Even when those incentives exist, folks have to care enough to participate in an obscure energy system that they know little about - or be persuaded to sign up even if they don’t. The grid was designed to deliver electricity to passive consumers, and most regions lack systems for rewarding customers who behave in ways that help the overall system. Often, people don’t stand to clearly benefit from becoming more active citizens of the power network. “We are nowhere near where we need to be.” “The state of grid interactivity today is very poor,” said Cisco DeVries, CEO of OhmConnect, one of the leading aggregators of grid-interactive home devices. “I don’t think we should be calling it the ‘home of the future’ it’s the home of the present, because the technology is already here,” said Elta Kolo, vice president at Huck Capital, which invests in the sector.īut relatively few households have achieved the full-fledged vision of generating, storing and consuming power based on signals from the grid. Batteries offer even more flexibility, and smart electric-vehicle chargers can adjust the flow of power into cars based on momentary signals. This kind of grid interactivity is already happening, albeit at a relatively small scale: Homes can heat water or cool their interiors when renewable power is cheap and abundant, offsetting demand in the hours when grid power is dirty and expensive. Stephen Lacey talks to Canary's Julian Spector about the future of grid-interactive homes in the 'electrify everything' era. Don't miss the latest episode of the Carbon Copy podcast.

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