June 12
Energy Affordability Through Proactive Engagement
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
Electricity affordability has become one of the most pressing issues facing the utility industry. According to J.D. Power, overall customer satisfaction has dropped to its lowest score on record, driven largely by average monthly residential bills that have surged 34% since 2020 to $189. Nearly a quarter of electric utility customers reported they could not pay their full bill or carried an outstanding balance.
EDP Renewables North America and Salt River Project celebrated the completion of Flatland Energy Storage, a 200 MW/800 MWh battery energy storage system in Coolidge, Arizona. Located in Pinal County, “Flatland Energy Storage demonstrates the increasing importance of utility-scale battery projects in enhancing grid flexibility and improving energy reliability,” SRP said.
The 2025 Ohm Analytics VPP Market Report landed in January with a number that’s hard to ignore: residential battery virtual power plant (VPP) capacity grew 153% year-over-year – the fastest growth of any technology segment tracked. We asked Senior Policy and Research Analyst Madeline Turner from the Ohm Analytics team to go deeper on what’s driving VPP growth.
As data center developers confront interconnection queues stretching years, and utilities confront surging demand growth and lagging supply, traditional models of load service are proving inadequate. In the next few years, in markets where supply and demand are fundamentally out of balance, grid connection increasingly comes with a choice: either bring the needed power yourself, or bring flexibility.
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Industry News
At first glance, Frances Bell’s home in Oakland, California doesn’t look like a postcard from the EV-powered future. But if a new program takes off, it could be a harbinger of what’s possible for homes across the state and the country. Sure, there’s a shiny new Kia EV9 in the driveway and a black charging cord that runs from the car to an EV charger on the side of her house.
Colorado electric cooperative Holy Cross Energy announced that in March it provided renewable electricity equivalent to 100% of its members’ needs for the first time – bringing the co-op closer to its goal of doing so continually from 2030 onward. HCE said that the utility’s success in March was “driven by a combination of mild temperatures and favorable conditions for the production of electricity from HCE’s robust portfolio of renewable energy resources.”
In the first quarter, 7.8 GW of new solar capacity was added in the United States, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight 2026 Q2 Report released by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. Solar and energy storage represented 91% of new capacity installed in Q1 as utilities, homeowners and businesses seek energy security amid global gas and gas turbine supply disruptions.
Utilities have spent nearly $6 billion to install roughly 12 million smart meters at homes and businesses across PJM Interconnection, the biggest U.S. energy market. These devices are meant to help their customers use energy more efficiently and save money. But within much of PJM’s 13-state territory, these devices have actually made it harder for households to participate in the third-party demand response programs that promise to deliver those savings.
