The Hidden Value Behind the Meter
Grid Queue
Scarcity
Behind-the-Meter Flexibility
Economic Value
There’s a statistic every leader in the power industry, whether an investor, buyer, or seller, should take notice of.
According to Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, at the end of 2025, more than 2,000 gigawatts of proposed generation and storage were actively seeking connections to the grid.
That’s more than two terawatts, or, put into monetary terms, something like $1.25 trillion.
The Interconnection Queue Is an Economic Signal
This long interconnection queue isn’t just an engineering matter. It’s really an economic signal.
It’s telling us that access to generation and transmission capacity in certain locations is scarce. And we all know scarce things have value.
A facility that can install a battery, generator, solar, or use flexible load may create value by avoiding expensive peaks, improving resilience, or potentially relieving a local grid constraint.
Kilowatt-Hour Savings Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Evaluating distributed energy based purely on kilowatt-hour savings can miss much of the opportunity.
We Need to Think Differently About Distributed Energy
Until we prioritize what can be done behind the meter, with its inherent advantages to serve load, enhance local resilience, and reduce delivered power costs, we are missing an important part of the solution.
Grid constraints can create value for flexible resources located close to the load they serve.
