Behind the Meter
About Behind the Meter
Behind the Meter describes energy generation, storage, or management assets located on the customer side of the utility meter, enabling self consumption, resilience, and optimized energy usage for homes and businesses.
Trend Decomposition
Trigger: Increasing adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs) and incentives driving private energy independence.
Behavior change: End users actively manage on site generation and storage, load shifting, and peak shaving.
Enabler: cheaper solar + storage technologies, smart inverters, demand management software, and favorable policy incentives.
Constraint removed: Dependency on centralized grid for reliability; ability to operate building energy autonomously during outages.
PESTLE Analysis
Political: Regulatory frameworks and incentives shape adoption of behind the meter resources; interconnection rules influence feasibility.
Economic: Levelized cost of storage and solar declines improve ROI for on site systems.
Social: Growing consumer interest in energy independence and resilience drives uptake in commercial and residential sectors.
Technological: Advances in battery tech, smart controls, and VPP ready inverters enable seamless on site energy management.
Legal: Compliance with grid interconnection standards and data privacy considerations for smart energy systems.
Environmental: Reduced grid emissions through optimized DER use and potential rise in renewable energy adoption.
Jobs to be done framework
What problem does this trend help solve?
Enables customers to reduce energy costs and increase resilience by using on site resources.What workaround existed before?
Reliance on grid power with limited ability to control when or how energy is consumed or stored.What outcome matters most?
Cost savings and reliability with predictable energy usage and outage protection.Consumer Trend canvas
Basic Need: Reliable and affordable energy on site.
Drivers of Change: Falling hardware costs, better software for energy management, and policy incentives.
Emerging Consumer Needs: Flexible demand, resilience during outages, and transparent energy usage insights.
New Consumer Expectations: Real time control, granular analytics, and seamless integration with appliances.
Inspirations / Signals: Successful behind the meter deployments demonstrate ROI and resilience benefits.
Innovations Emerging: Modular storage, bidirectional inverters, and virtual power plant readiness.
Companies to watch
- Tesla - Powerwall and integrated energy solutions enabling behind the meter storage and control.
- Enphase Energy - Microinverters and energy management software for behind the meter solar + storage systems.
- Sunnova - Residential energy storage and solar services focusing on on site energy management.
- SunPower - Solar with home energy storage offerings enabling behind the meter optimization.
- SolarEdge - Inverters, storage solutions, and software for behind the meter energy management.
- LG Energy Solution - Home energy storage batteries used in behind the meter setups.
- First Solar - PV solutions enabling distributed energy generation as part of behind the meter systems.
- Enel X - Smart energy management and behind the meter optimization for buildings.
- Nissan Energy - Vehicle to home / grid ready capabilities feeding into behind the meter energy strategies.