For generations, the electricity grid has provided society with the energy it needs to thrive and grow. The visionaries who designed the system in the 19th and 20th centuries pushed technology to its limits, enabling affordable and reliable access to energy for nearly everyone. But for the first time in decades, demand for electricity is rising beyond what anyone could’ve predicted, and it’s expected to accelerate. As costs continue to rise as well, we’re being reminded just how crucial energy availability and affordability are. The window to shape a future that’s more affordable, not less, won’t stay open long.

The choice in front of us

We’ve seen it before. Infrastructure challenges and the decisions that follow set the terms for decades, outlasting those who put them in place. They can open up opportunities for the future, or, on the other hand, become inherited problems. And too often, the people left burdened aren’t the ones who made the decisions. Just look at the interstate highway system built in the 1950s. It spawned economic growth, connecting vast swaths of the American landscape, but also created reliance on automotive infrastructure and socioeconomic challenges of suburban sprawl and urban flight.

We're at a similarly pivotal moment in energy, faced with choices that will leave their imprint for decades to come. The question isn’t just what we build. It’s who pays for it, and who benefits. 

One path relies on the methods of the last century. Build new, centralized fossil fuel generation and grid infrastructure, distributing the costs to everyone. But relying on more gas peaker plants and expensive transmission and distribution upgrades as the only available tools to meet rising demand will limit growth, be extremely expensive, and ultimately pass higher costs to household bills across the grid. Left uncoordinated, the problem compounds. The peak demand from homes and businesses drives the need for ever more peak supply with lower average utilization, increasing system costs. In short, the status quo leads to a higher-cost, higher-carbon reality, and the households with the least room in their budget feel it most. 

Alternatively, we can better utilize and coordinate what we have, building toward a better future for everyone. The core belief is simple: If we can achieve the outcomes we want at a fraction of the cost and keep more value in the pockets of everyday people, that should be our approach. This is exactly what virtual power plants (VPPs) support; they’re a tool to increase utilization through the intelligent coordination of demand and distributed generation across every part of our grid. This isn’t theoretical. We already have decades of experience across the country proving that VPPs and the demand response programs they have evolved from help lower bills, increase reliability, and are more cost-effective across the board. VPPs can also grow faster than traditional approaches while being mutually beneficial to households and communities. Instead of asking households to simply absorb the cost of upgrading a grid strained by increasing demand, many can instead lower their individual bills and actually contribute to lowering costs for everyone. 

Our shared responsibility

As we rethink how we meet grid demand for today and tomorrow, it’s never been more important to advocate on behalf of households. Onshoring and the rapid growth of AI data centers are adding enormous new strain to the grid, putting even more pressure on the infrastructure we rely on. It’s not an easy challenge to solve. But if we start from a principle of benefitting the most people, we can build a system where the dollars spent to serve large-load demand provide value back to households, not just the costs. Community-based infrastructure can be a multiplying force for good: Every home that participates strengthens the grid for its neighbors. We can build a system that is more reliable and more affordable for everyone who depends on it.

So, how do we actually do it?

The path we’re forging as Everyday Electric

In 2024, I and a team from Google Nest and Google AI Labs founded Renew Home on a shared belief: Saving money and energy at home should be easier. Together, over the past 15 years, we’ve built demand response programs with Google Nest thermostats and household-centric energy programs, which taught us, and the industry, some key things. Comfort and convenience are what make flexibility scale. Shifts, no matter the size, repeated across millions of homes, can add up to capacity the size of a fleet of power plants. Since then, we’ve built the country’s largest residential VPP¹ and helped millions of households save. I’m proud of where we started and what we have accomplished. 

Now, to meet this moment, we have to go further. Beyond traditional demand response and beyond just smart thermostats. That means bringing a customer-centric approach to help scale distributed community infrastructure. And as our team has rallied around that vision, it became clear that our brand and name were ready to evolve as well. So today, Renew Home becomes Everyday Electric. 

We’re ready to apply all that we’ve learned to a new kind of whole-home VPP, building upon our core convictions and expanding our partnerships with energy providers and OEMs to make it happen. We know that meeting people where they are works better than asking them to change how they live, so our energy savings experiences are built directly into the products people already use. Energy use should flex naturally with life, so we designed automatic, personalized adjustments that keep people comfortable and in control. Our existing foundation and network of partners let us scale quickly, which is exactly what the moment demands. The result isn't just savings for individual households. It's a more cost-effective grid that will lower costs for everyone, especially the households for which every dollar on the bill matters most.

Home energy is on the edge of an evolutionary leap, if only we allow it to happen. The decisions we make now will shape the bills, reliability, and opportunities the next generation inherits. Before long, I hope that it will be hard to imagine a time when our energy products weren't coordinated, saving households and communities money in the background of everyday life and giving the grid the flexible capacity it needs. A grid built for households, not just paid for by them. That’s the Everyday Electric vision: home energy, as it should be.