AESP
Jim Heffron is Senior Director of Operations for Franklin Energy.
In late January, AESP held its 31st annual conference, Charging Forward in 2021.
Starting in 2010, utilities in Northern Illinois joined forces to provide customers with a residential direct install offering that saves electricity and natural gas in a single customer interaction. This partnership among ComEd, Nicor Gas, Peoples Gas, and North Shore Gas has grown into a unique and significant collection of joint residential offerings. This panel, excerpted here, discussed development and growth of this partnership along with benefits for customers and utilities.
Moderator and Senior Director of Operations, Franklin Energy, Jim Heffron: A partnership ten years in the making, this group has a track record of constantly evolving their programs to better serve customers. We talk about a secret ingredient that isn't often found across the industry, joining forces with multiple utilities to deliver joint programs.
What started as a few pilots have grown into full-fledged programs with substantial budgets and impacting thousands of customers on a regular basis. Each utility is quite different. It's an important starting point to understanding what factors need to be considered if your utility is considered a joint partnership.