Prior to Parks Associates’ Parks Associates 16th annual Smart Energy Summit, co-located with DISTRIBUTECH March 25-26 at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, Barry Holland, Director of Product & Growth, SmartThings shared his insights with the analyst team on the future of the energy management and monitoring industry.

Barry is speaking on the opening session, Platforms for Energy Management: Enabling Smart Home, on March 25 at 10:15 am. This session explores the growth of AI-powered platforms and IoT devices to transform home energy management, optimize consumption patterns, and reduce costs. Participants share examples of successful integration of energy management platforms with smart home ecosystems for enhanced efficiency and convenience.

The 16th annual Smart Energy Summit, co-located with DISTRIBUTECH and organized by Parks Associates, brings together leaders and innovators from the energy, smart home, and technology industries to explore the future of energy management, renewable energy adoption, and grid modernization. The summit provides a platform for industry professionals to engage in discussions, hear trending industry and consumer data, network and collaborate with peers.

The 2025 summit is held March 25-26 in Room D162/164 at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Center in Dallas and will focus on integrating smart energy solutions, leveraging AI and IoT for home energy management, and tackling the challenges of demand response and grid orchestration.

  1. How are energy providers responding to consumer demand for greater visibility and control over their energy use? 

We are starting to see major IOUs take advantage of the second generation of smart meters (which have GBs of Flash and RAM, and run a full Linux operating system) to offer much more granular Load Disaggregation capabilities. This will finally allow Utility mobile apps (and 3P solution providers/consumer engagement partners like SmartThings) to provide accurate appliance level insights to their customers, and at a minimum identify the Top 10 appliances contributing to a monthly bill. 

  1. What partnerships are driving the adoption of energy management solutions, and what barriers remain? 

The convergence of real-time pricing from the Utility/Grid/Smart Meter + DERS (Solar/EV/Storage) + more traditional smart home devices and connected appliances is just now starting to become a reality. All three are needed, in my honest opinion. In order to provide a true HEMS that could allow home-owners to reach Net Zero, a broad ecosystem of OEM device manufacturers (e.g. Solar & EVSEs) is still required for any smart home platform/HEMS. Today, we are realizing that via cloud-to-cloud connectivity, but if the promise of Matter materializes then we will also be able to do that locally/at the edge in the future. 

  1. How can energy providers balance grid reliability, sustainability goals, and cost efficiency while keeping consumers engaged?

By partnering with trusted global brands that specialize in consumer engagement.

Other panelists joining Barry on the session, "Platforms for Energy Management: Enabling Smart Home" at 10:15 AM CT on March 25th, include:

  • Wil Gomez, Director of Product, Smart Communities, SmartRent
  • Desiree Mejia, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, SkyBell
  • Vera Yuan, Business Development Lead - Smart Building & Devices, Leap Energy

Follow the link, www.smartenergysmt.com, for more information on the Smart Energy Summit.

Registration is through the DISTRIBUTECH Website.

To request data or an interview, contact mindi.sue@parksassociates.com, 972-490-1113.