Apple’s smart home push needs a behind-the-meter power product
Apple has a $240 billion market opportunity that ticks many of its environmental targets, would be of huge benefit to all of us, and really marries deep into its vision for circular manufacturing and smart homes: Apple Home Energy.
Morgan Stanley published its own outlook on future energy, writing, “We expect grid constraints, political pushback against data centers, and the shift toward AI inference to accelerate behind-the-meter power adoption, driving a ~$240bn equipment opportunity through 2029.”
“Behind-the-meter” power is energy extracted at the consumer side of the electricity meter. It’s things like domestic solar and wind power, fuel cells and geothermal energy. Thing is, as energy costs continue to increase and competition for the energy we have continues to mean data centers drive those costs even higher, even more of us are going to need to source electricity somewhere.
The big problem with behind the meter power is that it is both infinite and finite.
It is infinite because it draws energy from the sun and the wind, but finite in that there’s never enough power to do everything, at least, not in most domestic settings.
That’s why smart, intelligent connected devices fit snugly into this kind of future, because they enable users to monitor and plan energy consumption, so the most essential devices stay on, using stored battery power. That makes the space a really good one in which to find opportunities for applied AI in power management, consumption, and storage. I think this is the kind of information people will want to learn more about on their HomeKit, or whatever.
There’s a growing opportunity for systems to provide cheap, clean, home energy and it’s just beginning to emerge in the US. We already see it in Europe and recently in the UK, where it is now possible to invest in solar panels that generate electricity and feed it back into the home via conventional power lines. Typically, the panel’s microinverter feeds power into a household socket, and it’s consumed by whatever is running on that circuit.
There are limitations as not every home is wired correctly to safely handle this, but this is changing and regulations to support it are coming.
These systems are just becoming available in the U.S., where ten states so far have approved systems of this kind. Utah was the first to legalize, but others have since caught on, and more are working on their own pathway to legalization. While we may never see universal acceptance of these systems in the U.S., given the naked power of traditional energy incumbents there, on a global basis people need access to energy – so these systems offer vast benefit.
Apple most certainly already has the contacts and technological systems it needs to do something in this space. I think Apple should at least look into it. I think its trust, design, and existing consumer and manufacturing ecosystem could help it penetrate a market currently occupied by the likes of Tesla and Enphase.
A domestic Apple-branded, safe, smart solar energy system that powers up all your Apple devices and provides power for everything else would achieve two things: Open up a multi-billion-dollar market, but it would also vastly reduce the Scope-3 carbon emissions generated through use of its products. It’s an idea that marries so, so well to its circular manufacturing ambition.
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