SPAN Expands Beyond Smart Electrical Panels And Creates a New Category of At-The-Meter Products Built for Utilities to Meet Load Growth with SPAN® Edge

The new Intelligent Service Point^TM product is poised to help utilities save on $500B in planned distribution infrastructure upgrades while increasing reliability and affordability for end-customers.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, SPAN expanded its product suite with SPAN Edge, an Intelligent Service Point^TM device designed for utilities to better manage the distribution grid and rapidly enable home electrification. This cost-effective and scalable product establishes a new category of “at-the-meter” grid technology, going beyond traditional metering to deliver real-time, autonomous power controls. With this technology, grid operators and ratepayers can collectively benefit from the increased utilization of existing distribution networks. SPAN Edge is designed to be installed in under 15 minutes by a technician and unlocks reliable, flexible load shaping benefits that are broader and firmer than traditional demand flexibility resources. The solution enables homeowners to add EV chargers, heat pumps, batteries and more without increasing a home’s electrical service, all while providing utilities unprecedented coordination at the grid-edge. SPAN also jointly announced an expanded partnership with Landis+Gyr, a leading global provider of integrated energy management solutions, to offer SPAN Edge to its utility partners across North America.

The launch of SPAN Edge is a pivotal milestone in the company’s growth, marking its natural evolution from a home electrification company to a leading energy infrastructure partner. “SPAN is focused on delivering purpose-built solutions that outperform legacy means to address load growth,” said Arch Rao, founder and Chief Executive Officer of SPAN. “Traditional infrastructure upgrades are slow and expensive to deploy, while behind-the-meter devices are complicated by intermittent reliability and control limitations. SPAN Edge is powerful, scalable and reliable, providing device-level visibility and control. By equipping utilities with an innovative, at-the-meter solution designed to affordably meet load growth, SPAN is helping to catalyze an electrified future for all.”

This announcement is coming at a critical moment for the energy industry. In order to meet forecasted demand growth, over half of the planned $1.3 trillion spend on U.S. utility infrastructure by 2030 will focus on improving transmission and distribution. SPAN Edge technology is positioned to bring down these costs by up to 50% for high grid value communities while still meeting demand growth. Furthermore, by combining these cost savings with faster deployment timelines, SPAN Edge is predicted to help meet regulator and ratepayer objectives.

Additional benefits include:

• Supporting rapid residential electrification: SPAN PowerUp™ lets homeowners with existing 100-200A service add electric loads like EV chargers, heat pumps, induction stoves, and electric water heaters without requiring increased utility service.
• Providing multi-home demand flexibility: Utilities can use SPAN Dynamic Service Rating^TM (DSR) to temporarily set a virtual limit for a home’s total consumption. This setpoint can be applied to groups of homes during peak times for load flexibility, including overall system balancing or specific transformer loading. Based on utility grid analyses, a neighborhood equipped with SPAN Edge can double the utilization of utility infrastructure.
• Deferring or avoiding costly infrastructure investment: Because DSR can guarantee demand levels for groups of homes, utilities can add electric load and defer or avoid expensive enhancements to upstream feeder, transformer, or substation infrastructure, offering significant cost savings and deployment speed advantages.
• Improving end-customer satisfaction: SPAN gives end-customers visibility and control over how their loads are managed through a user-friendly mobile app that can be customized for each utility. Unlike other grid-enabled devices, such as smart meters, EVSEs, smart thermostats, and other point solutions for demand response, SPAN Edge gives customers unparalleled control to prioritize and change which electric loads are managed. Additionally, because SPAN Edge uses hardened communications as opposed to homeowner Wi-Fi, utilities can count on a reliable connection to the home.
• Advancing beyond VPP and demand response: The reliable load shaping benefits of SPAN devices deliver primary and secondary distribution system benefits that go beyond the limitations of traditional demand response programs, serving as true non-wires alternative resources.
• Integrating seamlessly into utility operations: SPAN products, including SPAN Edge devices in combination with SPAN Fleet Manager, integrate with existing AMI and utility DERMs platforms, eliminating the need for new networking and dispatch capabilities.

Leading utilities like Southern California Edison view this innovative solution as a potential win-win for customers and for grid infrastructure. “We see great promise in SPAN Edge as a strategic tool for grid modernization efforts. We value the solution's ability to enhance customer engagement, support load growth, and improve operational flexibility and system utilization — helping to drive greater efficiency and cost savings,” says Shinjini Menon, Senior Vice President of System Planning & Engineering.

Providing Utilities With A Holistic Slate of Solutions

SPAN has demonstrated its commitment to supporting utilities and their customers with its recently announced participation in PG&E’s SAVE program. By utilizing existing SPAN infrastructure and Dynamic Service Rating technology in their service area, PG&E will benefit from distribution load shaping and analytic insights. Future programs can deploy SPAN Edge technology to further scale these benefits across more homes and will represent the next step in the evolution of SPAN as a grid service provider.

SPAN Edge is ready to order now. It will be on display in Booth 2708 at the DISTRIBUTECH conference in Dallas, TX from March 25-27, 2025. Utilities can contact SPAN directly or visit span.io/utilities for more information.

About SPAN

SPAN’s mission is to enable electrification for all and provide energy management for every home. SPAN designs products that remove barriers to electrification, providing a holistic approach to managing increasing demands on household energy. Powering your home with clean energy should be a simple and delightful experience that is technology-forward and human-centered. For more information, go to www.span.io.