Australia’s push towards 82% renewable electricity by 2030 makes home and business rooftop solar more important than ever. But the value of consumer energy resources (CER) doesn’t stop there. Electricity consumers can be more energy efficient, they can be flexible when they use electricity for major loads, they can store electricity in batteries, and they can double down on electrifying everything. Wattwatchers is releasing our next-generation Auditor 6MW-CER to make all of this easier at the edge of the grid.
Next-Generation Solution: THE AUDITOR 6MW-CER
You’re operating on the grid edge, the low voltage network where over 10 million Australian households draw their mains electricity, and you need to do a lot more than just receive a bill from your energy retailer.
Already over a third of Australian households have rooftop solar, and that’s expected to hit over half by 2030. More and more enterprises and community facilities have their own solar too.
Australia is leading the world on small-scale consumer energy resources (CER). Other nations want to follow fast, making Australia a global testbed for solutions.
How Australians self-consume that home-made renewable electricity, and the relationships between their systems and the grid, is increasingly critical and complex. For the customers themselves, for the suppliers, installers and service providers who support them, and for the industry players that operate and trade on the grids.
According to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), there will be days as early as 2025 when 100% of the nation’s electricity will be generated from renewables, with the biggest single source being all of the distributed solar from homes and enterprises.
It’s an exciting future, propelled by Net Zero decarbonisation and the electrification of everything – especially electric vehicles, and getting mains gas out of homes.
But we need the right tools – software and hardware, backed by analytics and data – to optimise this future, making the grid-edge dynamic and flexible, but also reliable, secure and cost-effective.
The age of consumer energy resources (CER) is well and truly here!
The tools we need
What about one device that can simultaneously monitor all your circuits, help automate your electric water heating or EV charging, and remotely control solar exports?
Not sure if you should be using 4G cellular or WiFi? You can have both in the one device, and Bluetooth too!
All of this is designed and made in Australia, and is guided by our cutting-edge approach to security and cybersecurity for devices, data and the whole solution ecosystem.
Roadmap stretches ahead
For more than a year we’ve been coding up something transformative at Wattwatchers. Now it’s time for the ‘reveals’ from our next-generation hardware roadmap to begin (this is the beginning not the end).
For Wattwatchers, it means the biggest leap forward for our edge-of-grid smart monitoring and control devices in a technology generation. It’s the start of a whole new generation of the Wattwatchers product suite, further building out Australia’s leading digital energy platform.
Checklist of features
Announcing the 6MW-CER, the ultimate grid edge device, which incorporates new and improved features.
Wattwatchers Auditor 6MW-CER … pre-order for December 2023 release
The 6MW-CER also comes with features that until now have been spread across several different Wattwatchers Auditor series device models – the recently-retired 6W (WiFi), our workhorse mainstay cellular monitoring device the 6M, 6M+3SW with switching, and the 6M+MB with Modbus – but will now all be packaged in a single model:
- Multi comms – 4G, WiFi
- Enhanced security features
- More in-device computing power
- Onboard easily with QR code
- Solar export control (via compatible inverters)
- Load control (e.g. hot water, EV charging)
- Future-proof (new CER CLOUD™ coming)
A more-extensive summary of the 6MW-CER’s features – compared against the current Auditor 6M model, Wattwatchers’ top-selling solution – appears below:
| Feature | Current 6M Model | New 6MW Model |
| 6 CT’s | ✔ | ✔ |
| 60A to 600A CT ratings | ✔ | ✔ |
| 4G | ✔ | ✔ |
| WiFi | X | ✔ |
| Onboarding App | ✔ | ✔ |
| Onboarding QR Code | X | ✔ |
| Digital Certificates | X | ✔ |
| Solar Export Control #1 | X | ✔ |
| Hot Water Control #2 | X | ✔ |
| CER CLOUD (™) #3 | X | ✔ |
How it works
The key to the grid-edge superiority of the 6MW-CER is that it can do more than one thing at the same time. The graphic below provides a simple overview of how it works:
The device image above is indicative only and will differ slightly in the launch version of the 6MW-CER.
Upgraded security features
To help meet the challenges of the grid edge, as it evolves at speed and scale, we have embraced best-in-class security features. These address current and emerging security and cybersecurity requirements, including the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) laws.
For security best-practice reasons, however, we don’t list the details of specific security features and enhancements.
Detailed product information (preliminary)
If interested, you can get the detailed product data sheet (preliminary version) by registering here using the online form for pre-orders, and asking for it.
Indicative pricing
Whilst we work hard to maintain the lowest prices possible, across our whole range, there are market challenges out of our control. The two most significant are well-known: global supply chain constraints for components, and a weak and unstable Australian dollar.
Even with the increased functionality and features, we are trying to keep the 6MW-CER price point as low as possible, at $349 ex GST## for its launch.
## This current target pricing is subject to change. Some features will require higher subscription costs.
First supported inverters
While the aim is to support all solar inverters, the initial release will support Sungrow and Goodwe. Other inverters will be delivered over time or via demand for integrations.
Coming up
Keep watching out for further announcements. Coming soon CER CLOUD (™), an ‘NMI’ device for electricity billing use cases, and other instalments as we push deeper into our next-generation solution architecture.
Register interest/Pre-orders
Register here to engage our Sales team and to lodge pre-orders for the 6MW-CER – for delivery from the first commercial production runs, scheduled for December 2023.
