White paper explores building grid intelligence

  • March 29, 2021
  • Steve Rogerson

Copper Labs, a Colorado-based company offering patent-pending wireless real-time energy management (WREM), has published a white paper on building real-time grid intelligence.

Prepared by Guidehouse Insights, the paper examines how WREM provides a low-cost, easy-to-deploy and effective mechanism for achieving meaningful grid impact when and where it matters.

With utility programme managers working to develop residential demand-side management programming, the paper identifies the features of WREM that are inherent in its name: 

  • Wireless access revenue-grade meter data, without the need for an electrician, using existing broadband networks for low cost and extensive accessibility.
  • Real-time energy and voltage data at sub-minute intervals are delivered immediately to utilities and their customers for relevant insights.
  • Energy management allows utilities and their customers to align the balance of energy supply and demand, including locational targeting for the distribution grid.

“Grid-edge intelligence results in more meaningful grid impacts, a reduction in the cost to serve energy and the ability to maximise the use of variable renewables,” said Dan Forman, chief executive officer of Copper Labs. “The WREM marketplace is growing by leaps and bounds, especially as more utilities adopt real-time capabilities to handle extraordinary surges in demand due to extreme weather events, such as what we saw in Texas.”

Guidehouse Insights is a market intelligence team that provides emerging technology research, data, and benchmarking services for today’s rapidly changing and highly regulated industries. According to its 2019 report on home energy management, WREM is part of the growing home energy management market, which is forecast to earn nearly $3bn in revenue in North America in 2021. A primary driver of this growth is adoption of smart meters, which has been on the rise across all utilities.

“Wireless real-time energy management provides grid operators with the tools necessary to manage peak demand, optimise a growing number of DER and provide frictionless customer engagement,” said Brett Feldman, research director at Guidehouse Insights. “Utilities have invested significantly in updated smart meter infrastructure, and forward-thinking programme managers are already leveraging WREM to combat the challenges of an evolving grid.”

Copper Labs is on a mission to create a more sustainable energy future by helping utilities take control of energy demand when it matters most to the grid. Copper, the company’s flagship wireless energy monitor, delivers real-time grid-edge intelligence and electric, gas and water usage data, with or without smart meters. These let utilities and ecosystem partners engage targeted consumers and help manage energy demand, stabilise the grid and reduce the cost to serve energy.