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Join us for a thorough review of the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) journey. We’ll discuss how to decide to launch an AMI initiative, project planning, procurement, and implementation. We’ll also cover postproject optimization and how to use the data to get the most value from your investment.

You’ll learn:

• What AMI, customer engagement portals, and meter data management are
• Who the major vendors are and what solutions they offer
• How AMI can help a utility and its customers
• How you can learn from other utilities’ experiences
• How to avoid potential pitfalls and what mitigation you could pursue

Speakers:

Kody Salem, Senior VP, Business Development, Technology Planning & Implementation Consulting, E Source

Mark Hatfield, VP, Innovation, Technology Planning & Implementation Consulting, E Source

Ty Ross, General Manager, Loudon Utilities

Moderator:

Dawn Arnold, TVA Customer Relations Director, E Source

Questions about this event? Send us a message.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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With disconnects and collections resuming in the coming months, your call volume will probably increase. But you can reduce the calls by deflecting them to self-service options. You already know that you save money when customers self-serve, whether through digital tools or the interactive voice response system. And in this webinar, we’ll look at how you can get more customers to use your self-service offerings. We’ll also list examples of successful utility campaigns and discuss how to measure the effectiveness of your strategy.

You’ll learn:

• How many customers are already self-serving
• How to improve the customer experience in self-service channels
• What other utilities have done in campaigns to increase the number of customers who self-serve
• How to measure the success of your self-service campaign strategy

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:

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

Questions about this event? Send us a message.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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Rooftop solar continues to be popular among residential customers. E Source interviewed a few utilities to learn about their approach to residential solar. From these conversations, we’ve come up with some key tactics you can use to increase solar penetration in your service territory. Join us for a discussion where we dive into these suggestions and hear from some of the utility interviewees directly.

Potential topics include:

• Increasing solar uptake
• Working with solar contractors
• Talking with solar customers
• Assessing the impact COVID-19 will have on solar

Speaker:

Steven Day, Associate Analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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Your website is an important communication tool, so we gathered insights from the 2019 E Source Review of North American Electric and Gas Company Residential Websites to help you make it better. We also recommend adding a mobile app to your suite of communication channels to better serve your tech-savvy customers. Our tips can help you create and launch a great mobile app.

You’ll learn:

• Five ways to make your website more readable, accessible, and user friendly
• The features customers want to find on a mobile app, the best way to launch an app, and how to promote it

Speakers:

Heather Hilgenkamp, Manager, Market Research, E Source

Anna Nixon, Staff Writer, Editorial, E Source

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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Mandated disconnection moratoriums are expiring across the US and Canada, and utilities are beginning to resume disconnections for nonpayment. With COVID-19 still raging and customers still struggling financially, what can you do to help them avoid a shutoff at such a crucial time?

You’ll learn:

• The strategies utilities have used to reintroduce disconnects for nonpayment
• How to help customers make payments and set up payment arrangements effortlessly
• How to help customers get payment assistance and deepen ties to community organizations
• How to improve the customers’ collections experience

Speakers:

Jeffrey Daigle, Managing Director, Management Consulting, E Source

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

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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To capture the nuances of branding in the utility industry, we surveyed 20 utilities across the US and Canada through the 2019 E Source Utility Branding Survey. Join this exchange to connect with your peers and to learn more about the inner workings of utility brands and their brand strategies.

Potential topics include:

• What brand strategies look like at top J.D. Power utilities
• What brand-related actions these utilities take externally and internally
• What metrics are important to them and, critically, which aren’t

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. We don’t regularly publish notes from these conversations, as the value of these events comes from your participation in a closed-door, interactive dialogue with your peers.

Moderator:

Shelby Kuenzli, Analyst, Customer Engagement Solutions, E Source

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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As demand-response (DR) programs become more complex, utilities increasingly rely on vendors to support their load management efforts. But partnering with solution providers isn’t always smooth sailing.

Luckily, BGE has some advice for creating strong relationships with program partners. The utility hosts an annual Demand Response Vendor Summit. This daylong, facilitated meeting has helped ensure agreement on key objectives, allowed vendors to share information and concerns, and created innovative solutions for customers. During this exchange, BGE will discuss its Demand Response Vendor Summit and offer some advice for working with vendors.

You’ll learn:

• The benefits of holding a vendor summit
• What topics utilities can discuss with program partners to strengthen relationships and improve programs
• How other utilities can plan a vendor summit

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:

Amy Schmidt, Analyst, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

Speaker:

Dana DeRemigis, Senior Energy Efficiency Program Manager, BGE

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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Utilities can use quantitative data to better understand their customers as individuals—or as an audience of one—and target offerings specific to their distinct needs. This is especially pertinent during the pandemic with customers who are likely to become unable to pay their utility bill 6 to 24 months into the future. That information can give you a valuable head start on creating and promoting programs that can help your customers save energy and money, as well as developing short- and long-term payment strategies, specifically tailored to the unique circumstances of your at-risk customers.

This year, many customers are finding it especially challenging to pay their bills on time. COVID-19 has taught us the importance of offering programs and services to new-to-arrears customers before they face a crisis. As we move into the first winter of the pandemic, we’ll share results from two predictive arrears modeling projects that can help you identify and assist the customers who need it most.

Moderator:

Jessica Bailis, Associate Solution Director, Marketing and Communications, E Source

Speakers:

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

Tom Martin, Managing Director, Data Science, E Source

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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Utilities are reevaluating their weatherization programs for 2020 and 2021 for two main reasons: COVID-19 has affected their ability to do in-home measures, and customers who previously weren’t low income now fall into the newly low-income audience after losing some or all of their household income during the pandemic. During this exchange, we’ll talk to utilities who are making adjustments to their weatherization programs this winter to discuss how they’re marketing these programs to low-income, moderate-income, and newly low-income audiences.

Potential topics include:

• Adjustments to weatherization programs, such as DIY kits, online marketplaces, behavioral programs, and more
• Nuances to marketing subsidized programs to low-income groups and nonsubsidized programs to moderate-income groups
• Insights for targeted marketing to moderate-income and newly low-income audiences
• Messages to include in weatherization program marketing during COVID-19

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. We don’t regularly publish notes from these conversations, as the value of these events comes from your participation in a closed-door, interactive dialogue with your peers.

Moderator:

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

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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Following the 2020 US election, how will the presidential administration and Congress approach energy policy, and what will that mean for utilities and solution providers? We’ll hear from Kara Saul Rinaldi, a leading energy- and climate-policy expert, to get the inside scoop on how Washington is approaching key topics and what that may mean for you. Then, we’ll open the discussion so you can get your most-pressing policy questions answered.

Kara brings decades of experience in advocacy, policy strategy development, lobbying, and media relations, and she appears regularly in the national media to share her expertise. Kara is the founder of the AnnDyl Policy Group, an energy and environmental policy strategy and advocacy consulting firm with a focus on energy efficiency and advanced technology promotion. Kara has been elected to the board of various energy and environmental groups and coalitions to assist the industry in advancing green-energy policies. She has directed national policy, communications, and grassroots campaigns, leading advocacy efforts with administrations and Congress on tax, appropriations, authorization, and climate-change policy for national and international organizations. Kara has testified before congressional committees on energy policy.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to engage with a leading energy-policy expert in a critical and timely postelection discussion!

Potential topics include:

• The election results’ effect on national climate and resiliency efforts
• The intersection of energy, COVID-19, and future economic-stimulus packages
• Changes to energy and environmental standards
• Potential policy impacts for vulnerable customers
• New opportunities and challenges for utility demand-side management and decarbonization programs

Speakers:

Kara Saul Rinaldi, Founder, President, and CEO, AnnDyl Policy Group

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

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides.

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For years, utilities have asked E Source how to design multilingual communications for their customers. Issues have ranged from delivering Spanish communications to moving to a total-market communications approach. E Source has market research data on which languages customers speak, but hearing firsthand from utilities that have large percentages of customers whose first or native language is not English can be more informative. In this exchange, you’ll hear from utilities about their approach to communicating important information to a multilingual audience.

Potential topics include:

• Overall strategic approaches to multilingual communications
• Key elements of executing a multilingual communications strategy
• The process for ensuring multilingual communications reach the right customers for the most important communications needs, like safety and outages
• Market research on languages customers speak across the US and Canada

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:

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

Questions about this event? Email us.

NOTE: This event has already taken place. See below for recording, event description, and link to download the presentation slides. We also published a report that summarizes the technologies we discussed in this web conference—Tech Roundup Fall 2020: The report.

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Read the report

What are today’s most promising emerging technologies and trends? Join us for Tech Roundup to find out.

The E Source Tech Roundup keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the world of efficiency, load management, and decarbonization technologies. In this interactive, rapid-fire web conference, we’ll discuss the technologies and trends our tech researchers have followed over the past six months that offer the most potential for utility pilots and programs. This is a must-attend web conference!

Topics:

• Increased ventilation or better filtration in response to COVID-19
• Building management system 75F—an update
• Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) initiatives
• Distributed energy management systems (DERMS)
• Air-scrubbing technology for HVAC—an update
• Smart thermostat optimization algorithms
• Plasma lighting for indoor agriculture
• Smart home opportunities for multifamily buildings
• The latest on the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerant phasedown
• Virtual energy audit performance—an update
• Load control devices for frequency and voltage changes

Speakers:

Luke Beckett, Product Strategist, Portfolio and New Product Strategy, E Source

Miles Hayes, Lead Analyst I, Customer Energy Solutions, E Source

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

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

Jay Stein, Board Member, Senior Fellow Emeritus, E Source

Clare Valentine, Senior Analyst I, Customer Energy Solution, E Source

Questions about this event? Email us.