Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator SPAN Partnership

In collaboration with Wells Fargo startup SPAN, NREL is working to advance the future of smart home technologies using a smart breaker panel system.

Through the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²), SPAN's smart breaker panel system underwent validation testing in NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF). The relationship forged during the IN² project led to a joint research and development project to integrate the SPAN Panel with NREL's state-of-the-art energy management system.

SPAN's smart breaker panel offers real-time circuit-level power consumption and control in a sleek design. The laboratory evaluation on NREL's campus in Golden, Colorado, looked at advanced functionality provided by the SPAN panel, such as the ability to customize the critical load powered during an outage or limiting electric vehicle charging to avoid electrical service upgrades. While working together on the IN² project, NREL and SPAN were awarded a proposal from the U.S. Department of Energy for further collaboration. This cooperative research and development award will incorporate the NREL-developed foresee™, an energy management system that allows for user preferences to control and coordinate household connected appliances and electronics, with the SPAN panel and take advantage of their circuit-level power data. Winning a 2018 R&D 100 Award, foresee enables highly accurate predictions of comfort needs, energy costs, environmental impacts, and grid service availability by leveraging machine-learning algorithms, advances data analytics, and physics-based modeling and simulation. The Systems Performance Laboratory evaluated the integration of foresee with the SPAN panel before moving to field demonstrations in occupied homes.

Contact