Every home with a smart meter already has a utility-controlled device at the service entrance. US12304342B2, granted to San Diego Gas & Electric on May 20, 2025, claims using that meter to manage EV charging — and claim 1's whole bet is the meter as the control point.
The CPC tags are EV-charging-grid: B60L 53/64 (charging schedule control), B60L 53/665 (involving the power grid), B60L 53/67/68 (load and external control), with B60L 2250/16 for communication. The architecture choice is the novelty — instead of managing charging at the charger or through a separate device, the patent routes the management through the smart meter the utility already owns and controls.
Why that choice matters strategically. The smart meter is the utility's foothold at every premises. Making it the control point for EV charging keeps the managed-charging function — when and how fast vehicles charge to protect the grid — under utility control, rather than ceding it to automakers, charger vendors, or third-party aggregators. Claim 1 fences that architectural decision.
Reading scope: the limitation is meter-mediated charging management, not EV charging or managed charging in general. Competing architectures (charger-side control, cloud aggregators, automaker apps) sit outside this fence. The patent owns the specific channel — through the meter.
The landscape signal echoes a theme across the mid-2020s grid IP: utilities entering the patent game to defend control points they historically took for granted. Just as Duke Energy fenced distribution-management software in 2024, SDG&E in 2025 fences the meter as the EV-charging control point. The throughline is utilities recognizing that the value — and the control — of the electrifying grid is up for grabs, and filing to keep their piece of it.