Recent advances in communications, policy, and the installation of smart meters in residences across America has opened the realm of the residence to the possibility of advanced electrical load monitoring and control.  With no concrete standards or roadmaps governing communications and capabilities, a fractured market of Gateways, IHDs (In Home Displays), load control switches, and smart appliances has emerged in an attempt to take advantage of this burgeoning opportunity.  What results from this mixture is a lack of interoperability amongst products, which limits consumer options, and consequently slows the integration of these products into residences.  Arguably, the most critical component of the aforementioned elements is the Residential Energy Gateway, or REG.  In order to facilitate the development of more interoperable devices, the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the California Institute for Energy and the Environment (CIEE) have, since 2009, sponsored a reference design project for a Residential Energy Gateway, which is being developed in the Mechanical Engineering Dept. at UC Berkeley.  This presentation is divided into two parts.  The first portion of the talk focuses on the development of the REG at Cal, highlighting aspects which increase component interoperability.  The second part of the talk addresses some of the new opportunities the implementation of REGs present from a utility perspective. It is our hope that this talk will provide insight into the intricacies of residential demand side energy management and will foster new collaborative efforts with our colleagues at LBNL