We have heard much about the electrification of our lives: cars running on electricity, heat pumps heating our homes. Residential loads are forecast to double. Sounds like a challenge?

The climate-neutral and resilient home is more than current building technologies can deliver. Out with the McMansion. In with the TechMansion. Say Hello to the Nexus Home.

What is the Nexus Home? The Nexus Home is YouSolar’s vision of building technology integration from electric power to EV charging, home heating and cooling, LED lighting, and more.

There is a lot to unpack and understand. So, let’s build the Nexus Home one brick at a time. Let’s start with one of the biggest: heating and hot water.

YouSolar’s vision of the Nexus Home. As the most important and biggest element of the Nexus Home, YouSolar is at the pole position in an industry with explosive growth.

Here is why this building technology must interact with and be controlled by the PowerBloc’s EDISON™ Energy Management System. Let’s start with solar economics.

Utilities in California pay little for daytime solar because no one wants your solar energy at noon.

As an independent power system, the PowerBloc does not net meter, and the nanogrid’s energy management system, EDISON™, maximizes the self-consumption of solar electricity,

But it makes no sense to store solar energy in a battery to power a heat pump at night. If you are worried about lithium and rare earth metals, let us serve you water as an alternative.

For heating, storing solar electric energy as thermal energy is much more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than using batteries.

However, any electric energy converted to thermal energy can no longer be converted back to electric energy. It is a one-way trip.

Therefore, an integrated electric and thermal energy management system is required. Meet EDISON™–supersized. EDISON™ must forecast the thermal and non-thermal electric loads. EDISON™ then must decide whether to store energy in batteries or as thermal energy.

Electric and thermal load management require that the PowerBloc communicate with and control heat pumps. YouSolar is working on integrating heat pumps into the PowerBloc Nexus Home. Stay tuned.