October 16
POWERCONNECT.AI Unveils CIS360
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
POWERCONNECT.AI this week announced CIS360, an AI-powered platform designed to transform how electric, water and gas utilities modernize their Customer Information Systems (CIS) without replacing their existing core CIS and billing infrastructure. For decades, utilities have invested millions of dollars and years of resources in complex CIS upgrades, migrations and replacements.
Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy filed its Electric Customer Rate Stability Plan with the Minnesota PUC proposing to freeze customer base electric rates for 2027 and 2028 as an alternative to a traditional rate case. If approved, the proposal would allow the company to postpone its next electric rate case until at least November 2028. At the same time, the company said it would continue to invest roughly $4.5 billion into Minnesota’s electric system over the next two years.
Topline Demand Control (TDC) increases firm capacity by steering a fleet of distributed energy resources (DERs) to follow a target load shape in real time, instead of sending one fixed command and hoping the fleet responds. In a field comparison across several thousand smart thermostats, a TDC event delivered about 53% more firm capacity than a traditional event.
Richardson Electronics is partnering with ComEd to expand manufacturing of battery energy storage systems in Illinois and install its first onsite battery energy storage system demonstration project. Richardson is building the largest commercial battery storage system in Illinois. As part of this, Richardson is installing a 5-MWh research and development demonstration project, supported through the ComEd interconnection process.
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Industry News
Investor-owned utilities have requested $23.1 billion in electric and gas rate increases so far this year, including a record $4.5 billion filed with regulators in the third quarter, according to a report from the advocacy group PowerLines. Energy affordability has become a key issue heading into the midterm elections next month, with voters focused on rising costs amid the spread of data centers.
A little over a year after launching the first “bring your own distributed capacity” program for data centers in the Mid-Atlantic, virtual power plant provider Voltus announced it has raised $225 million to scale that offering even further. The oversubscribed Series D is Voltus’ first raise since 2021, when it raised a $31-million Series C. At the time, Voltus was a relative newcomer to the market, with 1.7 gigawatts of load under management.
America’s demand for heat pumps isn’t going away just because federal incentives did. Shipments of heat pumps stayed strong in the first half of 2026, and the tech is on track to match or exceed its best year, according to a recent report from the Building Decarbonization Coalition. The nonprofit relies on data from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group that represents most of the U.S. market.
If all U.S. electric utilities were to achieve a 4% system peak reduction utilizing residential virtual power plants, the resource could help reduce bill increases for average households by more than half over the next five years, according to a report from The Brattle Group. The 4% target is already being achieved by the top 10% of utility demand response programs, the report noted.
