By Kara Rodgers Marshall
In our last column, my colleague Brian Greenfield described how enhanced incentives can promote all-electric equipment in new residential buildings. New home electrification is vitally important, but existing homes and commercial buildings are an even bigger electrification opportunity and require a different approach to utility data. Utility customer information systems have historically focused on the meter-to-cash transaction. These systems yield very powerful and granular information that lets utilities know who their customers are, where they are, and how much electricity, gas, or water those customer use. Taking leadership in the just energy transition will require utilities to make better use of this data to understand the customers behind the meters.
Defining a customer
First, utilities need to understand what kinds of homes and businesses customers occupy. This starts with creating a definition of “customer” that better reflects reality. The billing relationship has been the core point of interface with the customer, and utilities often treat “billing account” and “customer” as synonymous. While sufficient for measuring commodity sales, a billing account on its own gives little insight into how a customer uses energy. By aggregating these billing accounts into a customer entity, whether a household or a business, utilities can begin to understand the customer behind the meter.
Meters can also be aggregated into buildings, such as a single-family home with both gas and electric service or a multi-tenanted apartment or commercial building. We can then understand which customers and buildings have participated in programs, segment homes and businesses, and incorporate third party demographic and business information.
For example, a university campus may have hundreds of billing relationships with a utility, but aggregating accounts into a customer with multiple buildings allows the utility and the university to work together to plan high impact projects and achieve deep energy savings across an entire campus. Another example would be a chain retailer where aggregation allows a utility to understand in which stores a retailer has already upgraded lighting, HVAC, or refrigeration, and which ones it has not. A “Main Streets” approach allows a utility to identify all of the small business in a tight geographic area and provide turn-key energy efficiency services all at once. Building aggregation allows the utility to better promote targeted services to residential customers living in single family homes, two to four unit housing, or large multi-family complexes, while providing relevant services to both homeowners and renters.
From energy efficiency to energy transition
Utilities have successfully delivered energy efficiency programs for decades but are being asked to build on past success by guiding customers through a just energy transition. For example, the Massachusetts Joint State Wide Electric and Gas Three-Year Energy Efficiency Plan 2022-2024 has set targets for energy savings, electrification of heating, and equity. Delivering on these targets will require the Massachusetts Program Administrators to better understand where customers are located along grid infrastructure. Customer databases with extensive segmentation and precise geolocation enable utilities to understand which customers live and work in grid-constrained areas, allowing them to more precisely target non-wires alternatives to building new electrical grid infrastructure. Another application could be designing networked geothermal systems that leverage existing gas infrastructure to electrify heating.
Understanding exactly which homes and businesses are along existing rights of way will enable gas utilities to find areas with balanced heating and cooling load.
Well organized data also enables utilities to deliver on Equity commitments. Understanding which customers are in federally defined Environmental Justice Communities allows utilities to better serve them. Adding information about credit status enables utilities to better promote relevant energy efficiency services to customers in default, and understanding the demographics and languages present in the community allows the utility to serve it in culturally sensitive ways. Leading utilities have provided targeted “Main Streets” programs to communities where English is a second language and achieved outstanding results by speaking to customers in their own language.
Organizing customer data for customer segmentation will require investment, but it will enable utilities to better understand and engage our customers. This becomes more than just a nice-to-have as regulators ask utilities to lead in the hard work of decarbonization. In the next article in this series on decarbonization, my colleague Paul Tangredi will speak more about energy storage and its role in decarbonization.
About the author
Kara Rodgers Marshall is Manager, Business Intelligence on the Energy Efficiency team at Eversource Energy, the largest energy delivery company in New England. She helps her colleagues understand who Eversource customers are, what kinds of home and businesses they have, and how they can be best served with energy efficiency, demand response, and decarbonation services.