July 17
Plug-In Batteries Kept NYC Renters Cool During Heat Wave
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
Earlier this month, as a historic heat dome smothered the U.S. Midwest and Atlantic Coast, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked residents to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees Fahrenheit to protect the city’s severely strained grid. “Let’s ease demand – and get through the heat – together,” he posted on X ahead of the sweltering July 4 weekend.
Through demand flexibility initiatives like virtual power plants and demand response, utilities have proven that DERs, including thermostats, water heaters, batteries and EV chargers, can be aggregated into a dispatchable resource that shaves peak demand and defers costly infrastructure upgrades. The harder question in 2026 is whether enrollment keeps growing once the early-adopter curve flattens.
The Illinois Commerce Commission has approved Commonwealth Edison’s proposal for a battery-based “scheduled dispatch virtual power plant,” or SDVPP. The program replaces a previous, more limited VPP proposal ComEd withdrew in November following the passage of Illinois’s landmark Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act.
Eversource is launching two pilot initiatives to expand the company’s ConnectedSolutions+ program in Greater Boston and Southeastern Massachusetts. ConnectedSolutions+ is designed to create opportunities for customers to play an active role in maintaining electric grid reliability in their communities. It provides increased incentives for the use of DERs, such as eligible home batteries, qualified smart thermostats, building management systems and more.
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Industry News
American households are expected to spend significantly more on electricity to stay cool this summer, with average residential cooling costs projected to rise 10.5% compared with last year, according to a recent report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) and the Center for Energy Poverty and Climate. The report estimates that the average household will spend about $792 on electricity during the 2026 summer cooling season, up from $717 in 2025.
When Renew Home split off from Google in 2023, many in the energy sector saw it as a sign that distributed capacity was inching closer to reality. According to CEO Ben Brown, the idea at Renew Home’s inception was that traditional demand response programs were hard to scale, because they generally required customers to compromise on things like their favored indoor temperature to get a utility bill discount.
Do you live in the U.S. and want balcony solar? A new initiative could help you get a deal on one of these small but mighty systems that plug into a standard outlet and push clean power into your home. Today, California-based nonprofit Bright Saver announced it’s selling zero-markup DIY solar kits starting at about $300.
Investor-owned electric companies across the U.S. generated more electricity in a single week than ever before as scorching temperatures drove AC use to record levels in much of the country, according to new data from EEI. In an historical milestone, the data shows U.S. electric output reached 100,996 GWh during the week of June 28 through July 4, marking the first time weekly generation has topped 100,000 GWh.
