The facts are indisputable: Home energy use is on the rise, and it’s getting more expensive. Our energy sources become less reliable as demand — and severe weather — impact aging power grids. Mix in governmental strategies to curb climate change (California’s net-zero initiatives, for example), and the need for proper home energy management becomes apparent.

An energy management system designed to work in concert with a control platform such as Crestron Home® OS can provide tremendous benefits. The Adapt Energy® system from PanTech Design is one of the best solutions available in this regard. When energy automation is properly integrated with a robust smart home system, dozens upon dozens of features are available to the homeowner — but for the sake of brevity, we’ll look at five of the biggest, overarching benefits.

Take total control of your energy usage and monitoring.

Seeing really is the first step to understanding. “At its core, it gives the homeowner an effective way to control and use energy,” says Alex Teague, COO of PanTech Design. “It's one thing to talk about saving money, but we give people a tangible way to see that. And then also an easy way to make changes that have an impact.” With a system such as Adapt Energy, all the controls and usage data are at your fingertips on a touch screen or mobile device, allowing you to adjust your power consumption and see just where your home is drawing energy. (That includes a look at “vampire” devices, such as a TV or computer, that may still be using some amount of energy even though it’s technically “off.”)

Customize — and automate — energy use profiles and schedules.

Much like a smart thermostat, your home’s electrical system can “learn” what you use when. “You can control and manage any part of your home’s electrical system in a completely manual fashion, but you can also automate certain aspects of that system so that you’re conserving as much energy as possible,” says Teague. If you live (or own a home) in a location that has variable energy rates, the system can automatically turn off an EV charger or pool lights when the cost is highest, for example.

Protect your home during any emergency, large or small.

A system like Adapt Energy can send alerts, receive info, and prepare your home for incoming weather events, and so on. From the smallest issue — ensuring a sump pump has power during a brief outage, for example — to major grid failure, the system simply knows what to do. The Adapt Energy system can distinguish between essential electrical “loads” (such as lighting or your home computer network) and systems or devices that aren’t critical so that backup battery power is diverted away from non-essentials.

Optimize your renewable energy system and storage.

An integrated energy management system can reduce the complexities of maintaining solar solutions, understanding when to store energy or feed it back to the grid. Additionally, the Adapt Energy system is built to work with solutions such as the sonnen ecoLinx™ system and a variety of other storage options, including an Adapt sister company that specializes in battery sales. “The system can also leverage EV batteries for additional power storage if the need arises,” says Teague.

Seamlessly integrate energy management into whole-home automation platforms such as Crestron Home® OS.

The real “magic” of energy automation comes to life when the system is wrapped into a whole-home smart solution. The ability to manage both your home’s energy usage and your suite of smart home hardware from one central interface is a huge benefit — it gives the homeowner complete control of their home in an elegant, intuitive manner. When an entire home works in concert with energy management, the results go well beyond convenience, offering true cash savings and sustainability — often without the need for the homeowner to lift a finger. An example: Automated shading that lowers during sunlight hours to cut down on AC costs in a particular zone of the home.