How SMECO reduces peak demand with smart home technologies

As extreme weather events intensify and electricity demand rises, SMECO continues to pursue efficient, nimble methods to manage its grid. We designed and managed their portfolio of load management programs—spanning the SmartTemp thermostat program, FlexHome water heater pilot, and EV Recharge pilot—which are reducing grid stress without disrupting daily routines.

Challenge

Serving more than 170,000 customers across Southern Maryland, SMECO needed flexible methods to manage peak energy loads. The cooperative recognized opportunities in three areas: evolving its smart thermostat program by implementing flexible load management strategies across different household assets to support grid stability and reliability; using water heaters as a largely untapped resource for grid flexibility in the region; and leveraging the growing adoption of electric vehicles for load management.

Each of these programs come with unique technical hurdles. Water heaters have compatibility limitations and less available load than thermostats, requiring extensive testing to validate their peak reduction potential. Meanwhile, EV charging patterns require sophisticated management to balance grid needs with driver convenience.

Solution

We worked with SMECO to deploy a suite of load management programs, each targeting different assets to give customers multiple pathways to participate in grid flexibility.

SmartTemp Program

We designed and launched a flexible load management strategy for SmartTemp, SMECO’s smart thermostat program, to prioritize customer comfort through personalization and precision. Instead of long, disruptive events that may impact comfort in the home, we deploy shorter, tailored events. Program events average about three hours overall, while individual customers are only called for one to two hours (1.3-hour average in 2025). Through our Sightline platform, we use sophisticated analytics to optimize event dispatch across multiple goals and value streams, selecting which devices to call and when based on real-time grid needs and household patterns.

FlexHome Pilot

Launched in September 2024, FlexHome Pilot—the first of its kind in the region—treats water heaters as thermal “batteries,” curtailing load during peaks with minimal customer impact. Events typically occur during evening peaks in summer or morning peaks in winter, averaging 2.5 hours in duration. To address device compatibility challenges, we’re exploring retrofit controllers including e-Radio modules that plug into water heaters’ CTA 2045 ports, expanding eligibility beyond newer connected models. We’re targeting enrollment of 500 participants by the end of 2026 to validate water heaters as a scalable demand response resource.

EV Recharge Pilot

The residential EV Recharge Pilot offers members two options to optimize their residential charging:

• Managed Charging track: SMECO makes small adjustments to daily charging schedules during peak hours
• Off-peak Saving track: EV Time-of-Use rate for drivers who prefer more control over their charging solutions

We designed the EV Recharge Pilot to position SMECO to manage an increasingly important category of residential load as EV adoption grows.

Results

SmartTemp Program

With over 9,700 enrolled members, SmartTemp has been successful in engaging SMECO members and balancing grid needs with household comfort. From January to October 2025, the program shifted 622 MWh across 92 events, while maintaining exceptional customer-member satisfaction with just 7% average opt-out rates.

FlexHome Pilot

Since its launch, the FlexHome pilot is validating water heaters’ technical potential as a demand response resource. With 72 participants enrolled and 133 events dispatched so far in 2025, the pilot has achieved an average of 8.5 kW reduction per event and 1.06 MW of total demand reduction. Opt-out rates have consistently stayed below 3% and some months have reached 0%. These results provide valuable operational insights for refining water heater program design in SMECO's territory and across the region.

EV Recharge Pilot

We are also seeing load-shifting success with the EV Recharge Pilot. Between the 700+ devices enrolled in the two tracks, over 93% of EV charging occurred during SMECO’s off-peak hours. From May through September 2025, the Managed Charging pilot shifted 78 MWh over 106 events with an average opt-out rate of less than 10%, showing strong potential to mitigate increasing EV loads.