CAMBRIDGE, MA (November 18, 2025) – The electric utility industry has been grappling with a new, chaotic reality: the distribution grid is going dark. The rapid, decentralized growth of rooftop solar and electric vehicle (EV) charging has created critical “blind spots” that compromise reliability and force inefficient capital spending.
Today, Sense, a leader in grid edge intelligence, announced a breakthrough solution to this crisis. Its new Load Visibility Solution, embedded within next-generation AMI 2.0 smart meters, allows utilities to detect, measure, and precisely map nearly every significant appliance and DER on the distribution network. This shift from guesswork to precision will revolutionize grid forecasting, infrastructure planning, and system reliability at the local level.
With real visibility into what’s happening at the intersection of the grid and the home, utilities can take control of the most unpredictable part of distribution,” said Sense CEO Mike Phillips. “They can target investments where the grid is most vulnerable, respond faster to emerging issues, and design smarter programs that actually reflect how homes are using and generating energy.“
Why the Grid Is Going Dark
The problem isn’t just increased demand; it’s the lack of spatial and temporal certainty. Engineers originally designed the grid for one-way power flow. Now, two major consumer-driven changes are causing system stress that conventional smart metering often can’t see:
| Challenge | Impact on Grid Reliability |
|---|---|
| Unpredictable DER Flow | Intermittent solar generation flows back onto the grid at various points, causing rapid and dangerous voltage instability and frequency deviations. |
| High-Load EV Spikes | Simultaneous Level 2 EV charging at the neighborhood level creates massive, short-duration load spikes that can trigger transformer overload, shorten asset life, and cause localized blackouts. |
| Inaccurate Forecasting | Inaccurate forecasting forces utilities into costly infrastructure decisions, often leading to wasted capital (over-building) or insufficient capacity (under-building). |
How WaveformAI Delivers Precision Intelligence
The Sense Load Visibility Solution delivers intelligence using proprietary WaveformAI technology integrated directly into the meters, requiring no additional hardware installation by the customer. Sense provides the data through three actionable streams:
1. EV Analytics: Pinpointing the Demand Surge
This service goes beyond simply identifying that an EV is charging; it measures the specific energy consumed during both Level 1 and Level 2 charging events. This granular data allows grid planners to manage the critical high-demand windows that stress local transformers and feeders.
2. Solar Analytics: Ending Behind-the-Meter Blindness
Utilities gain verified visibility into behind-the-meter generation, accurately measuring power flowing back from customer solar arrays. This information is vital for true net load calculations and correcting for the intermittent, non-recorded nature of rooftop PV.
3. Home Analytics: Disaggregation for Strategic Planning
This service disaggregates total residential energy use, identifying individual high-load appliances. The ability to identify the presence and usage patterns of heat pumps, air conditioning units, and major appliances provides essential insight for planning future electrification efforts and validating demand response programs.
The Business Value: Savings, Stability, and Strategy
This comprehensive grid edge data directly translates into significant operational and financial advantages for energy providers:
- Optimized Capital Expenditure: Infrastructure investments become surgical. Precise data targets grid reinforcement and capacity building efforts exactly where vulnerability exists, eliminating the high financial risk of generalized, unnecessary upgrades.
- Refined Financial Hedging: With significantly more accurate load and solar forecasting, better data refines power purchasing and hedging strategies, ensuring utilities operate with minimal exposure to market price volatility.
- Enhanced Customer Engagement: Detailed insights enable the design of smarter, more effective consumer programs, better shape Time-of-Use (TOU) pricing incentives, and improve overall customer satisfaction by minimizing disruption.
Sense Home Analytics and EV Analytics are available immediately for Landis+Gyr Revelo® meters, with rollouts for additional services and compatible meter integrations scheduled to begin in 2026. Contact Sense to learn more and to receive a demo.
