4 minute read
Silicon-based AI-empowered electrical endpoints will usher in a second electrical revolution
from ECN January 2022
Every day the promise of silicon chip solutions are being realised in computers, vehicles, mobile devices, appliances, and many other categories of powered products. For a variety of reasons, one major sector that has yet to benefit from siliconisation is the building electrical grid, writes Thar Casey, Amber Solutions Founder CEO and Steven Bakos, Infineon Technologies Senior Director, Switching Power.
In the coming years, silicon-based, AI-empowered electrical endpoints will enable a building’s electrical infrastructure to provide a robust built-in smart building ecosystem, as well as energy and environmental awareness, enhanced life safety solutions, management, and communication capabilities.
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Until now, the long service life of traditional devices and size constraints of existing gang boxes and circuit breaker panels have contributed to a lack of appetite among electrical manufacturers to make fundamental changes to core components, such as outlets, switches and circuit breakers that rely on century-old technology. Traditional endpoints require large electromechanical parts to function, which have limited design innovations due to the need for universal compatibility with existing form-factors like single gang boxes and circuit breaker panel infrastructure. This is about to change.
The unfolding opportunity
Recent breakthroughs in solid-state control of electricity pioneered by Amber Solutions, and advanced through an alliance with Infineon Technologies, have given electrical device manufacturers their first real opportunity to leverage modern intelligence and robust data sensing in products that can be easily installed in any building on the planet without having to rewire.
Utilising a solid-state system-on-a-chip (SOC) for power management that’s so small it can easily be integrated into existing form factors, endpoints can now be designed to include any number of Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensors or communication components to expand functionality and deliver fully-connected smart building intelligence that leverage existing gang boxes and circuit breaker panels. This innovation makes it simple to turn every room’s light switches, outlets, and circuit breakers and more into micro computers with up to 10 times the sensing capabilities and smart features of currently available smart switches and outlets, as an example.
Individual Amber-powered endpoints present a significant improvement over existing devices, yet their true power lies in working together throughout a building to form a unique and disruptive power management and connectivity ecosystem. By providing actionable data, the technology offers immediate opportunity to improve everything from fire safety to energy savings to indoor air quality.
A floor-to-ceiling upgrade
Consider a skyscraper in a busy city. At every point from the building’s main power panel to an apartment owner’s outlets, new Amber technologies can provide previously impossible benefits. The first point of contact could be an energy traffic controller powered by Amber that intelligently monitors power sources to optimally combine available wind, solar, battery, grid or generator power to maximise efficiency, reduce costs or help manage external events including power outages or an over-stressed grid.
Next in line are the circuit breakers that deliver power throughout the building, which can now track energy usage in real time while eliminating the threat of dangerous electrical arcs. This is because the breaker is solid-state with no moving parts that can form an arc. Dangerous faults that produce these arcs are sensed thousands of times faster than current conventional electromechanical breakers and are mitigated long before these faults become big enough to become dangerous. With integrated wireless communications, an Amber-powered circuit breaker could provide immediate data on the specific endpoint that caused a trip, including whether it was a slow-trip, or other factors, and enable wireless shut off or resetting. Also, Amber’s embedded, modern intelligence operates so fast, and with such deep understanding of the electrical waveforms, that it enables the virtual elimination of false and nuisance GFCI and AFCI trips.
Finally, power is delivered to the endpoints like outlets and light switches, which can be designed to include any number of sensors for specific needs. There’s no limit to what they can offer, from moisture detection and voice control to intercoms and scheduled automation. Security sensors, micro cameras, air quality detectors, pressure sensors, wireless transmitters and receivers, and even motion detectors can be built in to every end point solution. With this unprecedented level of sensing and control, smart endpoints can greatly improve the scope of coverage and value delivered by smart building automation, access control, fire control and security platforms. These are not new ideas, but the challenge of actually implementing them has prevented these solutions from appearing on the market.
Amber Solutions has formed an alliance with Infineon Technologies
The second electrical revolution
While newer power generation plants such as solar and wind farms are revolutionising how we generate electricity, Amber Solutions is revolutionising how we use it. No matter where the electricity is coming from, the power of solid-state control with embedded intelligence dramatically improves the reliability, safety, energy savings, life-safety protections and overall value of a building’s existing electrical infrastructure.
Amber Solutions, ambersi.com Infineon Technologies, infineon.com
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