Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, originating from Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, is dedicated to funding, building, and owning advanced infrastructure solutions. The company has recently announced its newest initiative – Resilia, focused on enhancing the performance and dependability of electrical power grids.

This commitment includes a $20 million equity investment in the startup OhmConnect, coupled with an $80 million allocation to establish a demand response program. This program will utilize OhmConnect’s technology and services throughout California, positioning demand-response technologies as a crucial element in maintaining stable energy supplies nationwide.

“We are essentially building a virtual power plant,” explained Jonathan Winer, co-CEO of Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners. “While traditional power plants rely on conventional project financing, a virtual power plant requires a different approach… We plan to support the widespread adoption of intelligent devices.”

The concept of adjusting energy consumption based on grid signals is not new, as Winer pointed out. However, the strategy employed by Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, in collaboration with OhmConnect, to deliver incentives to homeowners through notifications and financial rewards is innovative. “Initial efforts in this area concentrated on commercial and industrial facilities,” he stated. 

Sidewalk’s interest in OhmConnect’s approach stemmed from the company’s deep understanding of consumer behavior, highlighted by the fact that their Chief Technology Officer previously held the same position at Zynga, Winer mentioned.

“The OhmConnect platform is unique in its ability to encourage participation,” Winer said. “Anyone can join these programs. For example, OhmConnect users may receive $5 for reducing their thermostat setting during a potential blackout for a two-hour period.”

Currently, the San Francisco-based demand-response company has 150,000 users and has distributed approximately $1 million to its customers during the recent power disruptions experienced in California.

The initial joint effort between OhmConnect and Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners under the Resilia name will be a “Resi-Station” – a demand response program with a 550 megawatt capacity, utilizing smart devices to achieve targeted energy reductions.

The companies anticipate that, once fully implemented, this project will represent the largest residential virtual power plant globally. 

“OhmConnect has demonstrated that aggregating the energy savings of numerous consumers can alleviate strain on the grid and help avert blackouts,” said Cisco DeVries, CEO of OhmConnect. “This investment from SIP will enable us to extend the benefits of energy conservation to hundreds of thousands more Californians, while simultaneously developing the next-generation smart energy platform.” 

California’s utility companies are facing significant challenges. The state experienced heat waves and rolling blackouts during the summer months, coinciding with record-high temperatures. California residents currently pay some of the highest residential electricity rates in the nation, at 21 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to a national average of 13 cents.

Earlier this year, OhmConnect successfully mobilized its customers to reduce total energy consumption by nearly one gigawatt hour during peak demand. This is equivalent to removing 600,000 homes from the grid for one hour.

If the Resilia project is implemented on a larger scale, the companies project they could achieve 5 gigawatt hours of energy conservation – enough to cover the entire energy deficit from this year’s blackouts, and comparable to avoiding the burning of 3.8 million pounds of coal.

In the future, the Resilia platform will incorporate additional infrastructure innovations as energy grids transition from centralized power generation to more distributed and decentralized sources, according to the company. OhmConnect is expected to play a central role in this evolution.

“The traditional energy grid has been one-way… we foresee a future where the grid becomes bi-directional and responsive,” Winer explained. “Our strategy involves ongoing investment, not just a single project. We anticipate further investments in areas like [vehicle-to-grid] technology, micro-grid platforms, and generative design.”