Over the past 20 years, the increasing recognition that climate change poses a grave threat to our society has given rise to an entirely new clean energy economy. Almost every ambitious clean energy plan recognizes the importance of innovation in renewable generation, distributed energy resources, energy efficiency and electrification. However, these plans often neglect the role of the distribution grid and miss an opportunity to leverage a tool that has been part of the system almost since its inception: the meter.

In 1881, Thomas Edison patented the ability to measure energy usage via the meter. The meter became an essential tool for accurately billing customers and over time, advancements in metering technology have delivered cost-effective improvements to utility operations, including reduced meter-reading costs, enhanced outage detection and lowered peak demand via time-of-use rates. However, today’s next-generation smart meters have the potential to do much more. They are powerful computers that can facilitate vital conversations between customers’ investments in clean energy and the grid. They can be the solution to making the grid cleaner, more reliable and more resilient, and empowering customers.

But smart meters are not being used in this way, and thus customers are not reaping the full value of their investment. The first wave of smart meter rollouts left many regulators, elected officials and consumer advocates underwhelmed because the business cases were […]