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Electric vehicles (EVs) can help utilities meet carbon-reduction goals, increase revenue, and position themselves as trusted energy advisers. Based on our work with utilities across the US and Canada, we’ve identified five barriers utilities face when implementing an EV strategy. Regardless of how far along utilities are on their EV journeys, utilities are asking these questions:

• What kinds of programs and services should they offer?
• Who are the likely buyers and how do utilities connect with them?
• How can utilities help target the right customers for EV offerings?
• Where are the localized impacts on the grid, and how do utilities mitigate risk by forecasting the potential new loads on the grid?
• When do utilities set up new internal technology platforms, and how do they select vendors to partner with?

We offer suggestions for an EV strategy that balances customer needs with utility priorities. Learn how leading utilities have overcome these barriers by turning uncertainty into opportunity.

Speakers:

Rachel Reiss Buckley, vice president, Enterprise Strategy and Product Development, E Source

Bill LeBlanc, chief instigation agent, E Source

Steven Day, analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Bryan Jungers, lead analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Laura Ruff Agard, senior analyst, Market Research, E Source

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With virtual commissioning, utilities can remotely identify efficiency opportunities in their customers’ facilities. You can help drive program participation, improve relationships with business customers, and help them save money all through virtual commissioning. Effective marketing is the backbone of any successful virtual commissioning offering. Learn how to improve your program marketing efforts in this exchange.

Potential topics include:

• Ways utilities are engaging business customers with virtual commissioning programs
• The different types of virtual commissioning programs and, specifically, the ones that have been successful
• Important utility case studies and examples

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the event.

Moderator:

Kevin Andrews, lead analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

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Virtual audits are an essential way for utilities to serve customers and promote their products and services during COVID-19. Utilities have suspended most in-person audit programs during the pandemic, but a lot of customers are still struggling with higher utility bills and less income. Join this exchange to discuss how these programs have been performing, how we expect them to evolve after the pandemic, how to position and market virtual audits to maintain customer engagement, and how to use these programs to promote other utility resources.

Potential topics include:

• How to design a virtual audit option as part of an existing residential program
• How virtual audits have performed during COVID-19
• How utilities plan to adapt their virtual audit programs after the pandemic
• Which customers are interested in virtual audits and how to target them
• What channels and messages to use when marketing virtual audits
• What the best practices are for virtual audit marketing—now and looking forward

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the exchanges.

Moderators:

Shelby Kuenzli, analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

Anna Nixon, staff writer, Editorial, E Source

Liza Minor, staff writer, Editorial, E Source

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The National Energy Assistance Directors Association reports that 28 states will be ending their COVID-19 or winter-weather disconnection moratoriums by June 2021. Recognizing that this will affect a large swath of utilities, E Source wants to provide a venue for you to discuss your communication plans for this change. Join your peers to discuss how you’re communicating with customers about the end of moratoriums. And see examples from utilities that have already gone through the process.

Potential topics include:

• What communication channels and messaging you should use to inform customers of the change
• Strategies for communicating with customers in arrears, including directing them to payment assistance programs or payment arrangements
• Ways to encourage customers to donate to utility assistance programs to help those in need

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the event.

Moderators:

Jessica Bailis, solution director, Marketing and Communications, E Source

Lisa Schulte, senior analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

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Because of COVID-19, utilities have seen a greater percentage of customers fall into low- and moderate-income (LMI) categories. Some of these customers haven’t typically qualified for assistance and often can’t afford to participate in traditional demand-side management offerings.

Utilities are not only struggling to identify who their LMI customers are but also struggling to hit program goals. Through this exchange, you’ll learn how to better identify your LMI customers, informing your outreach. You’ll also learn how to optimize your program strategies and offerings for these hard-to-reach customer segments.

Potential topics include:

• What data sources you can use to better segment your LMI customers
• How to use data to better inform your LMI targeting and outreach strategies
• How to implement your LMI strategy cost-effectively
• How utilities increased enrollment in LMI programs
• How utilities are successfully identifying and engaging their LMI customers

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the calls.

Moderators:

Shelby Kuenzli, Analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

Liza Minor, Staff Writer, Editorial, E Source

Amy Schmidt, Analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Jessica Bailis, Associate Solution Director, Sales Support and Engagement, E Source

Katie Ruiz, Senior Solution Director, Sales Support and Engagement, E Source

Questions about this event? Send us a message.

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A distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) is critical to the optimized control and coordination of distributed energy resources (DERs) on the grid. Austin SHINES is the largest and most in-depth public evaluation of DERMS we’ve seen to date. The results from the SHINES project demonstrate some of the major challenges to DERMS implementation, but also showcase how critical DERMS initiatives are for cost-effective DER integration. This event will give DER strategy teams a chance to chat with Austin Energy’s SHINES team to discuss lessons learned and next steps.

Potential topics include:

• Rationale for building a DERMS from the ground up
• Comparison of costs associated with integrating different types of DERs (e.g., residential vs. commercial batteries)
• The costs and benefits associated with deploying and operating a DERMS today
• Technical and economic challenges utilities may face with DERMS build outs

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the event.

Moderator:

Bryan Jungers, Lead Analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Speaker:

Cameron Freberg, Utility Strategist, Electric Vehicles and Emerging Technologies, Austin Energy

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Leading-edge utilities are using machine learning and artificial intelligence to dramatically reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs in vegetation management. Join industry veteran and E Source data science expert Tom Martin to explore how you can move from a cadence-based approach to vegetation management to a more data-driven, risk-based approach.

You’ll learn:

• How combining disparate data sources like LIDAR and satellite imagery with other unique data sources can create dynamic models that work with workflow management systems to prioritize tree-trimming in a way that reduces costs and improves reliability
• How data-driven vegetation-management programs are changing the game

Speakers:

Tom Martin, Managing Director, Data Science, E Source

Rachel Buckley, VP, Enterprise Strategy and New Products, E Source

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With the pandemic changing the face of operations in 2020, it’s time to take a look at prioritizing your customer experience (CX) projects for 2021. A customer-centric culture isn’t always easy to foster at your utility, but you need one to provide customers the best experience. This raises the question: How do you figure out which projects will provide the best experience for customers and for your utility? In this exchange, we’ll discuss with E Source experts and your utility peers how to best prioritize your CX projects.

Potential topics include:

• Creating a customer-centric culture
• Creating a CX intent statement
• Tying your projects to your intent statement
• Ranking your projects by which will do the most good

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the event.

Moderator:

Chris Peters, Associate Analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

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Chatbots are an emerging self-service channel for utilities. They offer promising cost savings and can serve as a helpful resource for customers, but adoption among utilities remains low. In this exchange, we want to bring together utilities that are working to implement or are considering implementing a chatbot. Participants will be able to discuss their strategies for using this technology. We also want to hear from you about the areas you need the most help in when it comes to chatbots. We’ll use this exchange to focus our research efforts for our upcoming report series on chatbots.

Potential topics include:

• How utilities are building a chatbot strategy
• Why you should use chatbots as a service channel (and the business case for them)
• What the best chatbot use cases are for utilities
• What barriers utilities experience when deploying chatbots

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the calls.

Moderators:

Eryc Eyl, Senior Solution Director, Sales Support and Engagement, E Source

Lisa Schulte, Senior Analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

Questions about this event? Send us a message.

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Market-transformation activities are a great way to claim energy savings while making energy-efficiency equipment the market standard. We define market-transformation activities as initiatives that support whole-market shifts rather than incentivize one-time efficiency investments. In this webinar you’ll hear from environmental consultancy Resource Innovations about the key elements of today’s market-transforming utility collaboratives. The speakers will discuss how practical market interventions can accelerate the long-term adoption of energy-saving solutions and ultimately revolutionize the market to work for you.

You’ll learn:

• How to overcome market barriers to enable widescale adoption of energy efficiency and distributed energy resource (DER) technologies using proven market-transformation principles
• How utilities leverage natural market drivers to accelerate energy-saving solutions and make them common practice
• How Resource Innovations, working on behalf of utility partners, led a change to the Illinois technical reference manual so utilities can count the full savings from market-transformation interventions
• Why the shared commitments of multiutility collaboratives are the key to stretching your investments and influencing how energy is consumed

Speakers:

Bryan Jungers, Lead Analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Kate Merson, Director, Resource Innovations

Margie Gardner, Senior Advisor, Resource Innovations

Jim Jerozal, Director, Energy Efficiency Strategy, Nicor Gas

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With smart home devices, utilities can reduce energy consumption, manage demand, support time-of-use rate structures, increase revenue, and share valuable energy data with their customers. Smart thermostats have seen widespread success in utility programs, but other smart devices and home energy management systems haven’t taken off. To help you plan your next smart home pilot, we’ll present the latest E Source research on the energy and demand benefits that different devices and platforms offer. Then we’ll share results of the E Source 2020 Smart Home Consumer Survey to help you better understand customer opinions, needs, and concerns. We’ll also discuss strategies that utilities can use to promote smart home technology.

Potential topics include:

• Which smart home products are currently in customers’ homes
• The energy- and demand-reduction potential of different smart home devices
• New challenges with software-based demand-side management measures
• Emerging platforms for home energy management
• What drives smart home technology purchases among customers
• Customers’ concerns about data privacy and cybersecurity
• Opportunities to engage low-income customers
• How utilities can better promote smart home devices and systems

Speakers:

Sarah Baker, Analyst, Market Research, E Source

Luke Beckett, Product Strategist, E Source

Essie Snell, Lead Analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

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HER 1.0, 2.0, 3.0—oh my! Home energy report (HER) programs have been part of utility portfolios for over 10 years. The foundation of peer comparisons remains strong, but vendors and program managers are exploring new ways to keep the report relevant and effective. We’ll discuss digital and video HERs, updated imagery, fine-tuned comparison language, and more. Talk with utility peers about their first-hand experience trying some of the latest updates to HER offerings.

Potential topics include:

• The move toward digital HERs
• The promise and reality of more personalized HERs
• Real insights on new players in the HER vendors space
• Any topics you bring to the conversation

Through E Source exchanges, you can build a topic-specific network of utility professionals who can help you solve challenges and find solutions. We encourage you to ask questions and share your experience during the calls.

Moderator:

Beth Fitzjarrald, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Questions about this event? Email us.