provide an energy-aware platform have a definite market advantage, while simultaneously offering a more efficient way of life that delivers a greener, better environment for everyone.

For more information, visit:
Altera: newsroom@altera.com or www.altera.com
Altia: info@altia.com or www.altia.com
Echelon: lonworks@echelon.com or www.echelon.com