Freescale demos home energy gateway reference platform to support smart grid initiative

VIENNA, AUSTRIA: Freescale Semiconductor demonstrated a Home Energy Gateway (HEG) reference platform at the Metering Europe conference.

The HEG reference platform, which will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010, will enable fast development and time to market for a variety of value-added services around the deployment of the smart grid in countries around the world.

The HEG platform, developed by Freescale along with an ecosystem of partners, is targeted to original equipment manufacturers and utilities to start developing services in support of the smart grid.

It includes features to support services such as collecting power consumption data from various sources, controlling activation and deactivation of Home Area Network (HAN) appliances, generating dashboards to provide feedback about power usage, providing control menus to control appliances and supporting a ubiquitous link to the WAN for remote control/readout.

“We believe that Freescale’s Home Energy Gateway platform provides a head start on designing services for smart grid deployments planned around the world,” said Bruno Baylac, director of Freescale’s Industrial and Multi-market segment marketing. “We have optimized the platform with cost and time to market in mind for development of home energy and smart In-home displays, enabling the vision of a smarter and greener home.”

Government stimulus plans for smart grid deployment and consumers’ needs to optimize home energy consumption are contributing factors to growth of the HAN market. In addition, the maturity and standardization of dedicated technologies like ZigBee and homeowners’ increasing familiarity with in-home networks like WiFi, are speeding up acceptance of HAN services.

According to IMS Research, more than one hundred million smart meters with HAN connectivity are forecast to be installed during the 2010-2014 period.

Service providers, utility companies and telecom operators see an opportunity to offer value-add services to home owners, enabling them to participate by managing their own energy usage. With the capability to do remote metering, service providers and utility companies can perform demand response and dynamic load management through time of usage variable pricing, as well as offer additional services to consumers in the future.

“Adeneo Embedded is proud to collaborate with Freescale on the i.MX based Home Energy Gateway reference platform,” said Yannick Chammings, CEO of Adeneo Embedded.

“Our technical expertise on Microsoft Windows Embedded Compact 7 and Linux complements perfectly the HEG reference platform of Freescale to allow device makers building faster and more cost effectively advanced energy management solutions. Our engagement as the primary partner of Freescale for delivering the HEG reference platform as well as supporting customers for any hardware adaptation, OS integration or software developments will ensure success and reliability for any device development.”

The HEG platform is powered by one of Freescale’s ARM9-based i.MX processors which will launch soon and runs on a Linux or the Microsoft Windows Embedded Compact 7 pre-release operating system, which provides powerful tools and a streamlined development environment to fuel the proliferation of connected, immersive and intelligent in-home devices.

The HEG reference platform integrates a variety of connectivity options to meet the different regional standards and preferred communication protocols associated with smart grid deployments planned around the world.