May 22
Are Consumers Ready for Demand Response? Here’s What SECC’s Research Says.
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
AI data centers have become a lightning rod for public inquiry and have inadvertently raised awareness of important energy topics like demand flexibility initiatives that electricity providers have long explored. Because of rising demand, in communities across the United States, consumers are now asking questions about when electricity is used, how much is used, and the resulting impact on both grid reliability and affordability.
Austin Energy has entered into an agreement with Base Power to deploy 40 MW of residential battery storage. “This work strengthens the local grid by adding a new dispatchable resource that can be activated during periods of peak demand or price volatility while creating an opportunity for Austin homeowners to participate in Base Power’s whole-home backup power program,” the utility noted.
Across the energy sector, we’ve entered a moment defined by tension and opportunity. As SECC’s new “Connecting Cost to Value” playbook notes, “energy providers are being asked to explain a surge of investment at the exact moment customers are worried about affordability” and are watching their bills more closely than ever.
Avangrid signed a long-term power purchase agreement with Puget Sound Energy (PSE) for the Big Horn I wind energy project in Klickitat County, Washington. Big Horn I is a wind energy project that was first built by Avangrid in 2006. The 199.5 MW Big Horn I facility can generate enough electricity for about 70,000 homes annually. This is the fourth power purchase agreement between the two companies for projects in the Pacific Northwest.
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Industry News
As the war in Iran spikes gasoline prices around the globe, drivers in many countries have headed for an obvious emergency exit: EVs. But buyers in the U.S. aren’t following suit, and a lack of affordable EV options is a big reason why. While global EV sales plunged in January and February from 2025’s record heights, they rebounded in March and April.
Investor-owned electric utilities across the U.S. are increasingly pairing large data center and industrial load growth with rate protections designed to shield residential customers from infrastructure costs, as utilities and regulators advance new tariffs and agreements that require hyperscalers and other large customers to fund grid upgrades and generation additions.
Commercial electricity consumption is likely to surpass residential use for the first time on record in 2027, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said last week. The commercial sector, which includes hyperscalers, bitcoin miners and cloud computing, is expected to see electricity sales grow 2.2% to about 1,530 billion kWh in 2026 – roughly the same as the residential sector – followed by 5.3% growth the following year.
In 2023, the San Francisco Bay Area’s air district passed first-in-the-nation rules setting zero-emissions limits on home heating systems and water heaters. Now, the agency is working to address affordability concerns ahead of the water heater rule’s finalization this year – and defuse calls from some regulators to scrap the policy altogether.
