Oh the irony, it burns. The full weight of federal policy has been working against renewable energy, only to be foiled by the humble electricity meter. The ubiquitous household devices have been getting a clean tech makeover from the US startup ConnectDER, helping to cut the cost of rooftop solar, home energy storage, and EV charging stations. In the latest development, ConnectDER has just gotten a big thumbs-up from two leading US utilities, putting it on track to cover a territory that includes more than 50 million households.
Goliath, Meet The Meter Socket Adapter
To be clear, the rise of the electricity meter will not counterbalance the Goliath-sized monkey wrench that has been thrown into the energy transition, with the nation’s offshore wind industry suffering a particularly cruel hit. However, US innovators like ConnectDER can and will continue to support renewable energy at the granular level, from house to house, until peace and sanity are restored to the White House.
ConnectDER launched in 2011 with a plan to retrofit electricity meters for the energy transition. At a relatively modest cost, the company’s suite of meter socket adapters (also called meter collars) can help make clean tech — rooftop solar, storage, and EV charging stations — more affordable for the owners of older homes, which would otherwise require full, expensive electrical upgrades.
If the “DER” in ConnectDER is beginning to ring some bells, that’s no accident. DER is short for distributed energy resources, meaning energy producing devices that fall outside of the standard centralized power generation model, such as rooftop solar and home energy storage. Energy-consuming devices — thermostats and EV chargers, for example — can also play a significant DER role. When connected in a virtual power plant, they can dial down to smooth out peak demand periods on the grid, helping to avoid excess strain. In a best case scenario, virtual power plants reduce or eliminate the need to construct costly new gas peaker plants and other expensive infrastructure.
That’s all well and good, but for many households in older homes, the cost of an electrical system upgrade is just one more obstacle getting in the way of EV adoption and other clean tech. That’s where ConnectDER can make a difference. The company’s meter collars enable solar arrays, batteries, and Level 2 EV chargers to plug directly into a meter socket.
ConnectDER surfaced on the CleanTechnica radar in 2022, when it hooked up with Siemens to market an EV charging adapter. “By bypassing a home’s electric service panel, the adapter will save an estimated 60 to 80 percent of the charger installation cost by avoiding the need for electric panel upgrades,” Siemens explained, adding that the installation only takes about 15 minutes (see more ConnectDER background here).