For 150 years, the U.S. electrical grid ran one way: large centralized power plants pushed energy out to homes. Now demand is changing fast, and the supply-side model cannot keep up.
Homes that once drew 100 amps are heading toward 300-amp service as EVs, heat pumps, and electric appliances replace gas. Meeting that demand the old way carries a price tag approaching $1 trillion. There is a better path: manage demand intelligently, at the home level, at scale.
Homes on the Emporia platform
Annual residential energy cost growth above inflation
Estimated cost to upgrade the supply-side grid
For 150 years, grid operators balanced supply and demand by building more power plants. Distributed home batteries let utilities manage from the demand side, reducing peak load without new infrastructure.
Peaker plants are the most expensive and carbon-intensive assets on the grid. They run only a few hundred hours per year. The Rocky Mountain Institute estimates distributed storage and VPPs could reduce grid carbon by 70%.
Two million connected batteries give utilities the ability to make energy appear or disappear in any neighborhood at a click. That is the Emporia goal.
The Emporia platform is the software layer connecting devices across 400,000+ homes, monitoring each at second-level fidelity: every circuit, every device, every dollar of energy spend. When a battery connects to that platform, it does not just store energy.
It optimizes around solar generation, EV charging schedules, utility rate structures, and real-time home demand. The battery is always in the right state of charge, ready for the next grid dispatch event and for the peak-rate window that arrives every evening.
That whole-home context is what separates an Emporia battery from a standalone storage device. The data advantage compounds with every home added to the network.
The third-party ownership model removes the primary barrier to residential battery adoption: upfront hardware cost. Utility capacity programs provide the revenue stream that makes it work.
Emporia installs, owns, and operates the battery system. Qualifying homeowners pay installation costs. No hardware purchase is required. Emporia handles repairs and servicing; homeowners are responsible for basic upkeep such as keeping the battery within operating temperature in colder months.
State utility demand response programs pay for committed battery capacity. These programs make it possible to deploy hardware at no cost to qualifying homeowners while generating long-term revenue to sustain the model.
When Emporia is not dispatching to the grid, homeowners have access to their battery for backup power during outages. The battery connects to the full Emporia platform: monitoring, scheduling, and solar optimization included.
Eversource · United Illuminating
Xcel Energy
We have a 5 to 10-year window to build the distributed infrastructure that reshapes how America generates and manages electricity, and we are moving fast.
