Press Releases

Rueil-Malmaison, October 24, 2007 - The HOMES programme, steered by Schneider Electric, got the green light from the European Commission in September. The AII (French industrial innovation agency) will finance the programme to the tune of €39 million: aid that will supplement the investment by Schneider Electric and its partners (€50 million).

“The HOMES programme is a unique opportunity to associate with major partners and show our ability to work together to provide solutions for energy efficiency. This programme is the promise of strong innovations, thanks to which, alongside our partners, we can bring to market the products and solutions necessary for greater energy efficiency and develop new services”, explains Bernard Larrouturou, Schneider Electric Senior Vice President Innovation .

HOMES: solutions that can be widely deployed with Europe’s existing equipment
With an objective of 20% energy saving, the HOMES programme’s ambitious aim is to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and the comfort of their occupants through easy to use solutions:
- Attractive to final users via their ease of use, ergonomics, cost, etc.
- Attractive to different professions: investors, architects, design offices and  installers,
- Designed for a wide range of buildings, whether residential or tertiary, new, existing or for renovation.

One of the major levers consists of thinking of the building as a system: thanks to communicating sensors spread throughout each zone of the building, the collaboration between the different systems and “active control” of energy, the electricity will be used in an optimal manner. In fact, it will be possible to control electricity use depending on the occupation of the zone, the measure of air quality in a room, the ambient light, etc.

The first mission of the dedicated team: consolidating the existent to prepare for the future
Schneider Electric’s HOMES programme dedicated team consists of the Innovation management (in charge of managing the programme) and 4 Group Business Units (Power, Automation, Building Automation, Installation Systems & Control). In the framework of this programme, Schneider Electric will create 40 jobs in the electro-technical fields and the control and software sectors.

The Schneider Electric team will work together with all the partners for a period of four years. They are all European leaders in their respective fields: Ciat, EDF, Philips Lighting, Somfy, ST Microelectronics, TAC, Delta Dore, Polyspace, Radiall, Watteco, Wieland, the CEA, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment & Laboratoire IDEA. Designing architectures, starting technical research and pre-development works, setting up platforms to test all the solutions developed: these are the missions the HOMES team should carry out.

Intermediate results will be supplied to the Industrial Innovation Agency every six months, making it possible to follow the progress of the programme and the latest solutions produced. The first stage of this joint work will consist of thinking about existing architectures and the value systems of the solutions to be developed. The objective is to prepare everything to design the prototypes of future products.

About Schneider Electric
The world leader in electrical distribution and automation & control, Schneider Electric develops a global offer of products and services for the residential, buildings, industry, energy and infrastructures markets. In 2006, the 112,000 employees of Schneider Electric generated sales of €13.7 billion through 15,000 sales outlets in 190 countries.
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