customers

A modern grid for the 21st century will require the power industry to move over time to a more de-centralized paradigm, one that embraces distributed generation, storage and energy management systems. New complexities will arise, including large mobile loads (PHEVs, EVs), interconnected microgrids and multi-directional flows of energy and information. Nimble third parties are already seizing the initiative.[read more]

Last week I wrote about the challenges of Smart Grid data impacting utilities and potential outsourcing trends.  While utilities do have a learning curve to climb about data management and analytics, end users (residential, commercial, and industrial customers) also need to learn the ramifications of the creation and use of entirely...[read more]

Constellation NewEnergy has launched its new energy management product VirtuWatt, which is expected to allow customers to manage and optimize electricity usage in real-time. VirtuWatt utilizes a combination of hardware and online applications. Using the VirtuWatt online dashboard, customers can track current energy usage, usage trends...[read more]

We had a really solid briefing with Convergys today. The firm sells software and services to telcos and utilities for customer care and billing – it has 80k employees worldwide, 550+ clients, and $3bn in revenue. According to Greenmonk research most utilities are failing to understand the the need to put the customer right at the...[read more]

America’s energy needs face several paradigm shifts. To help meet projected growth in the demand for electricity while at the same time doing the least harm to the environment on the power production and consumption sides, smart grid technology will play an important role for a number of reasons: It will bring greater security and...[read more]

I was at the Smart Grid Summit in Miami last week where I presented a Smart Grid overview and moderated two sessions on Game-Changing Applications and Home Energy Management Systems.  Another session focused on the lessons that telecom companies can teach utilities, which aligns nicely with my discussion from last week.  Here...[read more]

In my previous posting I highlighted the importance that electricity customers place on the price they pay, and shared data that showed price-related concerns have risen to an all-time high.  In my final post about CEA’s 2009 Public Attitudes research I want to focus again on price, but this time in terms of the relative importance...[read more]

Over the past several days, I have read a number of stories about the political and legal challenges that companies like Southern Co., FPL, and CPS are facing as they attempt to roll some of the costs of efforts to expand their nuclear plant capacity into their current rate structure. In most cases the numbers are quite small - CPS, for...[read more]

I was invited by James McClelland and Maureen Coveney to participate in a panel at SAP’s Sapphire conference earlier this year discussing Smart Grids. One of the key points I made was that utilities are not used to having to deal with customers. The only real interactions utilities have with customers are 1) sending out bills and 2)...[read more]