Episode 113 | Multitasking Meters | ConnectDER

These days, nearly every electric meter is a "Smart Meter," so what makes them smart?

My guest, ConnectDER CEO Whit Fulton, says "Smart Meters 1.0" provided interval metering, two-way communications, and outage notifications. Today, with more home outfitted with rooftop solar and battery storage, smart meters need to relay this complex energy usage back to utilities. He says meters should not only report which direction energy is flowing from the home, meters should report what proportion of that is coming from rooftop solar and other Distributed Energy Resources (DERs).

"It gives the utility the potential to do really high-resolution visualization and forecasting of what the power on each individual distribution line is going to look like," he says. This could also lead utilities to understand and model how much energy supply could be coming from millions of homes with rooftop solar.

ConnectDER's devices can relay information like this. Whit says one of their biggest innovations is their collar that fits into a standard meter socket at a home. The collar has a port for connecting the solar line directly to the meter. Whit says as many as one-in-five home solar jobs require that the breaker box or service panel be ripped out. "We’re basically making it like an appliance," he says.

He believes the ease-of-use is one reason solar installers are asking utilities to adopt their products. Whit describes them as a "go-to-market army" working on their behalf.

He believes rooftop solar should be able to provide more value than simple net-metering models offer today. Whit also strongly advocates time-of-use charging, whereby a customer's rooftop solar is worth more during times of peak demand. He believes his product can provide that data necessary for transactions like these.

"Historically, the utility has very little insight into what’s happening out on the edge of their grid, he says. "We’re enabling the nerve endings that allows the utility to react more effectively to grid events and plan for the future."

Useful Links:

ConnectDER - Official Site