Tendril Teams with Whirlpool Corporation to Usher in New Era of Smart Appliances

Tendril, a leading energy platform company, and Whirlpool Corporation, the world's leading appliance maker, unveiled a relationship that sets the stage for the rollout of smart home appliances in the U.S. The Tendril platform has the capability to support millions of smart appliances in homes across America.

Tendril will provide the back-end technology infrastructure to support the commercial deployment of smart appliances, including a range of connectivity-enabled services and applications. Whirlpool Corporation will integrate its smart appliances with the Smart Grid infrastructure by extending Tendril’s open standards-based, scalable and secure technology platform. This integrated platform will enable a dialogue between appliances, consumers and energy providers — making the connected home and home energy management a reality. For example, for a refrigerator to actively manage its energy consumption, it must be able to quickly, reliably and seamlessly communicate with the electric utility company.

In this case, the refrigerator will automatically move its defrost cycle to a non-peak time without impacting the performance of the appliance.

Smart appliances can have an even more profound impact on reducing expensive peak demand as well as supporting renewables (e.g., solar and wind) on the Grid. Consumers will also be excited by the new convenience features enabled by a smart appliance.