Can a disruptive technology change the electric customer experience?
Thomas Brunetto is managing partner at Distributed Energy Financial Group (DEFG) and co-founder of the Demand and Energy Technology Research Consortium.
North American energy utilities are investing billions to create a smart grid to enhance service for retail electric customers. The smart grid, a disruptive technology, will provide utilities and customers with access to information about how electricity is used that they’ve never had in the past. More importantly this information can empower customers to take ownership of their consumption profile and demand different products and services.
Access to the information collected from the smart grid will be a game changer for utilities. The utilities that master information about their markets and customers will gain insight into new product designs and pricing approaches. This insight, coupled with new systems, can foster a dialogue between a utility and its customers about how they use energy and change the customer experience.
As utilities venture into this information-rich environment, they’re asking: What information to collect? What analytics are required to extract intelligence from the data? How will it transform the customer experience?