E Source Blog
Welcome to the E Source Blog! Our staff will share insights and observations about life at E Source, our events, our research, and other fun stuff.
E Source recognizes the benefits the smart home can bring to both utilities and their customers, and since 2014 we’ve published more than a dozen reports, spoken at major industry events, and provided members with strategic recommendations about how best to approach the smart home space. But in contrast to our own research and analysis, we’ve noticed a spike in reports that make recommendations based on hunches rather than data.
Smart home technology can yield benefits for utilities of all sizes, and E Source has information to help you understand your options and meet your goals. Learn more about our new Smart Home Resource Center!
The California Emerging Technologies Summit is a technology-focused conference that brings together utilities and industry experts to talk about where energy technology is headed. Happening once every two years, the summit helps utilities decide where they should focus their demand-side management (DSM) efforts going forward. Didn’t get a chance to attend? Never fear! E Sourcers Bryan Jungers, Essie Snell, and Andrea Salazar are here to fill you in. Here are our top takeaways.
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We’ve seen a few companies flub their apologies recently, so we wondered: What’s the best way to say “I’m sorry” to your customers? Keep it short and sweet? Reveal all the details in a formal statement? There’s definitely a right way to mend fences with your customers, win back their trust, and turn them into brand loyalists. Read on to learn what makes an apology effective.
Rising goals, rising baselines, rising customer expectations … what’s a demand-side management program manager to do? We dove into leading states’ preapproval filings and discovered some key themes about working with your new business partner: your customer. Get a sample of leading customer-focused practices and learn about Customer-Side Management™ in our blog!
The Trump administration signed an executive order indicating that it plans to actively work to undo a number of Obama-era initiatives intended to mitigate man-made climate change. This development is a major setback in addressing the urgent challenges that climate change presents. But it’s heartening that utilities are playing—and will continue to play—a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by promoting energy efficiency and setting the stage for increased renewable energy production by adding resilience to the grid through load shifting and demand response.
An amateur chef on YouTube treats water as though it’s free, but what does it actually cost? People in the energy industry have trouble justifying measures that would address the water-energy nexus because water is so cheap in our society. This blog examines the energy costs that are associated with water consumption and often overlooked and underestimated.
After years of effort and investment, many utilities are launching new websites that do double duty as information hubs and powerful marketing and brand communications platforms. These overhauls have a similar look and feel: more white space, a simpler visual impact, and an emphasis on customer programs and services. It’s no longer about presenting everything all at once; it’s about having the necessary insights to lead with the best information in an elegant, simple way.
For the last few years, utilities have been creating programs that offer discounts or other incentives for smart thermostats. Anyone who changes their thermostat setting, whether it’s for heating in the winter or cooling in the summer, can take advantage of these programs. In fact, customers can save additional money by participating in a summer demand-response program that eases pressure on the electric grid. Through this program, utilities can change a customer’s Wi-Fi-connected smart thermostat settings to an agreed-upon temperature during “peak” energy times. That means fewer brownouts and blackouts on those extra-hot days when everyone wants to keep their homes at freezer temperature—and cost savings for customers.
We’ve been watching the evolution of microgrids for a few years now, but every time they appeared ready to gain some ground in the market, development got bogged down and progress stalled. So I was intrigued to read a February 2017 article in Microgrid Knowledge on APS’s bullish new microgrid deployments. APS moved to install two microgrids without securing preapproval from state regulators.