Product Form Factors And Scale Enablers
Sources: 1 • Confidence: Medium • Updated: 2026-02-06 16:59
Key takeaways
- Key design dimensions for plug-in batteries include 120V versus 240V compatibility and placement choices such as wall-hanging, appliance integration, or corner placement.
- Soft costs are typically 50% or more of a residential DER install, and plug-in models can drive major soft-cost components (permitting, labor, and customer acquisition) toward zero through self-serve purchase-and-plug-in deployment.
- Some utility stakeholders argue that even non-exporting plug-in batteries should require permitting or permission because they interconnect to the electrical system.
- Plug-in and permissionless DERs are perceived as underappreciated in the U.S. relative to Germany where they are more recognized.
- Whether plug-in DERs can participate in programs depends more on how program rules and regulations are written than on technical validation.
Sections
Product Form Factors And Scale Enablers
The corpus frames the product ecosystem as nascent, moving from repurposed portable batteries toward purpose-built devices with key architectural choices (voltage support, placement). It also flags potential scaling levers (larger commercial systems; regulatory-dependent 5–20 kW outlet-based systems) and possible future hybrid form factors.
- Key design dimensions for plug-in batteries include 120V versus 240V compatibility and placement choices such as wall-hanging, appliance integration, or corner placement.
- Early plug-in battery offerings often repurposed camping-style portable batteries because fully mobile plug-based batteries were what existed.
- Plug-in batteries are often sized roughly one-to-one in kW to kWh, and effective duration depends on the connected load (e.g., a 400W load on a 1.2kW/1.2kWh device yields about three hours).
- Hybrid products combining batteries with other appliances such as heat pumps are emerging as a potential future form factor.
- In commercial applications, there are paths to deploy Powerwall-sized or multiple-Powerwall-sized systems within the plug-in DER category.
- Deploying 5–20 kW systems through outlets is possible to some degree but is heavily dependent on regulations.
Economics Soft Cost Collapse And Value Proposition Shift
The core economic claim is that plug-in/self-serve deployment can remove major soft-cost components, changing the category’s value proposition toward affordability and bill savings and potentially pushing system pricing toward hardware-cost dominance, including in some commercial contexts.
- Soft costs are typically 50% or more of a residential DER install, and plug-in models can drive major soft-cost components (permitting, labor, and customer acquisition) toward zero through self-serve purchase-and-plug-in deployment.
- The customer-facing term is being shifted from "permissionless" to "plug-in" because it is more intuitive for consumers.
- In commercial plug-in deployments, installed costs can be less than 10% of total system cost and sometimes approach zero because traditional soft costs largely disappear.
- Plug-in/permissionless DERs shift category emphasis from resilience to affordability and bill savings because they can be inexpensive and easy to deploy.
- If soft costs do not fall materially while hardware gets cheaper, permissionless systems can approach a cost floor close to hardware cost only.
Regulatory And Code Landscape Export Vs Non Export
Regulatory clarity is described as uneven: NEC/UL may already permit certain plug-in use cases while export remains contested, driven by outage/backfeed safety concerns. A specific policy risk is raised that even non-export devices could be pulled into permitting regimes, which would directly reduce the friction advantage.
- Some utility stakeholders argue that even non-exporting plug-in batteries should require permitting or permission because they interconnect to the electrical system.
- Bills are being introduced in about 24 U.S. states (potentially growing to about 30) to explicitly allow exporting to the grid through plug-in devices, typically capped around 1.2 kW per home/meter and focused on consumer use.
- Utilities' key concern with unpermitted export is worker and grid safety during outages if lines are presumed de-energized while customer devices backfeed unknown amounts of power.
- Many UL-certified products can already be plugged in safely under existing NEC guidance, but permissibility depends on local authority opinions on siting and size.
Adoption Benchmarks And Demand Channels
Germany is used as an adoption comparator and is linked to high retail power prices and behind-the-meter savings. The U.S. is framed as potentially earlier in awareness, with an expectation of e-commerce/self-deployment adoption as bills rise; this is presented as a hypothesis rather than evidenced in-corpus.
- Plug-in and permissionless DERs are perceived as underappreciated in the U.S. relative to Germany where they are more recognized.
- In Germany, high retail electricity prices (around €0.40–0.50/kWh) accelerated plug-in adoption because customers could realize behind-the-meter savings without needing complex compensation for exports.
- Germany has seen roughly 4 million plug-in systems adopted in about the last four years.
- As U.S. electricity bills rise, customers are expected to increasingly buy plug-in energy products online and self-deploy them, creating bottom-up adoption driven by economics.
Grid Services Participation Program Design Constraints
The binding constraints for monetizing small devices through demand response/VPPs are described as program rules and qualification thresholds, not device measurability. Separately, operational credibility at scale is tied to networked reliability and utility/ISO trust requirements.
- Whether plug-in DERs can participate in programs depends more on how program rules and regulations are written than on technical validation.
- To operate infrastructure-grade VPPs at hundreds of megawatts to gigawatt scale, plug-in batteries must be built for networked reliability rather than consumer-grade portable-battery API reliability.
- Some existing programs already allow very small DERs to participate despite their size.
- Demand response participation has jurisdiction-specific minimum thresholds at both aggregator and device/meter levels, and program rules are the main blocker for very small devices.
Watchlist
- A key scaling challenge for micro-DERs is removing friction across purchasing, deployment, and installation to reach material aggregate capacity.
- Market participants are pursuing deal structures where third parties deploy aggregated DERs that count as capacity to accelerate data center interconnection.
- Key design dimensions for plug-in batteries include 120V versus 240V compatibility and placement choices such as wall-hanging, appliance integration, or corner placement.
- Hybrid products combining batteries with other appliances such as heat pumps are emerging as a potential future form factor.
Unknowns
- Which specific states pass plug-in export bills, what final export caps (kW) do they adopt, and do the rules extend beyond residential to small commercial?
- How will AHJ-by-AHJ interpretations of NEC/UL-certified plug-in devices evolve, and what siting/size constraints will be enforced in practice?
- Will regulators or utilities require permits/interconnection processes for non-exporting plug-in storage, and under what definitions or thresholds?
- What are the actual realized soft-cost reductions (permitting, labor, acquisition) for plug-in deployments across representative U.S. markets and channels?
- Which demand response / VPP programs currently allow very small devices, and what are their enrollment, performance, and payout outcomes over time?