European researchers are in the process of creating and developing a new technology that will allow neighborhoods to perform like mini-power grids, with the ability to share the energy created at each house according to individual requirements. With many other developments in the pipeline such concepts could result in massive energy savings in the future.

The researchers working at the Beywatch Project plan to create so-called ’smart homes’ that are capable of balancing energy needs in neighborhoods whilst also being able to create electricity and hot water within each household in the neighborhood. The project title of “Beywatch” stands for “Building Energy Watcher” and is aiming to meet these ends via a complete and integrated chain of technological innovations that are able to work at every part of the energy grid – right down from the light switches at the point of delivery to the power stations at the top.

Such applications and appliances for the new homes and neighborhoods will include in-home power through the use of photovoltaic and thermal solar panels in order to generate domestic energy and hot water supplies as well as load-level balancing within the neighborhood to take care of the local power grid and energy distribution. The researchers also aim to identify the types of business models that will enable such a system to become commercially viable as soon as possible, with the intended result being a new “smart energy network” that would reduce overall energy demands as well as make the most of available resources and keep total costs down.

This project is aimed to also greatly appeal to utilities companies, as providing lower cost energy would be very popular and they would also be able to manage their grid networks much more efficiently in addition gaining real-time usage data with regards to domestic energy usage. As a result of such data utilities would then be able to make long-terms plans for both power generation and upgrades of any existing infrastructure in their area of coverage.

The smart network itself would be managed at the center by a hardware and software “agent” that would link all of the homes high-efficiency appliances together and allow the homeowner to program them all centrally. The agent could turn appliances on and off to coincide with lowest energy usages and when homeowners most need them, therefore also saving time. This also applies to the home’s heating systems as well as air conditioning, making huge energy and monetary savings possible.

When energy is not need by individual houses (such as the energy provided by photovoltaic and thermal panels) it is fed back into the grid and at the other end of the chain back to the utility company itself. When back at the utility company a Supervisor Entity, which is another agent, links all houses in a particular neighborhood to the utility company and directs any excess energy back to another house that might need it so that none is wasted. Also, by spreading the load of power around the neighborhood in such a way power can be stored and used at a future date when needed most as the sun will not always shine when power is required, another previous problem when discussing solar energy.

Such intelligent balanced power delivery systems as undertaken by Beywatch represent highly workable and ultimately cost-effect energy system for a more sustainable and energy-bright future.