New power charges and widely varying electricity prices make it complicated for electricity customers to keep their costs down. Even those who have invested in solar panels and batteries can find it difficult to determine how resources are best used. With Ferroamp’s new built-in AI control, it is possible to reduce electricity costs by up to 40 percent.

“The combination of different fees and tariffs makes it complicated even for electricity customers with solar cells and batteries to know how best to reduce their electricity costs. FerroAI allows you to reduce both electricity bills and electricity network fees without having to think so much about electricity consumption,” says Kent Jonsson, CEO of Ferroamp.

The Ferroamp system connects solar panels, home batteries and electric car charging via the Swedish inverter EnergyHub. This makes it possible to control and optimize the system and, for example, increase self-use of solar electricity, discharge when the price is high or cut power peaks. Which function is most profitable varies between different seasons but also between different days and different hours.

Now that the electricity network companies have started to introduce power fees for homeowners, it will be crucial to keep track of the hours during the month when you consume the most electricity. However, it can be difficult to know what level the battery should go in and cut the peaks and how to weigh it against other benefits that the battery can contribute.

To avoid customers having to do these calculations themselves, Ferroamp introduced the AI control FerroAI at the end of April through a software update. FerroAI analyzes how electricity use has looked in the property in recent weeks and months and dynamically optimizes the power level while calculating how the company’s own use of solar energy can be maximized and variations in the electricity price over the day can be exploited.

Big savings for customers

Already, over 25 percent of all Ferroamp customers with batteries have activated the controller, which does not require any additional hardware. How much you save by activating the AI control differs depending on conditions such as how much electricity you use, how big a battery you have, how much spot prices vary and how high the power fees the network owner has. In the first evaluations, however, Ferroamp has been able to establish that customers with power tariffs in Ellevio’s electricity network have been able to reduce their total electricity costs by up to 40 percent in early May compared to having a battery that is only set to save solar electricity.

“The development of AI will both help customers reduce their costs but also be important for the ability to stabilize the electricity grid. We will continue to develop FerroAI to be able to combine with support services and to be able to use it together with our vehicle-to-grid charger. It’s about making it easy to use advanced technology,” says Kent Jonsson.