Integrate Once, Access Everything

In Part 1, I described the integration tax: bespoke MSAs, fees everywhere, fragmentation, gatekeeping. OEMs forced to build the same undifferentiated pipes to dozens of platforms just to compete.

Meanwhile, your software team should be building features that sell more hardware. There's a better way.

#The Core Problem

OEM software teams are finite. Every hour spent on upstream integrations is an hour not spent on:

• Customer-facing features
• Product differentiation
• Things that actually move units

Integration work doesn't help you win. It's table stakes just to not lose.

And if you're a smaller OEM without a dedicated integrations team, you're stuck watching larger competitors get into programs you can't. Not because your hardware is worse—because you can't afford the integration tax.

#What OEMs Actually Need

Let me simplify what every OEM executive cares about:

1. Access to programs where your customers live. When a homeowner in California or Texas or Vermont buys your battery, they should be able to participate in local utility programs.

2. The ability to say "yes." When a utility or homeowner asks "can your battery participate?"—you need that answer to be yes.

3. Freedom to focus software resources on selling more steel in the ground. Not on plumbing. Not on integration infrastructure. On things that differentiate your product.

4. A path that doesn't require hiring integration engineers and lawyers just to get in the door.

#The Texture Model

Build one integration with Texture. Get access to programs.

We're not asking you to replace anything. Keep your existing cloud infrastructure. Keep your existing integrations. But for new program access, you build once with us. We handle the complexity. You focus on your product. (And if you'd rather not build or maintain cloud infrastructure yourself, we can handle that too—more on that below.)

The goal: "integrate once, access everything" becomes reality, not marketing.

Here's how that looks in practice:

The rest of this article explains how we deliver on each of these. But if you're short on time, that table is the summary.

#Three Ways to Work With Us

We offer three distinct products, because OEMs have different needs:

#Texture Direct (Free)

Get your devices into programs Texture operates directly.

• No integration fee
• No bespoke MSA
• Public spec, standard terms
• Start today—the docs are live

This is our self-service path. You can review our integration requirements right now at www.texturehq.com/oem/spec. No NDA. No sales call required. No lawyers. Just read the requirements and start building.

When we power a utility program, every OEM integrated with Texture is eligible—at no additional cost to the utility. This matters more than you might think.

In this industry, utilities typically pay $10,000-20,000 per OEM just to add another device manufacturer to their program. That's not a technology cost—it's a gatekeeping tax. It forces utilities to pick winners: "We can only afford to support three battery manufacturers, so we'll go with the biggest ones."

We don't do that. Every OEM on Texture is available to every utility at no incremental cost. We're not picking winners. We already built the integration—why would we charge you again for someone else to use it?

The result: utilities can say "yes" to every OEM on our platform. Homeowners get choice. And OEMs compete on product quality, not on who can afford the integration tax.

And it's not just the programs we run directly. Texture also powers the backend for other companies running utility programs. When a DERMS provider or program operator uses Texture as their infrastructure, your Texture integration works there too. For example, if a major utility launches a battery program through their DERMS vendor, and that vendor runs on Texture—you're already eligible. No additional integration. No new contract. The program operator might never even mention Texture in their RFP, but if you're integrated with us, you're in.

This is the difference between integrating with a single program versus integrating with infrastructure. Programs come and go. Infrastructure compounds.

#Program Cloud (Paid)

Get access to programs run by a growing network of DERMS and CSP platforms. We're actively expanding upstream integrations.

• We handle upstream connectivity so you don't have to
• One integration instead of dozens
• You benefit automatically as we expand—no additional fees, no new contracts

This is for OEMs who need national coverage but don't want to build and maintain integrations with every platform in the market. Contact us for current platform coverage and pricing.

#Device Cloud (Paid)

Skip building your own cloud infrastructure entirely. We host it for you.

• Real-time telemetry ingestion and storage
• Fleet monitoring dashboard and analytics
• Hosted OAuth and secure device identity
• API provisioning for your partners and customers
• Firmware update hosting and deployment
• Coming soon: white-labeled customer portal

This is for OEMs who want to focus on hardware, not cloud infrastructure. Every device manufacturer today faces the same problem: before you can sell your first unit, you need to build telemetry pipelines, authentication systems, dashboards, APIs, and data storage. That's 6-12 months of development and significant infrastructure costs—for capabilities your customers never see.

Device Cloud lets you skip that entirely. Your devices connect directly to Texture's infrastructure, and you get a production-ready cloud backend from day one. You also get access to software capabilities we've spent years building—telemetry pipelines that scale, dashboards that actually surface useful insights, APIs that third parties want to integrate with. Your hardware paired with our software stack puts you ahead of competitors who are still building their own plumbing.

And because Device Cloud is built for energy, you automatically get market prices, emissions data, weather integration, and the program eligibility logic that basic cloud platforms don't provide. Device Cloud customers also get full access to Texture Direct and Program Cloud—build on our infrastructure, and program access comes included.

Contact us to learn more.

#What "Open" Actually Means

I want to be specific about what "open" means, because the word gets thrown around a lot in this industry.

The first time I used Twilio, I sent a text message from a few lines of code. No sales call. No NDA. No waiting. Just docs, an API key, and suddenly I was affecting the physical world—radio waves hitting someone's iPhone—all because I read some documentation and wrote some code. That moment felt like stepping into the future.

Energy touches the physical world too. When you send a command to a battery, electrons flow differently. The grid responds. That's as tangible as a text message arriving on a phone. There's no reason the integration experience should be stuck in 1995.

Public integration requirements. You can read our technical requirements at www.texturehq.com/oem/spec—it defines what your integration needs to support: real-time device data, the ability to receive and act on grid signals, and customer enrollment. No NDA required. No sales call. It's just there. (Full technical documentation lives at docs.texturehq.com.)

Interactive, not static. Most energy platform documentation is hidden behind NDAs—you can't even see what you're integrating with until you've signed paperwork. And when you finally get access, you get a PDF. Maybe a Word doc. Static documentation that's already out of date by the time it hits your inbox. Our documentation at docs.texturehq.com is fully interactive—your engineers can test our systems directly from their browser before writing a single line of code. That reduces development time and eliminates guesswork.

Standard integration terms. Our legal terms are published at www.texturehq.com/legal/integration-terms. You can read them right now. No negotiation required.

No lawyers to get started. This is the big one. In a world where every other integration requires months of legal back-and-forth, we're offering standard terms that you can accept and move forward.

Permissionless by default. We modeled this on how the best API companies operate—Stripe, Twilio, Plaid—not how energy software has historically worked.

You can read Salesforce's API docs right now. Grab an API key. Start building. Nobody asks you to sign an NDA first. Nobody calls to negotiate fees. Nobody tells you not to mention the integration until PR coordinates an announcement. This is just how modern software works. Energy hasn't gotten the memo.

If you're used to the "call us for pricing, sign an NDA, wait three months" model, this might feel strange. That's intentional. We think the old model is broken.

#Why We Don't Charge for Integration

Our incentive is aligned with yours: more devices on the platform means more programs we can run, which means more value for utilities, which means more value for you.

Charging integration fees creates friction that slows everyone down. We make money when programs succeed, not by gatekeeping access.

This is the opposite of how most platforms in this space operate. And that's intentional.

#Why We Built This

Texture spent years navigating this ecosystem. Finding the right people. Understanding the patchwork of requirements. Working through the legal complexity. It was hard-won knowledge.

We could keep that to ourselves. Make everyone else figure it out on their own.

Instead, we're building infrastructure so you don't have to. If you're an OEM trying to get your devices into programs, you shouldn't have to navigate the same maze we did. You should be able to focus on your product and your customers—not on integration plumbing.

#A Note on Utility Decision-Making

I want to be honest about one thing: ultimately, utilities running programs decide which OEMs to support. We can't force a utility to include every device manufacturer.

But here's the thing: they want to support as many as possible.

No utility wants to exclude homeowners who bought a different battery, thermostat, or EV charger. They want capacity. They want participation. They want the grid flexibility they're paying for. They just couldn't support everyone before—the cost and complexity were too high.

When you remove that barrier, utilities say "yes" to everyone they can. Your job is to be integrated when they're ready to say yes.

#Beyond Programs: The Broader Value of Open Data

We've focused on utility programs because that's where the immediate revenue opportunity is. But open, standardized data access unlocks value far beyond demand response and virtual power plants (VPPs, where many distributed devices work together as a single grid resource).

Financing and investment. Third-party owners and financiers need to verify that installed systems are performing as expected. When a solar-plus-storage project is financed, the lender wants to see real performance data—not quarterly PDFs. Open APIs let financiers monitor their investments continuously. That means more projects get funded, which means more devices in the ground, which means more sales for you.

Operations and maintenance. O&M providers need to detect problems before customers call to complain. When a battery isn't performing right, when an inverter throws an error code, when a thermostat stops responding—the faster someone knows, the faster they can roll a truck. Open telemetry data means faster repairs and happier customers. And happy customers don't blame the OEM.

Your own operational visibility. Here's something we've noticed: when we show OEMs the operational analytics we've built—aggregated performance data, geographic distribution, device health metrics, DR program performance—they're often surprised. "We don't have this view of our own devices," they tell us. That makes sense. Your engineering team is building features that sell hardware, not dashboards for internal operations. But that visibility matters. Program Cloud and Device Cloud include analytics that show you how your devices are performing across programs and geographies. You shouldn't need to build this yourself.

The point: open data isn't just about getting into programs. It's about enabling an entire ecosystem of services that make your devices more valuable—to financiers, to service providers, and to you. Texture provides the standardized data access that makes all of this possible—one integration that unlocks not just program access, but an entire ecosystem of value-added services.

#What This Means for You

If you're an OEM executive reading this, here's the practical takeaway:

Your sales team will eventually get the question: "Is your device eligible for [utility X]'s program?" The answer to that question depends on your integration status.

With Texture, you build one integration. As we expand—both programs we operate directly and upstream platforms we connect to—your coverage expands automatically. The value of your integration increases every time we add a program.

You don't have to predict which utilities will launch programs next year. You don't have to guess which DERMS provider they'll choose. You integrate once, and you're positioned for whatever comes.

#Next: The Flywheel

This model only works if it creates compounding value over time. The more OEMs integrate, the more valuable the network becomes for utilities. The more utilities join, the more valuable the network becomes for OEMs.

In Part 3, I'll explain the flywheel—and why getting in early matters more than you might think.

This is Part 2 of a three-part series on OEM integration. ← Part 1: The Integration Tax | Part 3: The Flywheel (coming soon)