Circuit-Level Capacity Control with SPAN

The key advantage is dispatch certainty, because SPAN can cap the entire house instead of hoping one appliance change is enough. A thermostat program can only turn down cooling load, which may fail if the home is also charging an EV, running a dryer, or cooking. SPAN Edge sits at the service point and manages branch circuits directly, so a utility can keep a home under a hard limit during a peak event or transformer constraint.

• PG&E is buying SPAN Edge to avoid physical upgrades, not just to run a traditional rebate program. PanelBoost is aimed at more than 600,000 homes that may need service upgrades, and PG&E says the device can briefly pause connected appliances during rare high demand periods to keep the home within its electrical limit.
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• Landis+Gyr positions SPAN Edge as different from classic direct load control. Its standard demand response tools switch HVAC, water heaters, or irrigation loads, while SPAN Edge adds circuit level orchestration, dynamic service ratings, and integration into AMI and DERMS systems, which gives utilities a fuller picture of what each home can actually shed.
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• That makes SPAN closer to a grid edge operating layer than a single device program. The same installed hardware can enforce service limits for electrification upgrades, then later be used for demand response, virtual power plants, and transformer relief, which improves utility payback versus a thermostat that only solves one narrow use case.
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The likely next step is for utilities to treat home load control as distribution infrastructure. If SPAN keeps proving that software enforced limits can defer transformer and service upgrades, smart panels and meter side controllers could become a standard utility tool for adding EVs, heat pumps, and batteries without rebuilding the local grid first.