As homeowners, there is very little that we bubble up, just like comparing our homes to our friends, family and neighbors’ homes.
Is that the point of pride? “Check out the new grass I put in. If you squint, you’ll think you’re on Augusta’s 18th fairway.” Or the point of frustration – “I have a lot of birds with holes in a dilapidated roof, I think they just chose themselves as the new mayor.” We need to share and overshare the wins and losses related to our home.
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However, there are certain areas of the home that are more likely to bring value to our lives than bragging rights and short-term revisions. In particular, home energy technology, many of which are still in its early stages and have yet to achieve widespread adoption, yet it is quickly becoming fertile for home-to-home comparisons.
The challenges are as follows: From power-hungry homes to energy-optimized smart homes, the wide range of power needs and technology characterizing each situation makes it difficult to draw comparisons and gain actionable insights.
Different motivations underlie the homeowner’s thought process, adding another layer of complexity. Recent research from Habitelligence shows that homeowners are considering upgrading their energy systems, primarily to reduce monthly costs. However, there is a growing desire to control and improve efficiency of the power infrastructure.
Top drivers in investing in home energy technology
A new framework from Proficiency level Aiming for home energy maturity, it offers a four-level scale for homeowners to self-assess where they stand and provide goal posts for future upgrades. Using the acronym Core, the four levels are described as follows:
Level 1: Constraints – Constrained levels of homes face basic infrastructure limitations – small electrical panels (often below 100 amps), aging or inadequate wiring, and minimal service capacity. These issues block the path to the latest energy upgrades, such as solar, battery storage, EV chargers, and smart home panels. Homeowners often experience frustration installations as breaker travel, appliance options are limited and new technology remains out of reach.
Upgrade services can feel daunting or expensive, but they are an important first move to improve your daily safety and unlock the eligibility of future system installations and available incentives.
Level 2: Operation – At the operational level, the house wiring and services are structurally ready for energy upgrades, but the system itself has not yet been added. There is a foundation – panel space, service capacity, and often pre-wiring for solar and EV charging, but the home is completely dependent on traditional grids.
Many homeowners at this stage missed meaningful savings, backup features, or energy independence and are not aware of the available options. Operators are ideally positioned to take the next step with the flexibility to tailor upgrades to their personal goals and lifestyle.
Level 3: Resilience – Resilient homes are above the massive threshold. You’re investing in a combination of solar panels, battery storage, backup generators, or technology. However, these systems often operate on their own without calibrated control or optimization. Manual switches, individual apps, and siloed operations can limit the true potential of your investment.
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With better integration, with smart inverters, energy management platforms, or dynamic load control, these homes can significantly increase efficiency, resilience during outages, and overall return on investment. The core infrastructure is strong. To prosper, you need smarter orchestration.
Level 4: Privileged – Empowered homes represent the cutting edge of residential energy management. At this level, solar generation, battery storage, EV charging, hybrid inverters, and smart panels are interconnected and actively optimized by intelligent software. The result is load shifting, peak shaving, maximizing personal consumption, and backup functions all occur seamlessly, often without manual intervention.
While maximizing profits may require occasional monitoring or tweaking, empowered households enjoy the highest level of control, resilience, cost savings, and long-term energy flexibility, and are suitable to participate in new opportunities such as grid services and vehicle-to-home energy transfer.
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Wherever your home falls on the core scale, it can create real value for your home. All home technologies make up investments in money, time and brain space.
The return on that investment can begin primarily non-financial (e.g. peace of mind, comfort, convenience), but as it rises on the maturity curve, we have the opportunity to enjoy meaningful financial benefits that can affect short-term cash flows and long-term housing value.
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