KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd Energy Services (TNBES), a wholly owned subsidiary of Tenaga Nasional Bhd, is eyeing at least 30 per cent of its current customer base, or about 9 million customers, to be equipped with smart home system in the next 4 years.
TNBES managing director Dr Ir Ahmad Jaafar Abd Hamid said the modest target also depends on broadband connectivity and other ecosystem or infrastructure needed to support smart living.
He said smart home market is becoming a boom in Asia led by China and Japan. Highly connected societies such as Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan will see a booming industry.
"In Malaysia, proliferation of broadband and internet will also create a favourable condition for TNB to capitalise on. Moreover, we stand to leverage from TNB’s Smart Meter programme to embed smart home ready capability in homes,” he told NSTP Business.
TNBES introduced home energy monitoring system (HEMS) called Maevi earlier this month to be installed with the usage of smart devices in homes.
"To date, we have received orders from individual home owners and property developers for their homes to be equipped with the smart devices and Maevi.
"We aim to achieve the target between 8,000 to 12,000 homes by August next year in our bid to help consumers improve energy efficiency and reduce energy costs," he said.
Maevi online tool will enable consumers to monitor and manage energy bills through remote operation of home appliances and access to personalised recommendations on reducing energy consumption.
“Maevi can be used by consumers via IOS and Android powered mobile devices to set energy efficiency targets and receive notifications in the event they exceed set energy efficiency goals,” said chief marketing & sales officer Dr Mohd Aswad Ramli.
Speaking to NSTP Business at the sidelines of Smart Living and Innovation Caucus 2018 (SLIC 2018) energy conference held recently, Aswad said the HEMS will complement TNBES’ home energy in efforts to stabilise grid network through the expansion of demand-side management portfolio.
“Initially, we planned to focus on homes that have bills amounting RM700 and above a month, but upon launch, many interested home owners came forward regardless of their bill amount, as it provides ease of use and more control over their electricity usage.
“For an entry level package, it costs less than RM2,000 for it to be installed and with energy savings expected of 10 per cent or more.
Aswad said TNBES is also having promotions for all three smart home packages which will be ongoing until August 2019 and so far, the company received bookings from both individual home owners and property developers.
“I can’t name the developers but a few have stated their intention to incorporate their properties with our smart home devices before the homes are handed over to buyers,” he said.
Maevi Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Izham Ismail said the smart home system will enable consumers to have total control on their electricity usage.
"We are looking to increase our revenue from making the electricity usage visible to consumers, making efficiency a catalyst.
“We plan to introduce homes that can work on its own, cutting unnecessary electricity wastages coming from the energy efficiency perspective,” he said
He said users can pick and choose what they want to use depending on the control, how they use and when they want to use it.
The HEMS packages come in three types - monitoring, automation and security packages which caters to different types of customers and their needs.
The promotion will include packages with additional 1 energy meter, 1 smartplug and 1 gateway for either 1 phase of 3 phase homes at RM899 and RM999 respectively.