Customer Engagement

Electrifying Your Customer

Customer Connection: Five steps to better relations with your most important client.

Utility customers are hungry for more information and to interact with their providers. But, first, utilities need to know what problems their customers want to solve.
Byline: 

Jenny Roehm

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Architecting the Future

Consumers now are setting the agenda.

Accenture lays out the map for navigating the utility landscape, where customer engagement is the name of the game, and digital makes the rules.
Byline: 

Tim Porter, Naomi Manley-Casimir, and Aaron Saint

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Start the Conversation

The regulator’s role in a world divided by distributed generation.

A state utility commissioner urges her colleagues to begin planning now for distributed generation – before it’s too late.
Byline: 

Hon. Sherina E. Maye

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Unwinding the Death Spiral

Rooftop solar, net metering, and the perils of utilityspeak.

The Sierra Club accuses utilities of trying to snuff out rooftop solar. Attorney Donald Sipe recommends RTO/ISO markets for natural gas.
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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The End of an Age

Survival in the new market requires embracing new technologies and practices.

New technologies are opening the utility domain to innovation and competition. Traditional utilities will shrink as outsourcing providers and competitors grow. Survival in this new market requires embracing new technologies and practices.
Byline: 

Charles E. Bayless

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Social Intelligence

Harnessing the true power of social media.

Customers expect their utilities to communicate as well as other service providers. This shouldn’t be considered a burden, but an opportunity.
Byline: 

John Kunasek and Rilck Noel

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Customer First

Is the current regulatory compact in anyone’s best interests?

Serving customers’ needs should be a top priority for power companies, irrespective of the regulatory construct and business model. Transformation doesn’t change this basic fact, but how do we break the model without breaking the system?
Byline: 

Charles Dickerson, Darren Brady, and Jamie Wimberly

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Results-Based Regulation

A more dynamic approach to grid modernization.

The utility’s role is changing, and regulation must change along with it – to spur innovation and respond to evolving customer needs. Modernizing the industry will require a dynamic approach.
Byline: 

David Malkin and Paul A. Centolella

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Reinventing the Grid

How to find a future that works.

The traditional central-station grid is evolving toward a more distributed architecture, accommodating a variety of resources spread out across the network. An open and thoughtful planning approach will allow an orderly transition to an integrated system – while fostering innovation among a wider range of industry players.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

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Don't Get Netflixed

The tide is turning. Are we planning for it – or hoping to stop it?

The central station system is the most cost-effective way to provide utility service, but that's beside the point. Customers don't care about 'utility service.'
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr, Editor-in-Chief

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