In our previous article we talked about the benefits of home automation and how it can help you save money. For our next two articles we want to continue on that track of making life less complicated and more efficient, while having more dollars in your bank account.

With the high cost of electricity in Jamaica and consistent rate increases, looking for alternative power sources makes sense. The first one that comes to mind is solar. You may ask yourself at this point how does smart (automation) and solar go together in the same sentence. The answer is smart micro grid, a smart micro grid is a localised power source that delivers electricity to your home using digital technology to control appliances (loads) in your home to save energy, reduce cost, and increase reliability. This also eliminates the installation of the sub panel and gives you the freedom to switch up your control loads at any point.

How does it work?

Let’s say you have installed a solar system with limited battery backup and it rained all day and your batteries were not 100 per cent charged and as soon as you reach home the grid (Jamaica Public Service) goes down (power cut). The only source of power now is your battery backup, which is limited. A smart grid will recognise that the grid is down, and you have limited battery power and will automatically start to turn off appliances such as your electric oven, water heater, etc. Hope you remembered this benefit from home automation? These loads would have been preprogrammed during the initial design.

The great thing about this feature is that you can override it, so if you needed to use your electric stove you could just manually turn it on. Also, remember, with this kind of technology, if it has a plug, we can control it, so there is nothing that uses electricity that you cannot control.

Jamaica is literally a “Sun Nation”, why not harvest what we get naturally with smart technologies to make life easier. You may be thinking that this sounds great, but how affordable and efficient is this really? We will guide you in our next article.

Brian Yap Sam is CEO of Green Concepts Intl. LLC (GCI) certified automation programmer with over 19 years of experience in the IT industry in Jamaica and overseas.

info@gci-llc.com