Philadelphia – September 29, 2026 -- ConnectDER, a manufacturer of meter socket adapters (MSAs) for solar, battery, and EV charging installations, has named Chad Conway as VP of Product to lead development of its flagship IslandDER product line launched in 2025.
Conway brings 15 years of clean-energy hardware experience from SPAN and Tesla
Conway was a founding team member and Head of Products at SPAN, the smart electric panel maker, where he led the SPAN Panel from concept to installations in thousands of U.S. homes. Before SPAN, he spent six years on Tesla's Energy team helping scale the Powerwall to more than 50,000 annual deployments, including post-Hurricane Irma and Maria recovery work with local communities in Puerto Rico.
CEO cites job-site complexity, not battery supply, as the industry's main cost bottleneck
Ivo Steklac, ConnectDER's President and CEO, said rising electricity costs and more frequent outages are driving demand for residential storage, but installation complexity remains the biggest barrier to lowering total cost for homeowners. He said Conway's experience scaling platforms at SPAN and Tesla positions him to keep ConnectDER's adapters as the fastest, most cost-effective installer option nationwide.
Nearly one in three U.S. counties saw rising prices alongside worsening grid reliability
A county-by-county analysis of the U.S. grid found that in nearly a third of counties, electricity prices rose over the past decade even as outages worsened. That trend is accelerating installer demand for faster, cheaper battery and backup deployment methods.
ConnectDER's meter-socket adapters bypass panel reconfiguration work
Traditional interconnect methods often require expensive panel reconfigurations and multi-day labor. ConnectDER's patented MSAs connect solar, storage, and EV chargers directly at the meter socket, a method the company says saves homeowners thousands of dollars and cuts installer labor time. The approach is gaining relevance as many of the estimated 4 million U.S. residents with existing rooftop solar retrofit systems to join battery incentive programs such as Virtual Power Plants.
IslandDER now integrates with five major battery and inverter platforms
Conway's product focus will center on expanding IslandDER's onboard functionality and OEM partnerships. The device, positioned as a Microgrid Interconnect Device, eliminates the need for circuit relocations and subpanels on whole-home backup jobs. It is currently compatible with systems from SolarEdge, FranklinWH, Lunar Energy, EcoFlow, and Fox ESS, with additional partnerships under agreement.
Utility approvals in California and Arizona target meter-main combination panels
ConnectDER's devices have received utility approvals across the U.S., including in California and Arizona, where meter-main combination panels are common and would otherwise require a full day of circuitry rework. In markets where local utilities have not yet approved meter socket adapters, ConnectDER's IslandDER device can be installed in a separate meter socket without requiring utility approval.