Can Crestron integrate solar panels and battery storage?

Yes. The system monitors how much energy a solar array, battery storage or heat pump is producing alongside how much the home is using, presented in the same Crestron interface as lighting, AV and every other system, and automation can be built on top of that information.

What is solar gain management?

With a properly integrated system, unwanted heat from a south-facing room can be captured and moved to where it is useful, such as pre-warming a north-facing ensuite or warming the basement, rather than being wasted by closing blinds or running air conditioning.

Will I need a separate app for each energy system?

No. We bring solar, battery storage, heat recovery, underfloor heating and HVAC under the same Crestron interface as the rest of the property, so anyone in the household can see and control them.

Crestron Renewable Energy Integration — Solar, Battery & EV

Intelligent Home Energy Management and EV Charging Integration

Integrating renewable energy technologies into a Crestron system is one of the fastest-growing areas of our work. These integrations range from straightforward heating control through to full battery energy storage management and precise control of heat recovery systems. Done well, the benefit is significant — allowing clients to live off grid, or as close to it as the property allows, without sacrificing comfort or simplicity of use. Too often we see renewable energy systems that don’t work in harmony with the rest of the home, or that only one member of the household understands. We bring every system under the same Crestron interface as the rest of the property, removing the mystique so anyone in the household can control it.

Crestron Home

Custom Systems

Audio Video

Lighting

Programming

Monitoring Energy Production and Consumption

Every renewable energy integration begins with visibility. Our systems monitor how much energy a property’s solar array, battery storage or heat pump is producing alongside how much energy the home is actually using — both presented within the same Crestron interface as lighting, AV and every other system. This information lets the household make informed manual decisions — dimming lights, lowering a heating setpoint — but the real value comes from automation built on top of it.

The system can intelligently direct surplus energy to where it delivers the greatest saving: pre-warming immersion heaters for hot water, running underfloor heating while production is highest, or diverting power to the swimming pool. These behaviours are configured once, then run automatically — and can always be overridden or rescheduled from a single touchpanel when circumstances change.

Heat Recovery and Solar Gain Management

Intelligent use of a heat recovery system can have a substantial impact on a property’s energy use. Consider a south-facing room with large picture windows heating up as the sun streams in. Conventionally, the response is to close the blinds, open a window, or switch on the air conditioning — each of which either wastes the heat or spends energy removing it. With a properly integrated Crestron system, that unwanted solar gain can instead be captured and moved to where it is useful: pre-warming a north-facing ensuite, or directing warm air down to the basement to gently heat the traditionally coldest parts of the house — for free. This same approach is one we use regularly to heat alpine chalets in a genuinely energy-efficient way, where heating costs and carbon footprint both matter to the client.

Whole-Estate Climate & Pool Integration, Dubai

Case Study: Whole-Estate Climate Integration, Dubai

This Dubai estate isn’t a renewable energy installation specifically, but it’s the clearest illustration we have of the same underlying principle — bringing every environmental system in a property into one coherent, monitored interface rather than a scattered collection of separate controllers. Swimming pool systems, garden irrigation and climate control across two villas and extensive grounds are all managed from the same Crestron interface used to dim a bedroom light, with eight processors coordinating the whole property as a single system.

It’s the same design discipline a renewable energy integration depends on: visibility into what every system is doing, and the ability to schedule and automate intelligently rather than leaving each system to run independently. Read the full case study →

Heat Pumps, Underfloor Heating and Hot Water

Heat pumps work best running steadily at low flow temperatures, which suits underfloor heating but means they respond slowly to sudden demand. Bringing the heat pump, heating zones and hot water under Crestron lets the system plan ahead, warming the house gradually before the family wakes or arrives home rather than calling for full output at the last minute. Occupancy and schedules decide which zones need heat, so unused rooms are held at a lower setpoint rather than heated to the same level as the rest of the house. The household sees simple room temperatures and scenes; the scheduling logic runs behind them.

Battery Storage and EV Charging

Where a property has battery storage, the value lies in deciding when to store energy and when to use it. Crestron can present battery charge alongside solar production and household demand, and run heavy loads such as laundry, pool heating or electric vehicle charging when surplus energy is available. The same information lets the household see at a glance whether the house is running on its own generation or drawing from the grid. Every rule is agreed with the client first, so automation supports the way they live rather than overriding it.

For electric vehicles, Crestron Home OS 4.4 introduced EV charging control through the Phoenix CHARX system and native Tesla controls, including HVAC preconditioning, charging status and lock settings, from the same interface used for lighting and AV. Only equipment with proper integration support can be brought in natively, so we advise on compatible chargers, inverters and battery systems before purchase rather than after installation.

Planning Energy Integration Early

The best results come when energy systems are planned alongside the control system rather than connected afterwards. We work with the mechanical and electrical engineers and renewable energy installers at design stage to agree which equipment will be integrated, how it will communicate with Crestron and what the household needs to see and control. Specifying equipment with proper integration support from the outset avoids the common situation of solar, battery and heating systems that each need their own app. It also means the monitoring and automation are commissioned and tested with the rest of the house.

Simplified Control of Complex Systems

However sophisticated the underlying technology, the household experience needs to stay simple. Bringing solar, battery storage, heat recovery, underfloor heating and HVAC under a single Crestron interface means the homeowner can see exactly which devices are consuming the most energy and schedule them to run when it makes the most sense — laundry when production is highest, underfloor heating when immersion heaters are at their peak. A single instruction, such as “heat the house”, can trigger different actions depending on the circumstances — for example redirecting warm air from an orangery to the kitchen rather than firing up a separate heat source. The complexity lives in the programming, not in the day-to-day experience of using the home.

Five-Time Crestron Integration Award Winners — Unique in EMEA

Five Crestron Integration Awards, won in five consecutive years. No other installer in EMEA has done it. The awards are judged by Crestron itself against entries from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Our award-winning entries were a Dubai estate with eight processors and 72 audio zones, a whole-home Derby lighting scheme built entirely on Crestron’s own fittings, two wins for Best High Rise in Europe at Claridge’s and the Beetham Tower, and the first Crestron Digital Media installation in the UK, on Baker Street. Open any award below to see the project behind it.

Best International Project — A Whole-Estate Crestron Installation, Dubai

Huge Crestron Installation, Dubai Estate

Our most celebrated Crestron case study — and the project that won us the Crestron Integration Award for Best International Project — is a complete Crestron system spanning two large villas, extensive gardens, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a lake and a stream on a private estate in Dubai. Eight Crestron processors provide integrated control throughout, distributing audio to 72 zones, video to 32 zones and managing well over 400 lighting channels across both villas and the grounds. Five surround sound zones, five Kaleidescape movie servers, four Apple TVs, 24 audio sources and a full Crestron Sonnex audio distribution system serve the family villa, the guest villa, staff areas, offices and classrooms simultaneously.

The scope is perhaps best illustrated by its details: the basketball court has four cabinet speakers mounted on the floodlights with two sunken subwoofers; the garden fire pits are Crestron-controlled; the gym features Artcoustic speakers enhanced by subwoofers; and the master bedroom suite houses a bespoke Stax headphone system with a valve amplifier and DaVinci DAC for private listening. The dedicated home cinema room in the family villa seats eight in Cineak chairs with backlit Onyx tables, with a 3.5m screen and 17 channels of surround sound — one of the most comprehensive Crestron installations ever delivered in the residential market. Read the full case study →

Best Lighting Control & Design — A Whole-Home Lighting Installation, Derby

Where the Dubai estate shows what Crestron can do at maximum scale, this new-build home in the Derby countryside shows what it can do with lighting alone, done properly — the project that won us the Crestron Integration Award for Best Lighting Control & Design, and the first installation in the UK to use Crestron’s own dimmable LED fittings end-to-end, with nothing else involved in the lighting. Over 350 fittings across 200+ channels — each drawing roughly 18 watts while matching the output of a 50-watt halogen downlight — are managed through six distributed lighting racks for clean cabling and full redundancy. The client calculated that the entire house now uses the same lighting energy previously used by just the kitchen and dining room alone. Scenes, scheduling and remote access are available from the wall touchpanels, more than 50 keypads or an iPad, and every keypad is custom-engraved so each button says what it does.

Lighting sits alongside 24 audio zones and 16 video zones over Crestron Digital Media, full heating and air conditioning control, gate intercom distributed via touchpanels throughout the property, and a complete monitored security and CCTV system with automatic camera-follow logic — every part of it native Crestron, controlled from the same wall touchpanels and iPad interfaces used for everything else in the home. Read the full case study →

Best High Rise in Europe — Claridge’s Hotel Penthouses, Mayfair

Crestron touchpanel in a Claridge's Hotel penthouse, Mayfair

Working inside the listed Claridge’s Hotel, we installed Crestron-controlled Loewe multimedia systems in two penthouse apartments of three rooms each — the project that won the Crestron Integration Award for Best High Rise in Europe. The interiors are listed, so no new cable routes could be created and nothing could be chased, drilled or rewired. Every decision about equipment and control started with the building rather than the product catalogue.

Every room has a Loewe LED TV and Blu-ray player. In the living rooms, 46-inch Loewe TVs are paired with upgraded audio: the Individual Sound Projector in one apartment and stand-mounted stereo speakers in the other, both supported by subwoofers. Wireless control removed the need for wall-mounted keypads or new wiring to each control position, which is what made a full Crestron system possible in rooms that could not be physically altered.

The design centred on the Crestron TPS-6X wireless touchpanel, which uses RF rather than WiFi for instant response and freedom from interference by neighbouring wireless networks. Each panel carries the Claridge’s crest in a bespoke finish, and guests reach the Loewe LED TVs, Blu-ray, Sky HD and hotel TV from one interface that had to be intuitive for guests of any nationality with no instruction. Read the full case study →

Most Innovative Control — The First Crestron Digital Media Installation in the UK, Baker Street

Crestron control in the living room, Baker Street, London

This modern townhouse near Regent’s Park was the first Crestron Digital Media installation in the UK, and won the pan-European 2010 Crestron Integration Award for Most Innovative Control Solution. It also became an official Crestron case study. HD audio and video from Sky HD, ArabSat, Apple TV and a Kaleidescape server reach eight TVs over Cat5e cable, with an audio matrix feeding ceiling speakers in each room, including DAB radio.

Centralising the sources means one Sky HD, ArabSat, Apple TV and Kaleidescape installation serves the whole house rather than a box beside every television. The Kaleidescape server holds the client’s film collection for instant access in any room, and the CCTV cameras appear as just another source on any screen. The interface was programmed from scratch around the property and the people living in it, with weather feeds and local times for each of the client’s international home locations embedded on the touchpanel home page.

Lighting, heating, Hitachi air conditioning and an Axis IP CCTV system run from the same Crestron interface, on a mix of wired TPS-6L and wireless TPS-6X touchpanels, with iPhone control from anywhere in the world, including switching on the underfloor heating during the transfer from the airport. The Axis cameras are viewable from the client’s laptop or full-screen on a touchpanel at home, with a large storage server keeping all footage available for analysis. The interface is so intuitive that the client turned down training, and it is used regularly by non-English-speaking staff. Read the full case study →

Best High Rise in Europe — Beetham Tower Penthouse, Manchester

Crestron-controlled reception room, Beetham Tower penthouse, Manchester

The top two floors of the 168.87m Beetham Tower, the highest residential living space in Europe at the time of installation, won us the 2009 Crestron Integration Award for Best High Rise in Europe and became an official Crestron Digital Media case study. The biggest challenge was not distributing audio and video but controlling the building management systems: underfloor heating, ventilation, swimming pool temperature and the irrigation for a 4,000 square foot rooftop olive grove, all from Crestron 6-inch touchpanels.

Bringing these systems under one controller means the client never deals with a separate thermostat, pool controller or irrigation timer. Temperature setpoints are adjusted room by room with a simple scroll and tap on the touchpanels, and the heating, ventilation, pool and garden sit in the same interface as the audio, video, lighting and security, so the whole penthouse is run the same way.

Alongside the environment sit eight audio zones and four video zones with a Kaleidescape server that stores the client’s DVD and CD collection so several different films or albums can play at once in different zones, and an FM tuner that is particularly popular in the his-and-hers bathrooms. More than 60 lighting channels and 25 keypads give direct scene recall around the apartment, and CCTV, including the private lift lobby, records on a rolling basis alongside a monitored alarm that notifies the concierge and the client, all in one interface. Read the full case study →

Alongside the awards, we are a Crestron Dealer of Distinction, Crestron’s higher dealer level, and we have been certified Crestron dealers since 1998, the year Crestron was establishing itself as the dominant residential automation platform in the UK. For over two decades we have remained continuously active in the Crestron ecosystem, installing hundreds of systems across every generation of Crestron hardware and software.

Renewable Energy FAQs

Can Crestron integrate solar panels and battery storage?
Yes. The system monitors how much energy a solar array, battery storage or heat pump is producing alongside how much the home is using, presented in the same Crestron interface as lighting, AV and every other system, and automation can be built on top of that information.
Can Crestron control electric vehicle charging?
Yes. Crestron Home OS 4.4 introduced EV charging control through the Phoenix CHARX system and native Tesla controls, including HVAC preconditioning, charging status and lock settings.
Can Crestron manage heat pumps and underfloor heating?
Yes. Bringing the heat pump, heating zones and hot water under Crestron lets the system plan ahead, warming the house gradually before the family wakes or arrives home, with occupancy and schedules deciding which zones need heat.
What is solar gain management?
With a properly integrated system, unwanted heat from a south-facing room can be captured and moved to where it is useful, such as pre-warming a north-facing ensuite or warming the basement, rather than being wasted by closing blinds or running air conditioning.
Will I need a separate app for each energy system?
No. We bring solar, battery storage, heat recovery, underfloor heating and HVAC under the same Crestron interface as the rest of the property, so anyone in the household can see and control them.
Should energy systems be planned at design stage?
Yes. The best results come when energy systems are planned alongside the control system. We work with mechanical and electrical engineers and renewable energy installers to agree which equipment will be integrated and what the household needs to see and control.

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