REstore Deploys Smart Appliances in New Smart City Project

REstore has announced a large-scale deployment of smart household appliances with embedded connectivity into an integrated Smart City platform with telecom operator Orange, and the imec institute in microchip and digital technology. REstore said in the announcement that it hopes to steer power of household appliances over NarrowBand IOT, an Internet of Things (IoT) communication technology. The smart power control is implemented through embedded connectivity of the devices and uses REstore cloud analytics.

Smart Cities are developing around the world, digitizing municipal services and facilitating smarter waste and infrastructure management through IoT technology. The market is expected to expand to $1.57 trillion by 2020, according to a 2014 report from Frost & Sullivan. In this context, Smart City technology can encourage the growth of the renewable energy industry by adjusting power consumption of city residents in real-time in response to the availability of renewable energy.

“FlexPond is the ideal Demand Side Management platform for Smart Cities of the future, as it ensures end-user comfort and safety,” said Pieter-Jan Mermans, co-CEO, REstore. “Household appliances such as electric boilers, heat pumps and air conditioning units are surprisingly insensitive to power shifts of minutes or even hours. FlexPond uses the available ‘flexible power’ of these devices to optimize their usage of renewable energy in real-time.”

“Through artificial intelligence techniques, including deep learning, FlexPond predicts behavior of household appliances as well as availability of renewable energy. The resulting smart power control allows for cheaper and cleaner energy for city residents while facilitating the growth of renewable energy. It is an innovative, green solution that creates better cities,” said Jan-Willem Rombouts, co-CEO, REstore.

The NarrowBand IOT solution offered by Orange requires one low-cost and low-power consuming chip embedded in the appliances to allow direct cloud connectivity. The integration in smart city infrastructure, as part of a broad set of IoT city services, has been coordinated by imec.