The electrical equipment innovators at Leviton announced a new Whole Home Energy Monitor and 2nd Gen Smart Circuit Breakers with Remote Control this week. Leviton’s Whole Home Energy Monitor enables features such as turning the breakers on/off from anywhere, scheduling breaker activity to benefit from reduced energy rate periods, and automating the shedding of nonessential loads.
This release builds on the success of the Leviton Load Center and My Leviton app and moves the company into the increasingly crowded energy management space. Homeowners will be able to view consumption and production data from the grid and alternate energy sources such as solar, battery, and generator accordingly.
Leviton also enables the addition of Decora Smart Wi-Fi Lighting, and Evr-Green Electric Vehicle Chargers in a single interface, allowing homeowners to view their energy use trends and coordinate activity to conserve energy and save money.
“Leviton continues to equip homeowners with the necessary insights to control their expenses and environmental impact, focused on meeting tomorrow’s electrical needs via a single app for lighting, load control, and EV charging,” said Justin Berghoff, senior director, business development & product management for Leviton.
Neat features | The My Leviton app provides alerts and notifications for unusual electrical activity, including when and why a circuit trips, high or low voltage events, if the breaker fails a self-test, or if communication is lost. In addition to customized notifications per circuit, users can select Smart Anomaly Detection to receive alerts if unusual activity is identified, such as a freezer not running, or an HVAC system running for too long.
Updated dashboard | The updated My Leviton dashboard provides a quick-glance view of Leviton smart lighting devices and car chargers, plus an intuitive summary of real-time total energy usage including a breakdown of what source(s) are currently powering the residence and top consuming circuits by kWh. Consumption data can be viewed by day, week, billing period, and year-over-year with charts to identify trends in historical energy usage and opportunities to adjust behaviors and save money.
Integrating everything | One pair of Leviton Smart Mains Metering Accessory Current Transformers (CTs) are included, featuring a split-core design for easy installation on the service mains to monitor total-panel energy use. Two additional pairs of Leviton Smart Mains Metering Accessory (LSMMA) CTs (3 total) can be integrated to allow for direct monitoring of alternate energy sources such as solar, battery storage, and generator.
For homes with backup generators | My Leviton provides integration with an automatic transfer switch. Rather than installing a secondary essential loads panel to power critical circuits from a generator, the My Leviton app provides an interface where users can change their essential and nonessential circuits at any time, with no need for re-wiring. The Whole Home Energy Monitor integrates with automatic transfer switches via contact interface and will automatically shed nonessential loads when grid power fails.
Easy upgrades | Thanks to Leviton’s all-plug-on breaker design, upgrading an existing Leviton Load Center to a Smart Load Center is as easy as removing standard circuit breakers out of the panel, snapping the new 2nd Gen Smart Circuit Breakers in their place, and installing the Whole Home Energy Monitor.
Basic and smart circuit breakers can be intermixed in the Leviton Load Center to help avoid high upfront costs associated with all-inclusive smart panels, or sacrificing panel space with aftermarket relay modules. Leviton 2nd Gen Smart Circuit Breakers take up the same space as basic circuit breakers, and don’t require any additional wiring.
The 2nd Gen Smart Circuit Breakers are now available in 1-Pole or 2-Pole formats and amperages up to 60A with a variety of protection types: standard overcurrent, combination AFCI, GFCI (personnel or equipment protection), and dual-function AFCI/GFCI.
Along with the breaker status color identifier in the rocker handle, and line-side powered LEDs communicating trip events on AFCI, GFCI and dual-function models, all 2nd Gen Smart Circuit Breakers include an LED to clearly display when a breaker has been remotely turned OFF – all without a homeowner ever having to touch the panel.
— Solar Builder magazine
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