E111: The Span Plan: grid infrastructure in your garage

This week on Everybody in the Pool, we’re examining the seemingly humble—but absolutely critical—piece of hardware that could accelerate electrification, unlock virtual power plants, and save homeowners thousands of dollars: the electrical panel.

My guest is Arch Rao, founder and CEO of Span, a company building smart electrical panels that replace your old breaker box with real-time power management, whole-home circuit-level visibility, and the ability to electrify without a costly service upgrade.

If you’ve ever been told you need a new 200-amp panel before installing a heat pump, EV charger, induction stove, or home battery… Span thinks you don’t. And utilities are starting to agree.

We get into:

• Why most of America’s 100-amp homes don’t actually need expensive utility upgrades
• How Span’s digital panel manages loads in real time—throttling certain appliances for a few minutes a year to avoid tripping limits
• What changes when every circuit in your house is visible and controllable (down to the second)
• Span as grid infrastructure: how utilities like PG&E see smart panels as a cheaper alternative to billions in grid upgrades

Links:

• Span: https://www.span.io/
• All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/
• Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/
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