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. By Jesse Berst
In April, we talked about the state-of-the-art in paper and email reports in an article that explained Duke Energy's path to a more engaged electric power customer. We followed that with a webinar on customer engagement featuring Duke Energy. (Click the link to view the slides or watch a replay.)
In May, we explained how Kansas City Power & Light uses a web portal to improve customer engagement. We followed that with a webinar featuring KCP&L along with behavioral scientist Dr. Paul Cole.
Now we're back to talk about the next stage in the journey -- in-home displays, giving consumers choice in how and where they engage with energy information in their daily lives. I have been researching the topic in preparation for a webinar on Wednesday, Oct. 17, featuring Reliant Energy. (Registration is free while space remains; click to reserve a spot.)
Why an in-home display?
The goal of Reliant's IHD program was customer acquisition and retention in the fiercely competitive Texas retail market. The state now has smart meters for the majority of its electric power customers. The meters were installed by two transmission and distribution service providers -- TDSPs or "poles and wires companies" -- Centerpoint Energy and Oncor, who maintain the systems but don't sell electricity directly to customers. Instead, retailers such as Reliant build on top of the AMI platform to offer a variety of programs.
"We chose an IHD to differentiate ourselves in the Texas retail market," explained Mark Smith, Principal, Smart Energy at the Houston-based firm. A subsidiary of NRG Energy, Reliant serves more than 1.5 million customers throughout Texas. Reliant serves all customer classes and is the largest residential retail provider in the state. As soon as Texas announced its state-wide AMI plans, Reliant sought to use the platform to "get a first mover advantage." Smith said.
The Tendril Insight IHD
Reliant selected the Tendril Insight IHD pictured here. The unit has custom firmware co-developed by Reliant and Tendril. To speed deployment, Reliant decided to forgo connecting to the back office to collect billing and pricing information. Instead, customers can input their own pricing if they want to see an estimated cost for the month. The Reliant version of the IHD shows:
· Real-time electricity cost
· Current usage in both kilowatts and dollars-per-hour
· Daily energy cost
· Comparisons to the previous day’s cost
· Monthly cost tracking with up-to-date cost information
From May 2011 to June 2012, Reliant offered IHDs as an option for several of its programs. It shipped several thousand units during that time. Many sign-ups came from the website. When customers logged on to view their usage or pay their bills, they saw an ad for the in-home display. Reliant did not charge for the IHDs, but it did wait for customers to request them specifically. "We tried bundling them automatically," said Mark Smith. "But we found that the device wasn't valued in those cases. The program is more effective when the device is requested by the customer.
Challenges along the way
As a pioneer, Reliant found itself blazing some new trails. One issue was connecting to the IHD, which was originally designed to connect via a home gateway back to the company's servers. Under the Texas plan, however, that connection has to be made through the smart meter. Among other things, that makes it impossible to log on remotely for diagnostics and customer support.
As a result, Reliant and Tendril had to increase the on-device diagnostics. And they had to train customer support reps how to handle issues. The latest technique is to instruct users to go to the diagnostic screen and take a picture with their phone or digital camera. Sending a picture to the support rep avoids the errors that occur when customers try to read or punch in long error codes.
Reliant also spent a lot of effort to come up with a smooth system for provisioning and deploying the devices. The Reliant procedure gets the device properly configured for the customer's address and existing smart meter before the unit is sent out. "We worked very hard on the process and the documentation to make these devices plug-and-play simple," Smith told me. In most cases, customers simply open the box containing the pre-provisioned unit; plug it in; and the unit will scan until it finds and connects to the correct meter.
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