This week at KBIS, Haier subsidiary GE Appliances focused much of its, um, energy on getting the message out about its new EcoBalance Home System, a new whole-home home systems energy management platform that it has been working on for much of the past decade.
The first announcement about EcoBalance was unveiled about two weeks before the big kitchen and bath show in Vegas, with the announcement of the company’s partnership with Savant. The deal, which brings Savant’s smart home and energy management expertise together with GE Appliance’s kitchen, bath, and other home products (as well as GE’s power management know-how), essentially set the table by previewing the central control interface for consumers.
But, as I saw yesterday at KBIS, news of that deal was only the beginning. It seemed that GE Appliances’s big focus at the show was introducing a flurry of products that tied together the smart home, kitchen, and cooking, as well as other key home activities, into a tighter and more coordinated relationship with both residential and grid power management.
To wit, here are just a few of the products the appliance company showed off this week at KBIS:
A couple of whole-home battery backup and appliance backup systems. The company showed off how its appliances can connect to a Savant home invertor and wall power battery and how the new integration can enable home systems’ power backup by connecting with an EV. GE Appliances has also partnered with Ford, and they were showing off how a Ford F-150 electric can provide backup power to the home through the EcoBalance system.
In addition to home power backup systems, the company also showed off a new battery backup system for refrigerators. Made in partnership with Savant, the fridge battery enables home users to keep their fridge powered and cold during a power outage, which allows users to open the refrigerator to access food without worrying about an out-of-power fridge losing its chill while powered down. According to the GE Appliances Shawn Stover (see our interview below), it will run the fridge for a few hours, and it also features plug-ins to allow owners to charge small electrics like phones.
They also showed off a new GE Profile GeoSpring Smart Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater, which uses a patented, electronic integrated mixing valve that can provide up to 60% more hot water versus comparable models and allows a 50-gallon tank to operate at the same effective capacity as an 80-gallon tank. The GeoSpring also includes the CTA-2045 Smart Home Solution that makes it demand response ready by communicating with utility companies and responding intelligently to power grid conditions.
A Pyramid Wall Mount Hood with indoor air quality sensing that can sense carbon monoxide and other air pollutants. When connected to the EcoBalance energy management system, the system will send you alerts and can be programmed to turn on the HVAC system when air pollutants are detected.
In addition to its partnership with Savant and GEA’s own line of new home systems that make up the EcoBalance system, the company also talked about its partnership with electric grid connectivity specialist Tantalus Systems. The two companies, along with Savant, announced that they would be integrating the Tantalus’ TRUSense Gateway into the EcoBalance system to enable GE Appliances to connect into grid and enable energy management at the appliance level through, say, running refrigerator defrost or ice cycles during off-peak hours, charging water heaters with energy for use later in the day, and adjusting HVAC systems can be adjusted a few degrees to save energy and reduce peak demand.
According to GE Appliances, the new EcoBalance system will be available across all the brand’s lines, and it will use several go-to-market touchpoints for GE Appliance customers to learn about it. This includes through the system integrator channel with Savant, the homebuilder channel, and retail at big box stores like Best Buy, where prospective customers can learn about the system and be connected to a Savant integrator to discuss potential ways to bring the technology into their homes.
Stepping back, making power management a key focus for its appliance product lineup is both a natural for a company like GE Appliances (which has, through its original parent company in GE, a long history of power system experience) and a timely move in terms of home design and custom awareness. A key focus for the homebuilding and remodeling industry is a move towards smarter energy efficiency, if not outright net-zero building. Tie that into a broader push towards electrification of kitchens and other home systems (and the slow-but-steady deemphasis of gas in homes), and GE Appliances looks to be making an early bid at being an energy-power leader among appliance brands by centering its future kitchen and home systems messaging around this increasingly resonant design focus for consumers.
