IMPACT CASE STUDYSENSE INTO THE METER
In 2016, EIP invested in Sense, a company
founded by Mike Phillips, an expert
in waveform analysis.
Mike and his team developed a small box that individual consumers could
buy and install in their electrical panel and connect to their wifi network. The
sensor box analyzed the home’s power flow and communicated the results
to an app on the customer’s phone. The Sense app continuously monitored
the power used by each household appliance, located energy savings
opportunities, and estimated monthly power bills and savings in real time. In
a test conducted by an EIP partner utility, Sense saved an average of 6% ofhousehold energy use, or about $113 a year at average US power rates.9
The Sense team knew that when their solution was deployed widely
enough in one area, their technology automatically adds a dramatic, gamechanging use case. While retaining its original ability to help households
save substantial energy, a widely-deployed Sense network becomes a gridedge awareness network able to provide local utilities with fault detection,
advanced diagnostics, and other services – all from the same hardware andsoftware that helped homeowners.
This insight led Sense and EIP to search for a way to make deployment
cheaper and more widespread. They settled on a target of getting Sense
technology built-in to the next generation of smart meters. Installing Sense
inside the meter means that every customer getting a new meter would
automatically gain access to the energy-saving app without having to pay
any cost or endure any installation challenge. Meanwhile, Sense-in-the-meter
would add insignificantly to costs and would enable the installing utility toautomatically acquire a network of grid edge sensors.

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IMPACT CASE STUDY

Sense Into the Meter

EIP’s network of utility investors, including National Grid, played a key roleconvincing the manufacturers of electric meters that the idea was technicallyand financially sound. Persevering through several years of demonstrationand discussion, Sense and EIP’s coalition eventually convinced Landis+Gyr toinclude Sense in its newest line of residential and commercial meters, the Revelosmart meter. Sense will also be included in Schneider Electric’s Wiser Energy
Center electrical panel.
Because the deployment of electric meters is regulated by state public service
commissions, the EIP/Sense strategy included education of the regulatorycommunity. This group understandably wanted to ensure that the addition ofSense to meters would provide equitable, cost-effective value to all groups ofcustomers. One such analysis was just completed by the Rhode Island Public
Utilities Commission, and Sense-in-the-meter passed with flying colors. TheCommission concluded in its Advanced Metering Functionality Business Case
proceeding that all state electric meters should “include advancement of load
disaggregation & Waveform Analytics and Grid Edge Computing that will beenabled by allowing customers to use Sense by connecting their home area
network to the meter…”10 As a result, Sense will be included in the next five
hundred thousand electric meters installed in the state.
Sense’s trajectory from an individual consumer app to a system-wide grid
awareness platform is another example of EIP’s approach to impact. Our goal
is to take technologies that decarbonize and provide resilience affordably
and equitably and leverage our coalition to get them deployed quickly acrossthe entire network. We believe it is likely that Sense or something similar
will ultimately be in every new electric meter in the U.S., saving energy andimproving reliability and resilience at an extremely low added cost.

Rhode Island Public Service Commission orderauthorizing Sense in every new electric meter

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