From coal face to grid edge: Sense’s mission to drive the energy transition and empower consumers along the way

In the race to integrate consumer solar and battery storage into the grid, it’s not just the energy generated on rooftops and stored in batteries in homes and on wheels that retailers, networks and the market operator are keen to harness.

As was the case with the telecommunications revolution and the emergence of mobile phones, consumer data is rapidly becoming one of the most valuable resources in the transition to renewable energy and the electrification of everything.

All the way from the Australian Energy Market Operator down to network companies and retailers, the need for better visibility into how consumers use assets like rooftop solar, and how they run their energy hungry appliances, is becoming increasingly crucial.

This is because, at 4 million rooftop solar systems and counting, Australian households have become one of the biggest energy generators on the grid, in some states at certain intervals meeting all of daytime electricity demand.

How all of this solar power is managed, so as not to destabilise the grid, and harnessed, so that it does not go to waste at a time when every zero emissions electron is sacred, will depend heavily on what consumers do next.

And what consumers do next – buy a home battery, invest in an electric vehicle, shift all of their appliances to electric, go completely off-grid – will depend even more heavily on what the industry does next.

“It used to be that customers’ only relationship with their electricity company was a bill,” says Dave Johnson, head of Australia for Sense, an international leader in home and grid intelligence.

“The attitude was, in the nicest possible way, customers really aren’t geared up to understand this …It’s way too complex. Just keep it simple. …The less said, the better.

“And that comes from a place of trying to create digestible services for customers that aren’t very aware. But if you hang on to those legacy attitudes you miss an opportunity.”

That opportunity, Johnson says, is to bring consumers along for the ride in a way that benefits everyone while also fast-tracking the decarbonisation of the grid.

“The notion that consumers aren’t sophisticated users of technology is, if it’s not already completely outdated, it’s quickly becoming outdated.

“But I think the important thing is that, as customer sophistication increases, their expectations increase.”

Johnson’s background gives him a unique perspective on consumer expectations, as well as on transitions – both in technology and in energy – having started his working life, quite literally, at the coal face.

“My family actually operated a small coal company,” he says.

“That meant, in the summers, I had coveralls and a sledgehammer and would go into a small open cast coal pit where they were digging and pick out sulfur to ensure that the quality of the coal was sufficient for the local power generation company.”

After going to university in the US, Johnson embarked on a career in technology, including a stint in London where he was involved in the birth of the internet telephony technology called Skype.

“The telecommunications industry was in a process of massive transformation and change with all of these new enabling technologies that could put consumers in control and give them choice.

“I became interested in the energy industry because I started to see parallels. I saw that the energy transition is occurring and that residential customers, homes, families, are at the center of this entire energy transition.

“The idea that electricity should have digital metadata associated with it is all really new and extremely powerful and important. And so I’m just excited to be part of that whole revolution.”

Sense specialises in the development of “grid-edge” intelligence software that uses AI to generate insight data that helps consumers understand and manage their energy consumption through a personalised, real-time view of energy usage at the appliance level.

For consumers, the technology has been shown, on average, to reduce their consumption by eight to 10 per cent.

“Sense developed its next generation consumer engagement app, working with consumers,” Johnson says. “For many, this is the first time ever in their whole life they’re actually seeing the energy their devices use, as they’re using them.

“So in return for getting really valuable, helpful information and making their home smart … they’re more than happy to consent for us to make a secure connection through their smart meter and provide insights to their mobile phone using their home broadband connection.”

For network companies (DNSPs) and retailers, Sense says its AI software is the quickest and most effective way to gain grid-edge visibility and scale demand response (DR) and virtual power plants (VPPs) affordably without needing internet-of-things (IoT) hardware to be in place first.

“We can use AI on every single home, on every single next generation smart meter to just sit in the background for the retailer, or in some cases, the DNSP.

“In the case of a retailer, what it does is let them know when a customer is charging [an electric vehicle] and the retailer can then – without any IoT at all, it’s just AI – improve their service and response time.

“So the first day someone has this hooked up we will start to see the signatures of the EV charging, and then we can send a note through to the retailer, saying, ‘can you check to see, are you offering them the best tariff for an EV – that’s something they’re going to want next.’

“And so this helps the retailer to start making real time decisions to improve tariffs, improve pricing, improve services; that’s all literally on our doorsteps now to be able to do.”

For DNSPs, grid-edge strain continues to grow due to ever-increasing loads from EV charging, electrified heating, AC, hot water systems, and storage charging. Sense’s AI monitors the grid at the meter, capturing thousands of samples per second. It can see faults on the grid which can be identified and located within 10 metres and identify the devices behind the meter contributing to these loads.

Sense provides DNSPs with far more accurate and frequent data to calculate and predict hosting capacity. By leveraging this data, Sense helps ensure consumers can charge more EVs with equitable access, all while maintaining safety within dynamic operating envelope limits.

In the US, a number of utilities are in the process of deploying Sense’s grid-edge AI with their Landis+Gyr smart meter rollout. National Grid is deploying Sense to the first million homes, with plans in place to roll out millions more behind that.

Johnson says the technology is ready to be rolled out in Australia very soon, following a piloting of Sense in Australian homes that found high levels of consumer engagement and satisfaction.

“It does take an uplift in technology to equip every home with that grid edge intelligence piece that enables customers to have that kind of real time positive interaction. But if you use technology in the right way, all those interactions become frequent and positive.

“That’s why Australia, to me, is such a great place. The willingness for the country to allow consumers rooftop solar to take center stage is fantastic.

“The Australia grid edge energy transition – where the homes are – is happening far faster than just about anywhere else on earth now.

“But the meters that are on people’s walls are 10-15 years old – the equivalent of an old Nokia phone. They do a few things well, but weren’t designed to support the energy transition as we know it today,” Johnsons says.

“At the moment, in Victoria for example, there has been a suggestion of not changing the 14-year-old design specification of meters for the coming 10 years.

“It would be terrible if, after all the cost and time invested in refreshing these specifications, they ended up choosing another outdated ‘Nokia’ equivalent rather than the updated Samsung or iPhone! There is a far smarter way forward.

“The next generation of smart meter isn’t like old smart meters. They aren’t just meters, they’re grid edge computers and sensors capable of running multiple applications, like AI applications, EV charge monitoring and more – much like the transition to modern smart phones has occurred.

“New capabilities, such as EV monitoring can be delivered to all customers ‘over the air’ via software updates. This enables the rapid and cost-effective scaling of new energy technologies to all homes, even before IoT applications are fully integrated.

“The energy transition is progressing rapidly, and the next generation of smart meters, which will be installed in consumers’ homes for the next decade, must be fit for purpose,” Johnson says.

“Outdated legacy smart meters are already hindering customer access to real-time, device-level energy insights, emerging AI capabilities, and the optimisation of grid capacity required to support the surge in electrification behind the meter.

“To ensure the success of the energy transition at the grid edge, we need modern smart meters equipped with up-to-date grid-edge intelligence.

“So for Sense, I guess the urgency that we have is that if, if you see something that could potentially happen that wouldn’t be great or smart for anyone – where no one benefits – you try to raise the flag and say, ‘Hey, there’s a better way, that’s already proven and will be available here in Australia in 2025.”

This is a sponsored post from Sense. You can connect with David Johnson on LinkedIn.