• Posted: December 1, 2021
• NECA 2021, Schneider Electric

 

“The energy control center is optimized with technological advances like artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Russell Senesac, Director of Strategy, Schneider Electric, when we caught up with him at the 2021 NECA show in Nashville. 

“The idea now is resource management, which used to be Automatic Transfer Switches (ATS) transfer switches in the past and adding new sources to it. So that now includes solar PV, battery energy storage, wind fuel cells… those sources are taking that in combination with electrical distribution together with load management,” Senesac explained.

The concept behind the energy control center is to optimize resiliency. The system helps in situations where “Power goes out, power needs to stay on. Choosing the right source. But then it also needs to be able to figure out economic optimization,” he said. “Is it cheaper to buy electricity at a certain time versus using solar if I want a net meter to put power back on the grid? The system allows us to orchestrate that for you as a system and it’s integrated. So, I’m not buying all the pieces and parts and trying to be able to figure out how to make it work. We actually do that as a system pre-manufactured for the community to be able to install it,” Senesac said.

The energy control center is the brain of the system and helps with an integrated approach.

“That’s really the secret sauce of it, being able to take those brains and be able to integrate it as a system. So, if you’ve got customers that it’s a matter of when, not if they start to adopt Distributed Energy Resources (DER), you start with something like this and not have to worry about going back in later and have to pull out what you put in and put in something new.”