AMI Playbook:
Getting the most from your
smart grid investment
2009 was the year of the “smart grid revolution” — until it wasn’t. Even with $3.9 billion of stimulus funds poured into grid improvement projects like meter installations and thermostat giveaways, utilities were soon left asking: what happened to the smart grid?
Today, leading utilities know they can’t capture the value of their AMI investment through installations alone. Instead, they must connect those devices to the grid and the people who use it — through hardware and software.
Playbook timeline
Build customer benefits into the business case
To date, investment planning for smart meter rollouts has been focused on operational benefits, like better meter-to-bill processing and outage detection. That’s important — but so are customer benefits. By fully integrating them into your AMI investment plan, you can meet regulatory requirements, realize the investment business case, unlock new value streams, and raise customer satisfaction.
Build customer benefits into the business case
BGE Case Study
Goal: Earn ROI by helping customers save energy during peak hours
Action: By turning AMI data into personalized peak day notifications, BGE reliably motivates customers to use less power and cut peak demand. Households save a bundle on their bills — and see smart meter benefits firsthand.
Result: Customers love the program. Three years in, they’re saving $6 per event on average. BGE is achieving 80% participation and 17% peak savings — a big payoff on their AMI investment.
CHECKLIST QUESTIONS
How will your customers benefit from smart meters?
What components of your business case depend on customer action? How will you make sure customers take those actions?
Get customer buy-in with early education
There are just a handful of moments a year when customers are ready to interact with their utilities. An AMI installation is one of them. Seize the opportunity to show households the benefits of their smart meters and welcome them onto digital channels. Early education means happy customers who appreciate the smart grid and enroll in AMI-enabled programs.
Get customer buy-in with early education
ConEd Case Study
Goal: As part of REV, show customers how AMI gives them more energy choices and advances a clean energy future.
Action: ConEd is launching a cross-channel customer education campaign more than a year before its AMI rollout. It begins by familiarizing New Yorkers with the benefits of REV: clean, affordable, resilient power. Later on, advanced segmentation and targeting will help each customer enroll in a personalized set of programs, and connect to AMI-enabled products like Nest thermostats and SunPower solar systems.
Result: ConEd expects the robust education to result in energy savvy customers who actively manage their energy use with better information (more granular AMI data) and new products, services and technologies.
CHECKLIST QUESTIONS
Will your customers understand how they personally benefit from smart meters?
Which channels will you use for AMI education? Will you reach every customer?
Can you personalize your outreach using segmentation and targeting?
Innovate faster with cloud-based data management
Legacy IT systems weren’t built to handle the amount of data smart meters create. So utilities are increasingly turning to the cloud — as banks, telecoms, and other companies have already done. Nearly 90% of utility executives plan to transition to cloud-based meter data management in the next three years, citing simpler IT management, more flexibility, and quicker innovation.
Innovate faster with cloud-based data management
Use cases
- Smart meter pilots are a low-cost, low-risk opportunity to test a next generation meter solution. When it’s time to move beyond the pilot, cloud-based meter data management can scale easily to a territory-wide deployment.
- Try a cloud solution for temporary needs, like work management and scheduling for an AMI rollout. For example, DataRaker’s pre-built algorithms make it easy to monitor progress, meter health, and data quality during your deployment. Once the project’s complete and you don’t need the data infrastructure, just turn it off.
CHECKLIST QUESTIONS
What could your IT team achieve if they didn’t spend 90% of their time maintaining legacy systems?
Have you explored cloud options for the important software components of your meter rollout?
- Meter data solution: event processing, head-end integration, meter data management, data storage
- Automated smart device tracking
- Analytics: to monitor progress, meter health, and data quality during and after rollout
- Customer engagement platform designed to share AMI data
Use AMI data for targeted marketing
AMI data offers unprecedented visibility into the way people use energy, but it takes powerful analytics to understand it. At Opower, we’ve developed proprietary machine learning algorithms that can identify distinct, recurring energy usage patterns — what we call “load curve archetypes.” And for the first time, our clients can segment and target households not only by who they are, but by the unique ways they use energy.
Use AMI data for targeted marketing
ComEd Case Study
Goal: Target residential demand response programs to the right customers
Action: ComEd identified five clear load curve archetypes in its service territory, and recognized some were better suited to DR than others. Customers whose daily energy use peaked after dark — “night owls” — weren’t strong candidates. But “late afternoon peakers” were perfect. So ComEd sent them targeted offers for smart thermostat and peak-time rebate programs.
Result: By communicating only with the customers who are most likely to benefit from and enroll in a DR program, ComEd simultaneously lowers its marketing costs and expects to see higher participation rates. Not only that: customers are getting a better experience because they’re seeing promotions that speak directly to their needs.
CHECKLIST QUESTIONS
How could better behavioral data enhance your existing programs?
Beyond forecasting demand, what plans do you have for AMI data analysis?
Design rates that balance grid and customer needs
With AMI data, you can implement new rate structures that encourage customers to use energy when it’s plentiful and save energy when it’s scarce. It’s a critical capability, particularly as distributed energy resources put new strain on the power grid. But dynamic rates aren’t just a tool to balance supply and demand — they’re also a chance to raise customer satisfaction.
Design rates that balance grid and customer needs
SMUD Case Study
Goal: Use dynamic pricing to reduce peak demand and raise customer satisfaction
Action: SMUD tested how different dynamic pricing plans — including time-of-use structures and critical peak pricing — impact peak load shaving, overall energy savings, and customer satisfaction. It also ran a robust customer education campaign, using everything from direct mail to YouTube videos to teach customers how the rates work and why they’re important.
Result: SMUD cut peak demand on hot summer days by as much as 25%. More than 95% of its customers were satisfied with their new rates — an enormous success that SMUD attributes to smart marketing and education. SMUD now plans to move all customers to time-of-use rates in 2018.
CHECKLIST QUESTIONS
How are distributed energy resources affecting demand in your territory?
How do you plan to educate customers about new rate structures? Will that education differ for “winners” and “losers” on new rates?
How will you help your customers succeed on their new rate plans?
Create a better experience with the new information smart meters deliver about your customers
Roughly half of all consumers say the utility digital experience doesn’t measure up to other web services. That reduces satisfaction, and it keeps customers on high-cost channels, like phone and paper. AMI data can dramatically elevate your digital experience — surfacing the kind of personalized, meaningful insights that increase customer satisfaction and self-service.
Create a better experience with the new information smart meters deliver about your customers
Mercury Case Study
Goal: Use smart meter data to differentiate the customer experience
Action: In New Zealand, about 1 in 5 customers will switch energy providers over the course of a year. Mercury wanted to set itself apart from the competition — so it launched the Good Energy Monitor (GEM) program, a set of personalized communications and digital self-service tools. Along with personalized efficiency tips, GEM uses AMI data to proactively warn customers when they’re on track for high energy bills.
Result: “We’re delighted,” says Mercury’s Ben Harvey-Lovell. Frequent users of GEM are 6% more likely to be satisfied with Mercury. Further, as people turn to GEM to answer common questions, high bill call volume has decreased.
CHECKLIST QUESTIONS
What services are your customers asking for?
Have you done customer journey mapping to find pain points for your customers?
Are you confident in your customer engagement capabilities?