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Eaton: Creating the First Smart Breaker

Eaton is dedicated to ensuring that reliable, efficient and safe power is available when it’s needed most. With unparalleled knowledge of electrical power management across industries, experts at Eaton deliver customized, integrated solutions to solve their customers’ most critical challenges. Utilities are constantly meeting new challenges and sometimes competing demands, according to Jennifer Ploskina, Segment Manager, Strategic Markets Residential & Wiring Devices Division, Eaton. Utilities are at the heart of an increasingly digital economy with electron-thirsty electric vehicles to now feed. As such, new demands will be placed on a home’s load center and circuit breakers.   “Electric vehicles are just now hitting higher adoption rates,” said Ploskina. “We develop the technology for the load center of a house. Eaton came out with the EMCB (Energy Management Circuit Breaker), which is basically the brains of a home charging station.” Eaton’s EMCB is an industry first, said Ploskina, describing it as a next-generation “smart breaker” that has the safety functionality of a standard circuit breaker with cloud-connectivity and on-board intelligence built in. She noted that EMCB allows homeowners to safely charge their cars, ensuring the vehicle is charged properly and the home’s load center runs efficiently. It is a staggering transformation of circuit breaker technology, Ploskina said, and it offers revenue-grade branch circuit metering, communications capabilities and remote access. The breaker can be monitored and controlled without compromising any of the circuit breaker’s traditional safety features. Read more Roadtrip 2.0 Coverage Here.