BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Uplight, a clean energy technology company that enables utilities and their customers to conserve, deploy, manage, and monetize energy resources, today announced updates to its flexibility management solution suite and expansion of its partnership program. These milestones further accelerate the company’s ability to unlock energy flexibility at scale, empowering utilities to leverage a broader portfolio of distributed energy resources to effectively manage growing electric demand, maximize grid services value, and ensure a resilient, affordable, and decarbonized energy system.
According to the Department of Energy, electricity demand is expected to double by 2050. For utilities, meeting this electrification surge requires a new approach to complement traditional investment in supply-side resources. While smart thermostat demand response programs are the most common and mature form of flexibility management in the country, these programs have historically delivered variable load reduction which undermined their ability to be used as a resource for grid planning and operations. To meet the challenges of exponential load growth and upward pressure on customer rates, it is essential for energy providers to deliver clean, cost-effective, and predictable capacity by leveraging demand-side resources.
Uplight’s Predictive Capacity Dispatch (PCD) transforms smart thermostat demand response programs into firm, predictable, reliable grid capacity, enhancing utility value while also improving the customer experience. The technology enables utilities to forecast performance a day ahead, deliver consistent load shifts during peak periods, and assess how various factors—from weather to customer opt-outs—impact results at both individual and aggregate levels. Additionally, it allows utilities to stagger dispatch across customer subgroups during events, maximizing program effectiveness while minimizing impact on individual customers. PCD removes the intrinsic variability that has historically limited the operational relevance and economic value of smart thermostat demand response by making it as predictable and reliable as other resources in the utility supply stack, ultimately enabling deeper customer participation and opening up the ability to participate in wholesale markets. Uplight and a Western utility partner leveraged the technology to reduce hourly variation by 148%, decrease customer opt-outs by 5%, and achieve up to 98% accuracy in predicted hourly load shift delivery compared to actual. Over the coming year, Uplight will enhance this technology by incorporating support for behavioral demand response.
In addition to technology innovations, Uplight has also expanded its partnership network–– adding a wider variety of distributed energy resource types which enable utilities to manage increasing electric load by reducing strain on the grid while also supporting customer choice through DR and Virtual Power Plant (VPP) programs. Uplight partners with leading equipment manufacturers, energy service providers, cloud platforms, and technical standards creators to harness the collective power of distributed energy assets to deliver customer, utility, and grid beneficial outcomes. Partners include leaders such as TESLA, Google Nest, LG and Amazon. The roster continues to expand, most recently with the addition of several new energy device companies and categories:
- Rheem, a leading manufacturer and household name in the water heating industry. The company’s innovative smart hybrid electric heat pump tank water heaters are equipped with both traditional electric heating elements and heat pump technology. These highly efficient modern units allow customers to save energy and allow aggregators such as Uplight to utilize the devices – which use approximately 18% of the energy in an average home – in virtual power plant (VPP) programs.
- Emporia Energy, a leader in home energy management, manufactures and supplies award-winning EVSE and home battery systems. The company’s EV chargers will be sold on Uplight Marketplaces and available for management under Uplight’s load flexibility programs.
- Eguana, a battery energy storage systems (BESS) provider. Eguana’s integration with Uplight’s distributed energy management system (DERMS) enables utilities to call on Eguana’s battery systems in times of grid strain. The two companies are working together at a Canadian utility program that supports the installation of distributed battery systems for resiliency and gid balancing.
With access to Uplight’s partner ecosystem, already over 65 strong, utilities are able to create flexible energy capacity through a diverse set of device types while providing customers with access to market leading DER devices for their homes and businesses. The aggregation of DERs and increased visibility into the energy needs of consumers through Uplight’s platform means that utilities can be confident in their ability to provide affordable and reliable energy, even during times of peak demand.
“We believe the future of demand flexibility will be driven by customer-centric software, and enabled by our utility and clean energy ecosystem partners," said Hannah Bascom, Chief Growth Officer at Uplight. "We are dedicated to creating the biggest tent possible to increase participation in demand flexibility programs. To do this, we need to both connect more distributed energy resources to the grid, and leverage technology and innovative program design to maximize the value of those resources to deliver the critical resiliency and flexibility outcomes utilities, energy customers, and the grid require.”
To learn more about Uplight’s flexibility management solutions and its growing network of partners, visit uplight.com.
About Uplight
Uplight is a clean energy technology company creating a new source of energy by harnessing the collective power of distributed energy assets. The company’s best-in-class energy customer engagement and flexibility management solutions enable energy customers and providers to conserve, deploy, manage, and monetize energy resources. Uplight’s AI-driven platform connects the energy ecosystem to the utility control room, mobilizing energy customers and their assets to drive grid flexibility, enhance grid resilience, and accelerate the energy transition. To learn more about how Uplight, a certified B Corporation, is working to improve grid resilience, reduce energy costs, and accelerate decarbonization, visit https://uplight.com/.
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Uplight
Tegan Sullivan
Uplight@V2comms.com
