At a time when utilities face complex challenges - aging capital assets, regulatory mandates that stipulate energy efficiency and Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) goals, decoupling, and dynamic pricing - nothing is more important than strengthening the relationships that utilities have with their customers. The historical relationship that utilities had with their customers was simple: customers were "ratepayers" and utilities were judged on simple service delivery and reliability. Today’s world is dramatically changed; utilities are embracing innovation in order to adapt to a world where customers have greater demands and market power, and where customer satisfaction is a critical metric of success.
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In the past few years, utilities have experimented with a variety of programs to engage their residential customers in energy savings programs that save customers money and help ensure that utilities achieve their committed energy efficiency goals. These programs have taken a variety of approaches, including social comparison, pure information delivery (in the form of charts and graphs), and rewards programs.
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Historically, utilities have engaged their customers in energy efficiency programs that result in one-time impacts – such as incentivizing businesses to replace incandescent lighting with compact fluorescent, or encouraging residential customers to modernize their appliances to more energy efficient, Energy-Star-rated models. While these programs have been effective, outreach typically has been of the “blast” model – customers are repeatedly encouraged to do one thing; communication is one-way (from utility to customer); and communication ends after the single goal is achieved. As utilities face a steepening curve of energy efficiency targets, they increasingly seek to engage the customer in an ongoing, two-way conversation regarding a variety of methods for reducing energy and saving money. Here at C3, we call this model “continuous energy improvement.”
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Increasing regulatory pressure from public utility commissions is driving utilities to deploy energy efficiency programs across their entire customer base. Stringent mandates frequently specify multi-year energy reduction targets.
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On June 15, 2011, The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) introduced ISO 50001, a standard that specifies requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving an energy management system, whose purpose is to enable an organization to follow a systematic approach in achieving continual improvement of energy performance, including energy efficiency, energy use, and consumption.
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Welcome to The Energy Pulse, a new blog about innovations, trends, and best practices in energy management. I hope that you will enjoy reading about the issues we raise here and will actively contribute to the conversation.
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