Gautam Aggarwal, CMO of Bidgely, evolving energy analytics for utilities with the power of data and artificial intelligence.
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In September of 2022, as California officials braced themselves for a crippling surge in energy demand, a funny thing happened. One solitary text message spared the state’s energy grid with a 12-word directive: “Turn off or reduce nonessential power if health allows, now until 9 p.m.” California Independent System Operation (CAISO) reported a steep drop in energy use nearly immediately, and the state’s energy infrastructure stood strong thanks to small, collective actions.
Severe weather and increased power demand have made it harder for utilities alone to manage the grid. California illustrated on a large stage how consumers are moving from static ratepayers who simply draw electricity from the grid to active participants who can, for example, sell back their excess solar power and share usage data through smart meters. With heightened awareness of a strained grid and the need to reduce emissions, consumers generally welcome the chance to work with utilities and will take the right actions en masse when they understand what’s at stake.
Learning from the CA heatwave, what if we identified problems ahead of time and only sent text messages to a small subset of high-energy users? Applying the Pareto principle (sometimes called the 80-20 rule) to energy and climate change, a small section of the public stands to have the biggest impact on grid issues. So let’s not go after everyone—it’s unrealistic to get 100% participation, not to mention costly. Instead, let’s have the same outcome by smartly targeting the 20% that matters most.
Engaging Customers
Innovations in behind-the-meter AI provide an enlightening, appliance-level view of power use over the course of a specific period in any given household. This data provides utilities with new insight, allowing them to understand and anticipate changing power demand and its effects on the grid.
For example, last year, my company partnered with a progressive utility to run a small trial program with EV owners in South Carolina. Encouraging EV owners to implement minor changes that lowered their energy bills and eased the strain on the regional grid was surprisingly simple. The utility sent text messages, emails and web alerts to inform customers of when they should or shouldn’t charge their cars, and how this impacted their rates. As a result, 75% of study participants shifted charging to more ideal times.
As I’ve previously discussed, AI allows marketers to become enablers of additional revenue streams and promoters for new product and service adoption through this convergence of the customer and the grid. Consider heat pumps. Marketers can use smart meter data to target customers with inefficient heating/cooling systems and water heaters with personalized engagement to inspire them to take action by aligning with individual goals, such as reducing high electric bills or their carbon footprint.
Utility marketers can use today’s tools to foster customer collaboration to encourage smarter energy decisions and enable a movement toward greater energy efficiency and lower carbon emissions.
Aligning Teams
Just as consumers and energy providers are entering a new era of grid collaboration, so too are the customer-focused and grid teams within utility organizations. The marketing teams can work alongside others so that all may leverage and benefit from meter-derived energy intelligence.
Utilities can be thinking about how they structure their teams and establish data practices to create tighter engagement across departments and work in a more agile way to maximize customer information and produce better, faster outcomes. Some best practices include:
• Consider the structure of your teams. Seek opportunities to capture common oversight across grid, analytics and customer experience teams that acknowledge the important role of consumers in energy supply. Marketers can leverage this information to influence behavior to improve the grid as well as customer satisfaction.
• Establish a cross-functional data team. An interdepartmental team can help identify big-picture data needs, benefits and costs to create more holistic use cases that better satisfy organization-wide needs. As marketers work alongside representatives of the technology, demand side management, call center and rate and grid planning groups, they can bring their perspectives to the conversation and understand how to enhance efforts with intelligence.
• Create a process to identify and surface energy use patterns. If meter data is to serve as a “single source of truth” from which all teams can benefit, it is important to establish processes for sharing findings that have relevance to multiple departments, including marketing. Official protocols for sharing insights can help ensure data discoveries benefit all groups.
• Don’t let your data drown in a lake. Utilities can realize greater ROI from their tech stack by augmenting existing platforms like CRMs with behind-the-meter energy data. For example, injecting appliance-level insights about a customer’s usage into the call center system leads to faster call resolution, reduced hold times and more personalized customer experiences. Marketers can then better target these customers ongoing.
Discussing data alongside other teams through companywide processes helps give marketers a 360-degree view of both customer and infrastructure needs to better drive their engagement and build consumer confidence.
Optimizing Collaboration
Once marketers have engaged energy consumers and cross-functional teams are aligned, teams can maximize each energy consumer’s contribution as part of a continuously refined strategy. Utilities can leverage meter data to define each household’s unique fingerprint of shiftable, sheddable and stackable potential. Real-time household consumption data enables marketers to use personalized communications to encourage essential behavioral changes to support grid balancing and reliability, including how to best target and incentivize customers.
As weather intensifies, EVs hit the road and renewable energy replaces coal, customer and grid convergence can keep energy flowing. Ensuring a clean, reliable grid requires a community of energy users empowered to make smart energy decisions. Learning from the California heatwave, utilities can use AI proactively to identify problems and engage with a targeted subset of high-energy users to encourage action. By employing data and digital marketing strategies, utilities can rapidly evolve from one-way energy suppliers to trusted partners to improve grid management.
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