dcbel develops technology and designs products that put people at the center of the modern energy ecosystem. The company was founded in 2015 on the principle that everyone deserves clean, reliable and sustainable energy to live a life without compromise.

dcbel Home Energy Station perfects the art and science of smart home energy, allowing people to take ownership over their energy supply with one small device.

Homeowners can supply their home and EV with solar power, use vehicle-to-home charging to make power outages a thing of the past, and reduce energy costs with artificial intelligence.

Coatue

Idealist Capital

Investissement Quebec

Volvo Cars Tech Fund

Real Ventures

Kevin Mahaffey

Narrative Fund

Western Technology Investment

dcbel

The average price of #Thanksgiving dinner has gone up over 30% since 2020 - and that's not even including the cost to cook it. In some places, the time of day you choose to cook the meal will significantly impact your bill thanks to dynamic pricing. And of course, if you use renewable energy to accomplish the task, you could end up paying nothing at all.

A universe of incentives, #bidirectional charging, #solar on the roof, an #EV in the garage and a smart home energy system to manage it all. The potential is exciting, but how does it work in practice? We set out to answer that question and produced a long weekend long-read for you.

More and more vehicles are capable of bidirectional charging, and utilities are taking advantage of this with vehicle-to-grid pilot projects. That offers a glimpse of a future in which homeowners pay less for energy - or as you'll see below, even make a profit - while boosting the resilience of the grid as a whole.

But it’s complicated to manage all of this on your own. That’s where the dcbel r16 comes in. It’s a smart home energy system that does everything you need to keep the lights on and your batteries charged while also taking advantage of the best electricity rates available - whether you're consuming or exporting.

Bad weather coming? The r16 tracks real-time weather data so it knows when to keep your batteries fully charged. High rates on the horizon? It’s a perfect time to offload some of that stored energy to lower your power bill.

Take a look at our latest blog post to find out what a week in the life of dcbel is like — and how it compares to the alternative. > https://lnkd.in/eQPveTsy

A new bill introduced to the House of Representatives would require the Department of Energy to develop a plan to promote #bidirectional #EV charging. It’s a reflection of just how important EVs are in an energy landscape that is more reliable, more resilient and more affordable for homeowners.
 
On November 2, California Congresswoman Julia Brownley sponsored the Bidirectional Electric Vehicle Charging Act of 2023, H.R. 6178, alongside Hawaii representative Jill Tokuda and Missouri representative Emanuel Cleaver. Brownley is touting the way bidirectional charging “allows EVs to operate as a mini power plant on wheels by helping to maintain access to power during natural disasters and emergencies.”

> https://lnkd.in/esxHraAg [Daily Energy Insider]

EVs are representing an ever-growing share of vehicles, and with other forms of #electrification surging ahead as well, it’s forcing utilities to rethink their power infrastructure. 

“By influencing when EV users charge their vehicles, utilities can smooth out peak demand curves and avoid the need to accommodate dramatic spikes in their grid investment planning,” entrepreneur Travis Jones notes. 

Rooftop solar, home batteries, bidirectional charging — it can all come together to power households while also supporting the grid. 

It’s not just theory: Some utilities, including California’s PG&E, have already announced V2X pilot projects that will put this new energy system into practice. 

> https://lnkd.in/eXZMatYV [Fast Company Executive Board]

Battery storage – in the form of an EV or a home battery – can be just as useful in a non-blackout situation. Think selling excess energy to the utility when it's needed most, or helping you minimize grid consumption in the mornings and evenings when energy tends to be most expensive.

Ignore these dynamic rates at your own peril. “It used to go from, like, 6 cents to 9 cents. Now it's like 12 cents to 40 cents," said Jennifer Cahill of today's typical time-of-use rates.

> https://lnkd.in/gHicy9wg [CNET]

There’s an easy way to manage all this. Smart home energy systems can help coordinate your energy needs using cloud-based algorithms so that you can keep the lights on and EV charged while also supplying electricity to the grid when it’s needed. 

The potential result? The average American household will pay less money for their electricity. Up to 50% less by 2050, according to research by global risk management company DNV. That underlines what makes bidirectional charging so important in the grand scheme of things: it’s good for one — and good for all.

> https://lnkd.in/eKzufVnB [Sverre Alvik |Forbes]

Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire all saw a roughly three-fold increase in #poweroutages from 2021 to 2022, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)’s annual report. > https://lnkd.in/g3xMTjZk

With more extreme weather in the future, what is being done to make energy more reliable?

Severe winter storms last winter were to blame for the huge increase in downtime, but this past summer was no better, with Vermont suffering heavy rains that left large parts of the state in the dark. 

That’s why local utility Green Mountain Power wants to give all of its customers home batteries by 2030. It’s also rolling out community microgrids. All of this is being done with an eye to shoring up the reliability of the grid.

> https://lnkd.in/e9ntqZVV [Michelle Lewis | Electrek.co]

Another tool that can be useful: demand response programs. 

The EIA’s annual report revealed that residential demand response saved just over 1 million megawatts of energy in 2022, up from 984,129 the year before and 799,743 a decade earlier. 

That’s a modest improvement, but it becomes more impressive when you consider that the cost of running these programs has dropped every year, from more than $398 million in 2013 to just over $265 million last year.
 
For homeowners, the benefits are clear. Imagine you have #solar panels, a home #battery or #EV with bidirectional charging, and a smart home energy system that manages everything for you. You’ll ensure the reliability of your own power supply and save money while doing it. 
 
Now multiply that across the grid: it’s why the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) just announced a $3.5 billion investment in grid resilience that includes distributed energy resources. It will undoubtedly make a difference, but it could take some time before we start seeing it reflected in the EIA’s annual numbers.

> https://lnkd.in/ggG4E7ue [DOE Grid Deployment Office]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released its annual report on the state of the nation’s #electricity > https://lnkd.in/g3xMTjZk

Emissions are down and production is up — along with prices. And what’s most interesting is that individual consumers are taking an ever-larger role in generating electricity, with far-reaching implications. 
 
First, the big picture. The EIA reports that, from 2021 to 2022, there was a 2.9% increase in utility-scale power generation, a 3.2% increase in retail sales and a total of 12,841 megawatts of net new capacity added to power grids across the US. That’s a lot of new energy out there to meet growing demand.

But it came at a cost. The average residential #price of electricity rose by 10.1%, outpacing the overall inflation rate by two points. 

Florida saw prices go up by nearly 17%, the New England states collectively saw a 15% increase, and prices in Texas, California and New York climbed by just over 13%. 

With rising prices, it’s no surprise that #NetMetering is growing in popularity. There were just under 24.9 million megawatts of power generated by residential net metering in 2022, a 23.5% increase over 2021. And the growth is even more striking if you look at the long-term trend: nearly 160% over 10 years. It’s no wonder that the distributed energy resource market is set to double in the next few years.

> https://lnkd.in/dzfnSFi2 [Sangita Shetty | SolarQuarter]

That points to another, related trend: declining #emissions. There was nearly 22% less carbon dioxide emitted in 2022 than in 2012. The reason is that more and more energy is coming from renewable sources. For the first time, solar and wind are generating more power than coal. Most of the growth in residential net metering comes from home solar. 

> https://lnkd.in/e6jWgGnC [Ben Storrow | E&E News]

Coming up quickly: home battery storage, which has seen incredible growth from 4,489 megawatts in 2012 to 922,394 in 2022.  
 
It all comes back to one of the most significant trends visible in the EIA’s numbers: electricity is no longer a one-way street from utilities to consumers. Homeowners are playing an active role and it’s making a difference. 

The power grid is showing its age. A new report concludes that 80 million kilometers of energy infrastructure must be built or replaced before 2040 to meet future needs. So what’s needed? More investment, new technology — and new ways of thinking about how to empower #prosumers.

> https://lnkd.in/ea_PcXvw [International Energy Agency (IEA)]

The IEA notes that electrical grids are struggling to cope with growing demand, and #grid congestion is slowing down the uptake of renewable sources of energy like wind and solar. 

That’s certainly the case in California, where grid operators are curtailing wind and solar generation because there’s simply too much electricity being produced for the grid to handle. 

> https://lnkd.in/d7qezEZF [U.S. Energy Information Administration]

To fix those problems, the IEA says there needs to be way more investment in grid infrastructure — no less than $600 billion a year around the world.
 
But it’s not just about hardware. New digital tools are an essential part of preparing the grid for the future. One example? A smarter approach to #EVcharging: New research shows that managed charging allows the grid to handle six times more EVs without any upgrades.

> https://lnkd.in/eyQ4tsxc [Baxter Williams, Daniel Bishop | University of Canterbury]
 
The cars themselves are going to make that easier. GM and Tesla have both announced plans to allow third-party apps, which opens the door to your car behaving a bit like your phone. Imagine the possibilities: a whole new range of apps that can integrate a #bidirectional EV into a new energy ecosystem.

> https://lnkd.in/gV_Pex4b [Isabelle Bousquette | The Wall Street Journal]

We'll even have peer-to-peer energy trading in the future. With so many consumers also acting as producers, the energy market will begin to look more like the money market. Transactions need to be efficient, transparent, secure and flexible, and technology like blockchain can prove useful in decentralized energy resources.

> https://lnkd.in/eYZ4bqrd [Shummas Humayun | Cryptopolitan]
 
There’s a lesson in all of this. Improving and expanding the electrical grid is essential, but so is rethinking the one-size-fits-all approach to energy management. With energy stakeholders collaborating in this new prosumer landscape, homeowners will be given the means to define what energy freedom means to them.

dcbel develops technology and designs products that put people at the center of the modern energy ecosystem. The company's flagship product is the dcbel r16 home energy station, a solar-ready home and EV charger with bidirectional power and home energy management capabilities. The dcbel r16 is designed to provide clean, reliable, and cost-effective energy solutions for homeowners, allowing them to take ownership over their energy supply. The company has partnered with Celestica, a leader in design, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions, to produce the dcbel family of products.

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