In the 15 years since manufacturers began marketing smart home products, connectivity features for remote monitoring and control have largely been limited to end-use devices. So, while residential customers can check their home’s temperature from the office, ensure the lights are on and see who delivered a package, whole-home systems have generally required in-person attention.

A new generation of circuit breakers and panels is beginning to address this shortfall, arriving just in time, given growing calls to electrify everything from cooking appliances to transportation. These products offer new options for electrical contractors seeking to meet customer needs without expensive service upgrades—and could create new income streams for those who want to begin or expand their maintenance services business.

IoT boom

The market for smart breakers and panels has developed in line with two broad trends: the rapid adoption of internet of things (IoT) capabilities across a broad range of residential applications and a recent push to electrify appliances that might previously have run on fossil fuels, primarily natural gas.

Once novelties, IoT devices have since become accepted, and even expected, contributors to modern life. Vacation home rentals now regularly feature digital locks with codes that change when guests check out, for example. And, as extreme temperatures more frequently add stress to electrical grids, smart thermostats that can respond to utility signals automatically shift home heating and cooling operations in many locations to help reduce demand without compromising comfort.

As capabilities have grown, homeowners and landlords are seeing new incentives—from federal, state and local rebates and tax credits from electric utility programs—to rethink how they power appliances and install electric vehicle charging equipment. This electrification push has many looking at their breaker panels, wondering if they’ll be able to support such a shift. 

This becomes more complicated when homeowners start investigating rooftop solar panels and, possibly, battery-based storage systems. In these cases, panels are being asked to do a lot more than shut off power in overcurrent situations.

“One of the largest challenges for traditional panels is presented by electrification of everything for everyone, where existing panels must accommodate more power distribution within a home while remaining affordable and practical,” said Daniel Sosa, global strategy and marketing leader for ABB’s Smart Buildings operations, Cary, N.C. 

“Today, we are asking residential load centers and circuit breakers to not only protect and distribute power, but also to integrate seamlessly with distributed renewable energy resources, provide real-time energy management, actively react to ever-changing grid conditions and enhance overall home automation,” he said.

This ability to react becomes more important as electricity production turns into a two-way transaction, with more utility customers now using solar panels and batteries—standalone or in a connected EV—to produce and store power. Utilities are incentivizing customers to take greater control over energy use through time-of-use rate plans that promote moving high-demand activities to off-peak hours.

“Smart breakers and panels support this new reality by enabling homeowners to produce and consume renewable energy when they need it,” said Santino Graziani, system and component engineering manager for the Assemblies and Residential Solutions group at Eaton, Beachwood, Ohio. 

“Smart devices enable behind-the-meter load management, helping homeowners participate in demand-­response programs, reduce energy consumption and translate actionable data into energy savings,” he said.

Smart breakers or panels

So, what, exactly, is a smart breaker or panel box? Three points come up repeatedly in conversation with equipment experts.

“First, it needs to be connected to the internet,” said Justin Berghoff, vice president and general manager for residential at Leviton, Melville, N.Y. “Secondly, it needs to have the capability to meter and ingest data. And third, it should offer some amount of control. Next level, after those three, would be integrating logic and automation.”

Taken together, these characteristics help put next-gen breakers and panels in line with other smart-home products, such as light bulbs and window blinds. Using mobile device apps, users can monitor what they’re doing, adjust their operation and see some degree of historical data and trend information. If these capabilities provoke a mental “So what?”, think through a few scenarios in which they could be helpful.

First, imagine a backup power installation, using either a natural gas generator or a battery storage system. Customers typically must decide which circuits they want to hardwire to a subpanel for backup protection if the grid goes down. With a smart panel, users can shift protected circuits on the fly, with no hardwiring required. They could back up ceiling fans in the summer and a furnace in the winter, all from an app. Also, if a homeowner is considering a new induction range or EV charger, smart breakers can help them make the most of their existing service by prioritizing circuit operation. So, for example, the charger circuit switches off when dinner is cooking to keep total demand under the panel’s service rating.

Defining “smart”

The shared “smart” label on the range of connected panel and breaker products now on the market makes understanding how they differ from each other confusing. While each offers somewhat similar capabilities—connecting to the internet, metering and understanding data and controlling individual breaker operations—how those services are packaged can differ.

In general, today’s offerings fall into one of three categories:

Fully integrated smart panels. This is the approach used by the startup Span, San Francisco, which features a digital architecture built into the backbone of the box.

More traditional thermal/magnetic breakers with added connectivity, perhaps provided by a Wi-Fi hub device integrated into the box. This is the more common approach, similar to products from Leviton and Eaton.

External subpanels providing connectivity and control for up to 10–12 circuits in total. ABB’s ReliaHome Smart Panel is one.

Even in the most integrated panels, manufacturers still use standard thermal/magnetic technology for overcurrent, AFCI and GFCI functionality. So, the breakers still trip as they always have for a short circuit or arc. The added smartness comes with a second set of contacts to enable nonsafety­-related remote operation.

“The user can only turn a breaker on remotely if it was turned off remotely,” Berghoff said. “What that means is, if somebody turned a breaker off manually, say for maintenance, you cannot turn it on remotely. Nor can you remotely reset and turn on a tripped breaker.”

Additionally, when the breaker is operated remotely or through automated load-shedding commands, the operation doesn’t physically flip its switch to open the circuit. That task is performed by the second set of contacts, and the switch remains in the closed position. Instead, an LED indicator on the breaker lets users know its current state.

Who’s buying?

This added functionality comes at a premium, which means today’s customer base is primarily those most aggressively working toward electrifying their homes’ operations, while possibly dealing with an older home with 100A service. To help keep costs down, manufacturers including Eaton and Leviton offer homeowners the choice to only incorporate smart breakers for the circuits they’re most interested in controlling. Subpanel approaches, such as ABB’s, can be another cost saver by bringing intelligence to specific circuits without having to replace an entire panel.

In the case of potentially undersized service, for example, this could mean advanced breakers for the dryer, stove and EV charger, to keep a home’s total demand under National Electrical Code amperage limits. Users could choose to transfer more circuits to smart breakers over time if they want to get more information on their actual electricity use or participate in future utility rate plans. Though the smart breakers are proprietary to each manufacturer’s systems, they’re designed to easily replace standard breakers in compatible panels.

“I think we’re in the early adopter phase, but we’re starting to see builders having an interest, which will drive things,” Berghoff said.

Graziani said consumer interest in distributed energy resources (DERs) such as  solar power and storage batteries are driving sales of his company’s offerings. 

“We are seeing significant demand from both the electrical contractor and utility markets,” he said. 

“For contractors, the primary drivers are to help simplify and optimize DER integration and real-time energy management. And utilities are keen for homeowners to adopt smart breakers as tools for enabling demand-response programs,” Graziani said.

Suppliers also see the possibility for these systems to boost electrical contractors’ residential service business, especially in regions where second homes are common.

“Smart panels can enable monitoring services that provide notification of unusual activity or energy usage,” Graziani said. “You could think of these features like security cameras that keep an eye on your electrical system, with the ability to act upon situations remotely, when needed.”

Leviton’s product developers had a chance to see the benefits these notifications could provide, firsthand, through one early adopter’s experience.

“We actually had a beta tester get a notification that his AC had been running for four hours straight in Chicago, which is odd,” he said, noting that follow-up found a serious problem. “The issue was his refrigerant line burst, so it was just running and running,” Berghoff said. 

Graziani notes that this is an opportunity to develop the kind of ongoing relationships HVAC professionals have had with customers for decades.

“Everyone knows the HVAC folks have it down, setting up those service contracts,” he said. “Second homes, Airbnb, things like that, are opportunities. You can get a notification of a breaker trip, and you can get notifications that appliances are overworking.”

stock.adobe.com / Electro Unicorn / leviton