We had the opportunity to talk with Michael Siemann, Director of Technology for Resideo Grid Services and find out a bit more about the company and why the OpenADR standard is important to their initiatives including the EV-Home Power Partnership project with Ford.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your company?

My name is Michael Siemann and I’m the Director of Technology for Resideo Grid Services. Our team is helping shape the future health and viability of the U.S. electrical grid while advancing clean energy technologies. Our team has pioneered residential Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) demand response since 2012, operating some of the largest thermostat-based programs in North America. While helping to drive the smart home transformation through Resideo’s suite of technologies, we're also enabling DERs to play a meaningful role in reducing climate change impacts.

Can you tell us more about your distributed management systems?

Resideo Grid Services provides an Edge-DERMS solution focused on the software, systems, and teams that enable the aggregation of hundreds of thousands of residential DERs into grid-responsive programs.

Unlike enterprise DERMS platforms that are tightly integrated with utility infrastructure, our platform is designed to interface with those systems and orchestrate residential devices at scale to deliver reliable and flexible load reductions.

Our platform supports real-time demand response operations while maintaining comfort and reliability for customers. In 2024, Resideo Grid Services facilitated 2,448 demand response events across 62 utility and VPP partners, representing 773 MW of capacity and 11.4 GWh of shifted energy. We actively manage more than 685,000 connected devices, primarily smart thermostats, across the country.

Please elaborate on how the OpenADR standard is being implemented in your utility and energy market DR programs

Resideo Grid Services uses OpenADR to simplify communication with utilities in demand response programs. This allows us to aggregate residential DERs, such as connected thermostats, into flexible, responsive grid resources. OpenADR provides a secure and standardized way for utilities to send high-level grid instructions, while our Edge-DERMS platform coordinates the optimal combination of responses from tens or even hundreds of thousands of devices.

Major programs where we leverage OpenADR to control over 50 MW include SCE, CPS Energy, NV Energy, and soon Dominion. We also use OpenADR to receive signals from our market aggregation partner Voltus, enabling participation in wholesale energy markets like PJM, MISO, and NYISO.

Can you explain Resideo's relationship with Ford and the F-150?

In 2023, we launched the EV-Home Power Partnership project with Ford to explore the energy-optimizing relationship between the F-150 Lightning and Resideo’s Honeywell Home smart thermostats. The two largest contributors to an individual's carbon footprint are usually their vehicle and the heating and cooling of their home. Our project aimed to investigate how these two major energy consumers could interact in a more intelligent and sustainable way.

The project has focused on understanding:

• How F-150 Lightning owners could utilize their EV battery to power their home's heating and cooling, creating a strategy that improves comfort and energy efficiency while supporting grid resiliency
• How electric vehicles and home energy loads can share the same EV battery energy source and interact in a coordinated way
• Whether F-150 and Honeywell Home thermostat users could reduce energy costs while enhancing performance

We’re nearing the completion of the simulation phase of the research and look forward to sharing more soon. Our initial simulations suggest that integrating the bi-directional control of Ford EVs with HVAC systems yields higher performance than if each were optimized independently. By creating energy-efficient ecosystems between EVs and smart thermostats, we can help prepare the grid for increased renewable energy adoption.

Finally, why is being part of the OpenADR Alliance important to you?

Our partnership with OpenADR is key to enabling smart, interoperable, and efficient energy management solutions. By working together, we can develop scalable demand response strategies that benefit both utilities and consumers, helping us fulfill our commitment to sustainability, grid reliability, and empowering homeowners with intelligent energy management tools.