Unlocking Grid-Edge Potential: Itron and Eguana Pioneer Grid Edge Intelligence-Based, Standards-Driven Control of Distributed Energy Storage
Standard protocol integration drives visibility and control of battery energy storage
By Nick Tumilowicz, Director of Product Management, Itron
Brent Harris, Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Eguana
The accelerating energy transition—and especially the onset of Electrification 2.0—is transforming how utilities plan and operate the grid. As electrification extends to vehicles, heating and industrial processes, utilities are facing load growth rates not seen in decades. The challenge now is to extract more capacity from existing infrastructure without overbuilding.
The deployment of demand-side management (DSM) at scale along with dependable Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) is critical to the success of these efforts. This also calls for smarter orchestration of grid-edge assets through modern operations equipped with real-time visibility, forecasting and control—capabilities now made possible through scalable, utility-grade platforms like Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio.
As the grid faces unprecedented stress from Electrification 2.0, the role of DERs must evolve. It’s no longer sufficient to reduce demand during a few hours a year—customer-sited resources must now interact with utility operational systems in real time, with dependable performance, verifiability and cybersecurity. Unlike thermostats, managed EV charging and other deferrable loads, distributed energy storage is the only behind-the-meter asset currently capable of both absorbing and delivering power on demand. This makes it uniquely suited to support real-time DER coordination, local capacity relief and grid-edge optimization.
To achieve broad scalability, DER integration must align with utility-grade communications, control protocols and open standards that enable interoperability. That’s where collaborations like Itron and Eguana’s come in. Together, the companies have successfully tested system interoperability with the native integration of Eguana’s residential battery energy storage system with Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence infrastructure using the IEEE 2030.5 protocol. With this, Itron’s Riva electric meters can directly control distributed energy resources, including enabling visibility and control of battery energy storage.
About the Solution
This collaboration places Eguana’s energy storage systems (ESS) directly within Itron’s distributed intelligence ecosystem—enabling real-time control and visibility from a secure, standards-based utility server embedded in the smart meter itself. The result: a dependable, interoperable architecture that minimizes control complexity while accelerating scalable grid-edge DER adoption.
Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio is built on distributed intelligence (DI) and proven AMI networks, providing a secure, standards-compliant and utility-integrated path to scalable DER orchestration at the grid edge. More than 15 million of Itron’s DI-enabled meters have been shipped globally, laying the foundation for intelligence at the grid edge.
Eguana's Evolve residential ESS were designed from the beginning to meet the operational demands of utilities—not just consumers. Proven on grids worldwide, Evolve stands apart from typical consumer-oriented ESS by delivering fast, accurate and standards-compliant responses, autonomous dispatch capabilities, and high-resolution performance reporting. Eguana was one of only two storage systems—out of more than a dozen evaluated—that met the stringent performance and reporting requirements of Australia's FCAS Fast Frequency Response market. With these advanced capabilities, Eguana is exceptionally positioned to serve as a reliable grid asset within Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio.
Itron and Eguana's joint solution provides a secure, utility-integrated pathway to unlocking the full value of distributed energy storage at the grid edge—through standards-based integration, operational visibility and meter-enabled control.