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The first episode of Bidgely’s 2022 Engage+ video series took us to Seattle, Washington to sit down with the team at Seattle City Light and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to learn more about how City Light is driving transportation electrification innovation.

We had the chance to speak with Energy Innovation and Resources Officer Emeka Anyanwu, Director of Electrification and Strategic Technology David Logsdon, Senior Manager of Grid Modernization Uzma Siddiqi, Transportation Electrification Portfolio Manager Angela Song to explore City Light’s approach, as well as talk with EPRI Program Manager Jamie Dunckley about the comprehensive electrification assessment conducted by EPRI that is informing much of their approach.

Watch the full Seattle City Light + EPRI episode on demand.

Anyanwu kicked off the conversation by describing the unique Seattle environment that allows his team to think boldly when it comes to serving their community.

“The environment here is welcoming of really forward and aspirational thinking around both environmental justice and racial and social justice,” he explained. “We can do and say things and, and aspire to achieve things in Seattle that would be much more difficult in other parts of the country. It gives our team a sense of purpose, and it dares us to think more ambitiously about how to best serve our communities, improve equity and meet the climate crisis.”

It didn’t take long to see exactly how the bold, community-oriented mindset he described is inspiring CIty Light’s electrification initiatives – first and foremost with the utility’s prioritization of transit electrification over personal EV programs.

“I think what you see in lots of places is that cars are the form of electric mobility that gets the most attention,” Anyanwu said. “There’s a lot of discussion around vehicle charging, and charging access. And those things are certainly important to the electric transportation transition. But we were in a position to choose to prioritize communities that have historically been underserved and underrepresented in these conversations and to make their priorities, not just first, but primary to what we were trying to do. It’s part of our belief that we have a duty to re-envision an energy system that elevates and uplifts communities throughout the Greater Seattle region, but especially those communities that have been historically left out of important conversations and decisions around our energy system. We were able to make a strategic choice that might meet with more resistance in other scenarios. But here in Seattle, we received a lot of support from our policymakers and from our communities for making that choice.”

We were in a position to choose to prioritize communities that have historically been underserved and underrepresented...

“It’s very tempting as a utility to approach something like transportation, electrification by hiring a consultant, coming up with a game plan, and then hosting some town halls to say, ‘this is what we’re doing, and aren’t you excited to benefit from it,’” agreed Logsdon. “We wanted to turn that around, and do our outreach from the earliest stages so that the community had a chance to actually give meaningful input to our plan before the plan was fully baked. We wanted to listen and implement what we heard from the community.”

Logsdon said City Light’s outreach included talking with what he called ‘the usual suspects,’ including car manufacturers and electrification supply companies, but that the majority of their outreach focused on Seattle’s environmental justice communities and the stakeholders who represent the residents who live and work in those neighborhoods. This public outreach informed the utility’s Transportation Electrification Strategic Investment Plan (TESIP) which prioritized public transit, expanding access, and greening the fleets that operate through environmental justice corridors. 

We saw first hand how transit electrification is proceeding at an accelerated pace, thanks in part to City Light’s partnerships with King County Metro, the Washington State Ferry System and more. 

“King County Metro and the Washington State Ferry system are working to switch to battery electric, and that can pose huge loads on the grid,” explained Logston. “King County Metro is electrifying all of their buses by 2035. The waterfront is similar. We’ve got 140 megawatts of load growth on the waterfront. That’s why we’re partnering with them early on to understand how we’re going to charge those buses and ships and are developing innovative plans. We’re looking at peak shifting and battery storage. We’re doing studies about the potential for a network of microgrids for grid resilience. We’re looking at green hydrogen as a potential way to decarbonize maritime onshore. So there’s a lot of different strategies that are emerging. And especially for those load clusters, we really need to look at all of the options, test them, and scale up what works.”  

“Over the last year or two, we’ve established a partnership with Washington State Ferries as they see electrification as part of their solution to decarbonize their diesel fuel use,” added Siddiqui. “It’s a large load, and our grid wasn’t designed for that large load. So we are preparing to make changes. We’d like to figure out whether there are different approaches to take. Do we always just do the thing that we’ve been doing for the last 5, 10 or 20 years? For example, one of the ideas we’re exploring is to install a large battery that would make it possible to charge two boats simultaneously – one from the grid, and one from the battery. So about eight times during the day, two boats will come onto the system. That’s a great way of using the system that we have as efficiently as we can.”

“We’re also engaging with all the fleet operators to understand where they will be charging, so that we can plan for that on the grid – because these are big loads,” Logsdon emphasized. “We need to plan for that, starting now. And one of the big fleet operators that we’ve got our eye on is the trucking out of the ports. There are 3,000 trucks that operate out of the Port of Seattle, so we’re trying to figure out how to best start some pilots to understand where we can be effective. And we hear things like, ’you need to add amenities.’ And so we’re looking at how to build hubs that offer what operators are looking for. We know one of the most important things with electrification is that the early experiences are positive.” 

Though transit and fleets are the top priorities, City Light is tackling personal EV needs as well. But here too, they are looking at their customers’ needs differently than many other markets. The majority of City Light’s residential customers live in multi-unit dwellings while a minority of their customers have access to a single family garage.

“Another of our areas of focus are multifamily properties and other residential locations without driveways,” explained Song. “That’s our first focus for building electrification, because it’s the toughest to electrify. These buildings were built long ago, so the panel infrastructure behind vehicle charging needs to be looked at and upgraded. It’s hard to electrify.”

When it comes to public charging stations, Song said they are in a pilot phase.  

“We’re aiming to install 21 by the end of Q3 2022,” she said. “As with our other transportation electrification plans, our public charging program has been built on a lot of community outreach. We can always lean on the community to tell us where they want our investments. We take their feedback and look at the map and assess where the capacity is.”

In addition to community input, every member of the City Light team pointed to the electrification baseline assessment, which was conducted on their behalf by the EPRI, as a crucial element of their future ready grid planning process. 

EPRI’s Jamie Dunkley explained that the assessment laid out several electrification scenarios ranging from ‘business as usual’ to ‘100% electrified’ and examined what it would take to meet each of them – including what transportation and buildings would need in terms of energy and power and what capacity is available on the grid side. 

There is a lot of available capacity on Seattle's grid...the bigger challenge is figuring out when and where it's available....

“What was great to see is that there is a lot of available capacity on Seattle’s grid. So they can handle 100% electrification,” said Dunkley. “The bigger challenge is figuring out when and where it’s available. There might be areas where capacity is a little bit more limited. And then areas that might have more capacity. So it’s important to think through what kind of electrification would happen in potentially limited areas, and different management strategies that can be used to make electrification work in those spots without putting in a lot of investment into the grid.”

When it comes to takeaways for  other utilities that are in similar situations, Dunkley suggested examining ‘what would it take’ is a really useful exercise. 

“Thinking about how much energy is needed, and how much capacity they have, and looking at where there might be a disconnect is useful for any utility when promoting electrification and decarbonization. That baseline empowers you to figure out the strategies to help you get there,” she said.

Siddiqui agreed, “Our assessmentI has been wonderful to help establish the baseline that then helps us to look at what challenges lie ahead. It’s really hard to solve a problem that you haven’t defined. Now we know – what does the load look like? What does transportation electrification load look like? What does building electrification load look like? And we can layer on solutions on top of those insights, and that’s really how we’re going to solve the challenge of this new grid.”

“A new era is emerging with utilities,” concluded Logsdon. “We are keeping the focus on reliability, affordability, safety that has always been there. But it requires new investments to maintain reliability because we’ve got the load growth coming from electrification. We need to start investing in new ways to prepare for that new resource. And resilience is a key aspect. We’re expanding the services we provide to our cities. If there’s an outage, we have to ensure there is some way for people to fuel their cars and keep the ferries and buses operating. And that’s a big ask for electric grid modernization. If we’re going to maintain reliability and resilience, it’s crucial we bring new resources to the mix.”

I think Anyanwu got it right. What Seattle City Light is doing with electrification does in fact represent some of the industry’s boldest thinking. If you’d like to hear more from the City Light and EPRI teams about the innovations underway in Seattle, watch the full Engage+ episode on demand and sign up now to receive updates about future episodes, including episode 2 in June when we will travel to Texas to talk with CenterPoint Energy about grid resilience.

More than a simple optimization exercise, rate design requires a complex balancing act to cover the costs to reliably provide service, charge a fair and transparent amount to all customers, and not overburdening any specific customer.

When analytics are applied to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) data, the resulting intelligence serves as an essential input to rate design calculations, delivering more effective rate structures that better satisfy utility objectives.

New Hampshire Electric Cooperative’s (NHEC)’s experience developing AMI analytics-based rate design provides an example of the power and potential of this approach.

Incentives vs. Rewards

While many utility rates are designed to encourage customers to modify their behavior by shifting energy use to lower cost hours (i.e. time of use rates), NHEC approached Bidgely with a different objective. NHEC sought to offer existing segments of its member base (NHEC’s customers are ‘members’ of the cooperative) lower overall rates because their current time of use consumption was less expensive to serve. In other words, NHEC sought to proactively reward members who demonstrated positive power use behaviors rather than incent those who demonstrated negative behaviors to use energy differently. 

Unsupervised Learning

To achieve NHEC’s objective, Bidgely employed an innovative data science technique known as unsupervised learning. 

Starting with our patented AI-powered load disaggregation solution to itemize 100 percent of residential member loads, Bidgely was able to provide NHEC with visibility into member’s usage patterns at both whole-home and appliance levels. This advanced data science enabled NHEC to explore opportunities to design rates that better aligned with member usage patterns.

WHITEPAPER: Empowering Utilities With True, Behind-the-Meter Disaggregation

Bidgely’s Analytics Workbench business intelligence platform analyzes AMI meter data and supplemental utility-contributed member data to generate up-to-date analyses of major appliance ownership, usage in kWh (including time of use) and additional attributes such as major appliance power draw in kW. 

Using Analytics Workbench, Bidgely expanded upon disaggregation to deploy unsupervised learning algorithms to identify clusters of members who fell into patterns of electricity use by annual consumption, seasonal consumption, and even daily consumption.

For example, the advanced data science identified members who had high summer loads or high winter loads. It also identified members who fell into certain daily patterns, such as early birds, afternoon peakers and night owls. 

In total, the unsupervised learning clustering analysis identified 14 unique lifestyle-specific clusters among NHEC’s membership. 

Cost to Serve

We then worked with NHEC to ingest their cost-to-serve data into the platform, which included cost-per-hour data for the course of an entire year.  With this data, Analytics Workbench was able to determine the cost to serve each member cluster at a specific time.

Next, NHEC looked at whether they could offer one or more of the low-cost-to-serve member clusters a discount on their rate without unfairly affecting the remainder of their service population. Bidgely’s analysis revealed that NHEC could offer four member clusters a lower rate without adversely impacting other members. 

Applying NHEC’s Learnings in a Regulated Environment 

New Hampshire Electric Cooperative is a cooperative, but there are still lessons to be learned for traditional IOUs. The same principles of rate design can apply as regulated utilities work toward approval of a rate case. 

It’s essential to understand the unique segments that exist within a service population, including their time of use and usage patterns...

First, it’s essential to understand the unique segments that exist within a service population, including their time of use and usage patterns. It is also important to take into consideration the cost to serve each individual customer. No matter the business model, leveraging AMI data empowers utilities to design innovative and modern rate structures. 

Building Customer Relationships

Rate design has always been the foundation of the relationship between utility and customer. However, before AMI data became available, the number of rate structures was limited. Now with the benefit of AMI-derived customer intelligence, it is possible to design a wide-range of rate structures to better fit diverse customer segments. As a result, customers are better able to understand the value they receive from their energy provider, and utilities are better able to achieve their business objectives. 

Learn more about NHEC’s advanced analytics-based rate design experience by downloading the full case study, and read more about Analytics Workbench in our solution brief.

I recently had the chance to sit in on a conversation between Chris Warren, contributing writer at Utility Dive’s studioID, and Bidgely’s Director of Innovation, Maria Kretzing about increasing the effectiveness of demand-side management (DSM) program marketing using AMI analytics.

Their discussion centered upon how energy providers are changing the utility-consumer dynamic to increasingly rely on their customers as partners in ensuring a resilient and decarbonized grid.

“It was not that long ago that electric utilities routinely referred to customers as loads or ratepayers,” said Warren. “It’s not that utilities haven’t always cared about their customers. After all, the fundamental mission of utilities has long been to reliably deliver the electricity that homes and businesses needed. But they focused their time and resources keeping the grid working – because when they did, customers were happy.”

But now, as the power system dramatically transforms to become more distributed and support electric technologies like electric vehicles, the significance of energy customer engagement is evolving as well.  More and more customers are feeding electricity back onto the grid and their energy usage patterns are changing.

A large & quickly increasing number of distributed energy resources makes customers a very important part of the grid...

 

For customers to play an integral role in the energy transition requires a deep understanding of how customers use electricity, which technologies they’ve adopted, and the types of utility programs that could benefit them. These granular insights make possible more effective communication, deeper engagement, greater customer satisfaction, and ultimately, a true partnership relationship. 

Tapping the Power of AMI Data 

Approximately 75 percent of US homes now have a smart meter. In the past, when a utility read a customer meter once a month, there wasn’t a great deal of insight available about how a household used electricity or what appliances they had installed. But the level of insight into customers that’s available now is enormous. Instead of monthly reads, smart meters provide data about customer electricity usage every 15, 30, or 60 minutes. 

“Smart meters can provide utilities with the granular information they need to understand customer electricity usage,” said Warren. “If that information is analyzed and understood, utilities can proactively communicate with customers to give an incentive to become partners in creating a grid that is decarbonized and reliable.”

comparison-LegacyVendors

VIDEO: The 15 Minute Guide to Disaggregation

“Let’s think about what these trends mean for utilities. At one level, a large and quickly increasing number of distributed energy resources makes customers a very important part of the grid. For instance, the time of day that EV owners charge their vehicles can have a significant impact on a utility’s ability to meet peak demand,” said Warren. 

“For utilities interested in a more personalized approach to communicating with their customers, this data is invaluable. It’s an opportunity for utilities to understand their customers and how they use electricity in a way that has never been possible before,” added Kretzing. “But in most cases, utilities haven’t changed their engagement models to take full advantage of the customer insights available.”

A large part of the disconnect between the now-available data and data-informed customer engagement is that useful insights don’t flow automatically out of the smart meter. The raw data has to be analyzed and understood before energy marketing teams can use it effectively.

That’s where Bidgely’s patented data science comes in – applying AI-powered algorithms to smart meter data for all customers to produce an accurate and continuously updated appliance-level view of how every household consumes electricity. 

“We’ve developed a solution called Analytics Workbench that can help a utility understand when a house is running its HVAC system, pool pump, or washer or dryer,” explained Kretzing. “Our AI-powered analytics can also identify which homes have an EV and when they charge it, and the impact of solar generation at a household level. For instance, someone may be running their air conditioning unit while their solar is more or less offsetting that load. We can see that in AMI data, and with Analytics Workbench, utilities can easily discover those insights as well.”

She went on to emphasize that “all of this household and appliance-level information can be gathered without having to ask a homeowner a single question. It can be deployed quickly and at scale. And it can be used to both better serve customers and achieve utility objectives around customer engagement.” 

Making DSM Program Marketing Outreach More Targeted, Personalized and Effective 

“One of the big challenges marketers have faced is that they have had to craft and deliver messages to a broad cross-section of customers. Some of those customers may be keenly interested in the program or incentive you can provide, while it may not deliver any value at all to others,” explained Kretzing. “For example, an EV charging rate or an incentive for a Level 2 charger is of little use to someone who doesn’t have an EV. AMI data and analytics allow utilities to move away from using a single message for all customers to specifically targeting only those customers who will get the most value out of a given offer and program.”

PLAYBOOK: An Energy Marketer's Playbook for Decarbonizing the Grid

With AMI data and analytics, it’s possible to quickly segment customers to identify those who are best suited for a special rate or offer. For example, it can be helpful for utilities to identify customers who use the most air conditioning at times of peak demand in order to prioritize them for enrollment in a demand response program.

“It’s not just about targeting the right customers,” Kretzing emphasized “Marketers can also take advantage of the customer data they collect to personalize their communications to make them more effective and engaging. For example, a utility could educate a customer about exactly how much energy their household is using during times of peak demand and quantify how much it is costing them. Then they could point out what a customer would save if they enrolled in demand response.”

Warren and Kretzing went on to talk about the urgency of putting AMI-informed segmentation and personalization to work in response to the increasing adoption of EVs.  

“Once you have used AMI analytics to identify who your EV owners are, you can do a little more digging to understand their behavior better,” said Kretzing. “As we know, EV charging represents a big opportunity for utilities to shift their load. What AMI and analytics can reveal is when EV owners are charging their cars, and more specifically, which customers are charging during peak times. Marketers can then craft messages to those specific customers who are charging on-peak to let them know about the time of use or EV-specific rates, and include personalized insights about how much a customer would save by shifting their charging to off-peak times or taking advantage of a time of use rate.”

Enabling DSM Program Marketing Flexibility with Real-Time Data

“Precise targeting and personalized messages are critical to effective marketing, but AMI data and analytics also allow marketers to more or less measure the effectiveness of their initiatives in near real-time,” said Warren. 

“That’s exactly right,” agreed Kretzing. “Think about the limited capacity marketers have to measure the effectiveness of their work today. For the most part, it comes down to the conversion rate — in other words, the number of consumers who actually enroll in the programs and incentives they are marketing. For example, after defining a segment to target for a demand response program, marketers can deliver personalized messages to that group of customers and then use Analytics Workbench to monitor customer behavior on a daily basis. If the enrollment isn’t what a utility hoped for, marketers can do a couple of things. One is they can adjust their communications to the target audience to boost engagement. Or they can select a different target segment to see if those customers are more receptive to the outreach. Utilities can even take advantage of insights about past customer engagement. That can be used to define new segments so that utilities are reaching out to their most engaged customers.” 

This real-time measurement and verification is a powerful tool to layer onto traditional M&V studies, which can be robust but tend to be done only after a campaign is complete. What Bidgely’s Analytics Workbench provides is a tool for marketers to continuously assess the effectiveness of their campaigns and adjust them based on what they are observing, ensuring more successful outcomes.

Interested in Learning More? The entire conversation between Warren and Kretzing is now available as an on-demand webinar. And, read more about how Analytics Workbench empowers DSM program marketing.

Carbon neutrality and related net-zero pledges are not new to utility companies.

Most of them have had corporate strategies to meet climate imperatives in place for a while, and long before COP26. These companies are deeply invested in diversifying their energy sources, embracing energy efficiency, evolving their business models, and fully transitioning. They are leading by example.

At the same time, utilities and energy suppliers play a critical role in the net-zero economy as they are also enablers for their customers’ (commercial, industrial, and residential) own decarbonization targets. Consumers themselves are realizing that the way they use energy is proving to be unsustainable. They are actively seeking to be part of the solution and to be more engaged, which is increasingly possible as everything becomes more interconnected. Digital creates a foundation to empower the customer to become part of the change.

In a recent IDC Energy Insights survey, 41% of European utilities identified sustainability and risk management as one of their top strategic business priorities. Among these utilities, 55% identified energy efficiency as the key initiative they are implementing to execute on their strategic business priorities.

At the same time, European energy suppliers identified product and service innovation as their top strategic priority, with 55% of them identifying energy efficiency and energy as a service for C&I customers as key initiatives.

The common theme is energy efficiency, which remains a cornerstone of reaching carbon neutrality...

The common theme is energy efficiency, which remains a cornerstone of reaching carbon neutrality. According to the IEA, “Net zero by 2050 hinges on a global push to increase energy efficiency.” Optimizing energy consumption entails understanding how energy is consumed, and then taking action. Providing personalized insights is critical for meaningful customer engagement. No one is in a better position to do so than utilities that are already measuring and quantifying energy usage. As an example, 91% of TEPCO customers find Bidgely Home Energy Reports useful or very useful, and 66% have followed UtilityAI-informed rate plan recommendations, reinforcing deeper customer engagement. Considering the challenging market conditions for utilities and energy suppliers, they need to make capital out of AMI data by extracting value through data analysis and insights.

With energy analytics, utilities can have a more targeted approach when it comes to identifying which customers would best respond to time of use tariffs; tied to the detection of electric vehicles, this can unleash significant benefits in terms of flexibility along the entire utility value chain.

Energy analytics can also provide unique information on which customers have a higher propensity to buy specific products. Additional energy disaggregation can also offer customers valuable information about their appliances. This information, tied to an energy marketplace, can become a concrete revenue stream for energy suppliers that have been struggling with cash flow for years. In fact, energy efficiency initiatives are a key tool for energy suppliers to mitigate the impact of rising wholesale energy prices on their bottom lines.

When it comes to net zero, utilities need to charge beyond their own journeys. There are myriad opportunities for utilities to reinvent themselves as energy (efficiency) advisors, creating long-term value for both themselves and their customers.

For more industry insights from IDC, download their latest IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Digital Customer Engagement Solutions for Utilities 2021 Vendor Assessment (IDC # US46149620, June 2021).

About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology media, research, and events company.  

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jason McGrade, Deputy Director of the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) and Lincoln Wood, Electrification Policy Manager at Southern Company, to talk about the unprecedented opportunity transportation electrification presents for energy providers for strategic consumer engagement.

At Bidgely, we often describe the electric vehicle adoption curve as a four-phase journey.

Phase 1: Accelerating Customer Awareness, Education and Adoption is the starting point.

McGrade agreed. 

“Here’s where you can leverage some of the inherent trust that utilities have,” he said. “You’re not selling cars, but instead are there to help answer any questions that consumers might have about the vehicles.”

Filling the Knowledge Gap

“What we’re seeing within our research is there’s a substantial knowledge gap for consumers around electric transportation. Individuals are seeing EVs as they would any other car. And they’re not. It’s a different technology,” he said. “Consumers have a lot of questions – whether they’ve already made the investment in an EV or are considering a purchase in the future.” 

McGrade said the knowledge gap runs the gamut, including questions about how an EV differs from a typical combustion engine, when to change the oil, how many miles to the ‘gallon’ they get and more. But Wood said oftentimes consumers are also wondering about things that you don’t find on any standard FAQ.

“At Southern, we had an EV awareness program a few years ago called ‘Coffee and Cars’ where we rented out a coffee shop and invited customers to visit. In addition to having several models of EVs on display, an EV concierge was on hand to answer any questions they wanted to ask,” Wood explained. “We were down on the coast, and one of the questions that we got was whether salt air impacted EV batteries in the same way that ocean climates sometimes cause vehicles to rust. The answer is no — there is no effect on the battery. But it’s an example that’s always stuck with me about the wide-ranging questions that are on consumers’ minds.”

“We see a ton of opportunities for utilities to fill that knowledge gap,” said McGrade. “Our recent survey on electric vehicles revealed, for example, that individuals don’t necessarily understand the difference between electric vehicle types, such as hybrids, plug-in’s and full battery operated vehicles. The same holds true for charging networks and the types of chargers that exist. Consumers have no idea what exactly each one consists of, or which type fits for their individual use case. This is where energy providers have an opportunity to step in as a trusted source and say, ‘based on your driving pattern, this is the right charger for you.’”

“One concern I hear often is related to what happens during a power outage. ‘I won’t be able to charge my car.’ they say. But what people don’t consider, is that during an outage, the gas pumps won’t work either,” said Wood.

“There is definitely a lot of misguided logic out there,” agreed McGrade. “‘You can’t drive it cross-country’ is another one. Well, you can’t drive a combustion engine cross-country, either. You still have to stop for fuel. There is no 3,000-miles-to-the-gallon commercially available vehicle.” 

Wood and McGrade were also quick to emphasize that the energy providers’ opportunity and obligation to provide education and guidance doesn’t end with the vehicle purchase. In fact there is a great deal of increased support that’s necessary once customers drive home after their purchase.

Make sure that the ownership experience after that initial investment is as easy and as streamlined as possible to encourage overall adoption...

“Energy providers continue to have an opportunity after a customer makes that purchase and rolls off the lot,” said McGrade. “It’s in the utility’s best interest to make sure that the consumer’s ownership experience after that initial investment is as easy and as streamlined as possible to encourage overall adoption going forward. For example, there are conversations to be had about the best rate plans to avoid high bill shock and charging best practices. You don’t want new drivers to end up under duress because their bills are high or their experience is otherwise different from what they were promised. And you don’t want an individual coming home and plugging in and charging in such a way that they cause issues with the whole neighborhood, because that’s going to be a deterrent for future growth.”

Meeting Consumers Where they Are

For energy providers to truly position themselves as trusted EV buying advisors and lean into pre-purchase customer engagement, personalized marketing that aligns with each customer’s needs, motivations and values is essential. 

Bidgely’s patented disaggregation and machine learning technology allows each prospective EV buyer touchpoint to be hyper-personalized based on their own energy use profile and customer persona.

With this approach, mass marketing is replaced by customized, targeted messaging that more effectively alleviates consumer anxieties and fills each customer’s unique knowledge gap. 

Recognizing that every customer has unique decision factors, Bidgely’s EV Solution delivers “personalized nudges” that provide EV information that aligns with their specific interests, such as the number of electric vehicles adopted in their community, an ROI calculator that evaluates what a purchase would mean for them, or social comparisons.

Then, post-purchase, personalized engagement insights continue through EV Journey Phases 2-4: 

  • Phase 2: Analyzing the EVs on the road today and forecasting where EVs will be tomorrow
  • Phase 3: Shifting EV load using behavioral mechanisms
  • Phase 4: Implementing managed charging.

Our EV Solution sets drivers up from the start to manage their EV charging and elevate their ownership experience with regular summaries of their charging activity and cost of ownership; behavioral charging and equipment recommendations; and promotions for relevant programs, incentives and rebates.

At every stage of the EV adoption life cycle, Bidgely empowers energy providers with data-driven and customer-specific energy insights to foster the engagement and collaboration necessary to optimize EV ownership for both drivers and energy businesses and advance transportation electrification at scale.

Be that trusted source who provides knowledge and understanding around these types of technologies...

Accelerating Opportunity

“As you look toward any utility strategy around electrification, and in particular, electric vehicles, the opportunity to educate really has to be pushed,” emphasized McGrade. “You don’t need to be the car salesman. Instead be that trusted source who provides knowledge and understanding around these types of technologies and educates consumers about the process in such a way that provides benefit to all parties. The opportunity to educate has to be built into any strategic plan.” 

“Ultimately, it all comes back to the consumer,” says Wood. “At the end of the day, we need to be focused on the person driving in the vehicle. The interest is there, and we need to supply it.” 

“Beyond just increasing EV adoption, our research shows that EV drivers have a high degree of satisfaction around the purchase – which is likely to lead to more interest in other forms of at-home electrification” says McGrade. “And so from a utility standpoint, there is further opportunity for engagement to help guide consumers to additional electrification opportunities. It’s a whole new gateway into the home and a chance to build on that EV relationship.”

EmPOWERing Progress: EV Preparedness Starts with EV Intelligence

Hear my full conversation with Jason McGrade and Lincoln Wood in our on-demand webinar entitled Driving a Consumer-Centric EV Strategy: Barriers, Unknowns, Risks, and Rewards, and learn more about the four data-driven phases of EV adoption, starting with accelerating customer awareness, education and adoption.

As energy providers pursue decarbonization goals, equity and inclusion are at the center of their strategic plans to ensure that no customer is left behind in clean energy transition.

This vision extends to transportation electrification initiatives – both designing incentives and other programs to help ensure EVs are attainable for everyone as well as prioritizing the deployment of charging infrastructure in traditionally under-served communities. Though equitable outcomes are the primary drivers, ensuring universal access to EV ownership is also integral to growing and accelerating EV adoption across the board. 

Data as a Proxy for Customer Voice 

“We’re working diligently to increase minority participation in our electric vehicle, energy efficiency and solar programs,” says William Ellis, Regional Vice President of External Affairs at Pepco. “Our commitment to our communities is well recognized, but now we are taking it a step further. We’re actively seeking to understand, address and remove the barriers that are preventing some of our customers from participating – whether those barriers are financial, cultural, educational awareness, or even public policy. And we want to ensure that our most vulnerable customers – those who need our programs the most – are able to realize benefits that they’ve been promised so that all of our communities can thrive.”

If energy providers could, they’d have one-on-one conversations with every customer and get to know them — who they are, their values, their preferences, and how they can provide the best possible service. Of course, that’s not realistic, but in many ways, data can serve as a powerful proxy for the customer voice, helping to ensure that the clean energy future is informed, inclusive, trusted, and truly sustainable

Ellis agrees, saying that the foundation for successfully removing barriers to participation is data analytics.

“We’re taking a data-driven approach that we call ‘total marketing’ which looks at demographic, geographic and other participation data to identify the unique needs of all customers as a means to make certain that customers who have historically been underrepresented in our programs are able to take part moving forward.”

Bidgely is partnering with energy businesses worldwide to provide precisely that type of 360° consumer profile for every customer in a service territory to enable meaningful, inclusive EV and other clean energy transition program designs.

Conventional tools such as mass surveys, focus groups and manual utility population data collection take time, are static, lack granularity, don’t update consistently and fail to account for behavioral and lifestyle aspects in their models. 

Bidgely instead builds a much more holistic and accurate 360° profile of every customer by analyzing raw energy consumption AMI data using sophisticated machine learning and statistical solutions to pinpoint essential attributes that describe people’s behavior, lifestyle and other characteristics. These hyper-personalized customer profiles enable more effective and engaging education and program recruitment.

Ellis says personalized messaging is essential to foster trust. “A quote I always come back to is ‘people don’t care what you know, until they know that you care.’ And that’s the same with our marketing. Our customers have to have confidence in what we say and see us as a trusted energy advisor, which stems in large part from making sure every customer is able to see themselves in the marketing that we produce.”

We're taking a data-driven approach that we call ‘total marketing’ to identify the unique needs of all customers...

Data the Building Blocks of a Stronger Infrastructure Foundation

Accessible infrastructure is also an integral part of transportation electrification equity. With that in mind, Pepco is simultaneously pursuing residential and public EV infrastructure solutions. 

“We first started with our residential EV program, which offers rebates to help customers install level two chargers at home to optimize home charging and make it easier for them to charge off peak – which reduces grid build out,” says Ellis. “We also have our multi-dwelling program that aims to reduce barriers for our rental population to purchase EVs and our public EV charging program to encourage overall EV adoption.”

Bidgely’s Analytics Workbench provides utilities with the EV analytics they need to inform both residential and public charging infrastructure planning and programs. This is done by locking down who, what, where and how much of electric vehicles. It’s essential to understand EV driver behaviors and when charging is occurring across the territory as a means to connect the 360° view of the grid with those of all customers to create a holistic grid + customer 360° analytic view. This comprehensive 360° perspective enables better decision-making about grid planning, real time operations, and customer programs that would be advantageous to introduce.

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SOLUTION BRIEF: EV Intelligence

Like Pepco, ConEdison is pursuing a similar holistic and data informed approach to EV infrastructure planning.

“We’re doing a demonstration project with the New York City Department of Transportation and our partner Flow to bring 100 chargers to curbsides all over the five boroughs of New York City to open up new opportunities for EV drivers to park on the street and be able to charge their cars. Once the demonstration is shown to be successful, this is going to be an infrastructure game changer for New York, considering our population,” says Raghusimha Sudhakara, Con Edison’s Director of EV Demonstration Projects. “Another example, given our demographic and where our customers live, is our efforts to increase access to large charging hubs. As part of our Power Ready program, we just completed a new hub in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn that features 25 fast chargers In a repurposed industrial building. This is phenomenal, because it’s bringing charging to underserved communities, including several New York City Housing Authority multi-family buildings and a major hospital. Plus, our data has revealed that many of our rideshare drivers live in that area. Roughly half of all rideshare rides in the city either start or end in the surrounding community, so having a facility like the EV charging hub makes a very big difference in providing options close to home where they can charge their cars. And the fact that it’s open to the public really makes a difference to the whole community around it.”

ConEdison is also implementing incentive programs to encourage installation of both residential and public chargers in underserved neighborhoods. 

“If someone makes a decision to install a charger in a disadvantaged community, we give a higher level of incentive,” saysSudhakara. “ In that way, our programs are designed to drive the market in certain directions to ensure we cover the majority of our territory, and bring the benefits of transportation electrification to everyone without leaving anybody behind.”

Learn More from the Leaders

Hear more about how equity is driving transportation electrification programs and planning at Pepco, Con Edison and other utilities by watching their on-demand sessions from the 2021 Engage Virtual conference, and download our solution briefs to learn more about Analytics Workbench and Bidgely’s EV Solution.

According to the latest December 2021 reports, more than 200,000 drivers have reserved a Ford F-150 Lightning for 2022 delivery. To fulfill the massive demand, Ford has already doubled its production capacity for electric pickup trucks twice. Though some buyers will have to wait until 2023 to receive their vehicles, starting this spring, F-150 Lightnings will begin hitting the road and – more importantly for energy providers – plugging in to charge up at home.

Not far behind, Rivian customers have been told that their cars will start arriving in March, although the majority of the first wave of deliveries are expected in the summer and autumn of 2022. And Chevrolet just unveiled its 2024 Silverado EV in January, which will start rolling off the factory line in 2023. In the first month following Chevrolet’s announcement, more than 110,000 Silverado EVs were reserved.

Not only do these pickups promise ranges of 300-400 miles, Ford and Chevrolet are making bi-directional, vehicle-to-grid power a major part of an “energy independence” marketing message, touting the vehicles’ ability to provide back-up power for the home.

Driver excitement for electric pickups is high and gaining momentum with new market segments and in new parts of the country, signaling the start of a dramatic new era in transportation electrification for energy providers with massive increases in load and an acceleration of the deployment of residential solar+storage. 

Greater Range = Greater Load

It’s been a common energy industry analogy to compare the electric load of a single electric vehicle as equivalent to adding a new home to the grid. With the promised 300-400 mile range for the Lightning, Silverado EV and Rivian, each pickup will be equivalent to three new homes coming online.

Ford is offering several levels of home charging options, including a 32-amp mobile-charging unit that will run on either 120- or 240-volt household AC, a 48-amp wall mount charge station and a bi-directional 80-amp option. The Lightning’s bi-directional charging capabilities are also able to replenish other EVs at Level 2 speeds.

Even at the earliest stages of the EV adoption curve, energy providers realized that an uptick in EV ownership translated into not just increased load, but concentrated load on the grid – both in terms of geo-location and time of use. 

Geographically, EV adoption does not advance at a uniform pace across a service territory. Some regions and communities embrace EVs more quickly than others.  And as the types of electric vehicles continue to diversify, individual locations will reveal different adoption curves by vehicle class. For example, communities with high electric pickup adoption rates will have greater concentrated load than those with high compact electric car adoption.

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SOLUTION BRIEF: EV Intelligence

With time of use, without any intervention, charging behaviors have also been shown to yield concentrated load in the form of two time-related peaks: one in the early evening when drivers return home, and a second at midnight when EVs are often pre-programmed to start charging. 

The increased battery capacity of electric pickup trucks will only exacerbate these grid load concentrations.

As energy efficiency programs have demonstrated for many years, behavior management programs can serve as a powerful load balancing mechanism in conditions like these. The key to maximizing its effectiveness is proactive and personalized customer engagement.

That’s where Bidgely can help. More accurate than motor vehicle registration records and more complete than telematics, Bidgely’s Analytics Workbench provides granular EV analytics for every EV owner in a service territory to enable utilities to engage with drivers as a trusted advisor and help manage EV charging with recommendations and regular summaries of each customer’s charging activity and cost of ownership. This highly targeted, relevant and data-insight-based approach yields greater behavioral management program participation and outcomes.

Bidgely's granular EV analytics are more accurate than motor vehicle registration records and more complete than telematics...

Bidgely’s detection insights also serve as powerful inputs for both real time grid operations and infrastructure planning. Utilities are able to see the total charging consumption and EV load by region, zip code, substation or feeder; the percentage of level 1 vs. level 2 chargers; EV load forecasts; percentage of on vs. off-peak charging; specific geographies with the highest charging; and more. Analytics Workbench visualizes EV loads over time to identify high growth EV pockets and determine where constraints may exist or develop.

The auto industry is moving quickly to broaden their role to include energy advisory and installation services, and utilities need to act now and leverage their uniquely powerful energy insights to avoid being displaced and to solidify the driver-utility collaboration necessary to ensure grid stability.

EVs as a Catalyst for More Storage + Solar

As one of the first electric vehicles to take advantage of bi-directional charging in North America, Ford is marketing the F-150 Lightning not only as a high performance pickup truck, but also as a home energy storage solution. 

For drivers who choose the bi-directional 80-amp charging option, the installation of a “home integration station” (comprised of a power inverter, dark start battery, and transfer switch to enable the bi-directional flow of power in the home) enables the vehicle to provide 9.6 kW of backup power that Ford says alleviates the need for gas generators, Powerwalls or any other legacy backup power solution. The truck’s battery capacity is sufficient to power an average 30 kWh/day home for approximately three days, or to deliver partial power to critical systems or solar homes for up to 10 days. In the future, Ford says the same backup power feature will also be put to use to allow home power to come from the vehicle during peak hours, and initiate charging when energy is less expensive.

As an additional energy independence play, Ford has partnered with residential solar giant Sunrun as its preferred charging equipment installer as well as to offer customers residential rooftop solar packages. Customers interested in combining charging equipment installation with solar power may be eligible to do so for zero dollars down, and will receive reduced installation pricing.

Following Ford’s lead, Chevy is marketing that the Silverado EV will provide 10.2 kilowatts of home back-up power capacity. Specific solar integrations have not yet been announced.

Successfully integrating renewable energy and EV and other battery storage requires an AI-powered strategic approach. As with EVs, Analytics Workbench provides the data-driven foundation that utilities need to manage increases in DER adoption, particularly as electric vehicles take on the role of home energy storage.

With essential energy data inputs ranging from home-by-home daily solar production patterns to aggregate solar production at the substation level, Bidgely empowers energy providers to better forecast the flow of renewable energy onto the grid at the line level to ensure grid stability is maintained.  Bidgely’s analytics can also inform peak load planning and necessary capital upgrades by accurately predicting the impact of solar down to the feeder or transformer level. 

Data Paves the Way

The introduction of the electric pickup truck segment is the next major tipping point in the transportation electrification transition, and utilities need to be prepared for the impact. Managing the triple-impact of greater loads, bi-directional energy flow and increased solar adoption requires a data-driven approach that enables more sophisticated load management and planning and customer engagement. 

To learn more about Bidgely’s EV Solution, download the solution brief.

Battery-powered transportation continues to be relatively new, with many consumers taking a wait-and-see approach to their first electric vehicle purchase. 

Given how much revenue is at stake, and the importance of managing growing EV load to ensure continued grid reliability, it has become a business imperative for energy providers to drive the electric vehicle buyer’s journey, rather than sit back and wait for consumers or other stakeholders to take the wheel.  

As trusted electricity advisors and the providers of the fuel that will drive the future, energy providers are uniquely positioned to remove purchase barriers while also empowering car and truck buyers with information, tools and mutually beneficial initiatives to optimize EV ownership. In doing so, they can facilitate every step of the buying process.

[Download the EV buyers journey infographic.]

Step 1: Awareness 

In J.D. Power’s 2021 Electric Vehicle Consideration Study, one-third of vehicle shoppers reported that “lack of information” about electric vehicles was the primary  reason they wouldn’t consider purchasing one. 

That finding emphasizes how important it is for energy providers to close this education gap and help consumers understand EV’s as a viable and appealing alternative to gas-powered vehicles.

Austin Energy embraces their role as EV educators, advancing adoption in Central Texas with creative awareness campaigns for more than a decade.

“Our EV marketing campaigns have been based on the notion that we aren’t selling a product, we’re selling an idea,” explains Karl Popham, Austin Energy’s Manager of Electric Vehicles & Emerging Technologies. “We looked at the traditional approach. The marketing team brought in some samples, and asked me which one I liked. And I said, ‘none of them.’ They had a lot of fine print and a very transactional design – almost like an energy efficiency light bulb rebate. I knew that wasn’t what we needed. We needed clean, non-utility-looking marketing that engaged our community in a movement.” 

Our EV marketing campaigns have been based on the notion that we aren’t selling a product, we’re selling an idea...

Austin Energy’s EV program continues to break new ground in utility marketing, including their addition of a campaign mascot to the team: StEVie the EV Loving T-Rex.

“We really were searching for an opportunity to break the ice with people, and StEVie has a great way of demystifying the technology and helping EVs become approachable,” adds Austin Energy’s Senior EV Equity Program Lead Amy Atchley.  “StEVie helps bring the narrative forward and facilitate the conversation around EV affordability, accessibility, fewer moving parts and other vehicle advantages. It’s all about helping open the doors for people to get into EVs.” 

Energy providers’ education role also includes correcting misinformation and overcoming hesitation around such things as range anxiety, barriers to home charging, concerns about battery life, questions about whether electric cars are cheaper than gas, confusion about how to get an EV serviced and more. 

Smart meter data enables energy providers to scale awareness programs with an emphasis on those consumers with the highest propensity to buy at any given point on the EV adoption curve. Bidgely’s EV Solution applies patented disaggregation and machine learning technology to residence metadata, appliance-level energy use, lifestyle, neighborhood trends, tax credit availability and more to enable energy providers to target personalized EV education to the highest propensity buyers to optimize marketing and engagement success and ROI.

Step 2: Desire-to-Own

Today, car buyers frequently move from the Awareness to the Desire-to-Own step of the electric vehicle buying journey because they are influenced by advertising, social media, friends and family, or community trends. It’s time for energy providers to get in the mix. As trusted advisors, there are no entities or experts better positioned to serve as EV influencers.

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SOLUTION BRIEF: EV Intelligence

Bidgely’s EV Solution enables energy providers to leverage smart meter data insights to personalize every touchpoint with a prospective EV buyer based on their unique energy use profile. Different drivers are motivated by different things, and getting them excited about electric vehicles requires targeted appeals that tap into each person’s individual motivations. Bidgely calls these communications “personalized nudges” that are designed to pique customers’ interests with the EV benefits that will resonate most on a regular cadence that encourages their purchase and nurtures them throughout their auto buying journey.

Step 3: Research

Studies have shown that electric vehicle buyers conduct wider and deeper research than other auto buyers to determine which EVs are right for them. Today, most drivers rely upon organic search, social media and word of mouth to evaluate brands and technologies. Looking forward, energy providers need to establish themselves as the leading and most trusted resource when it comes to EV research.

As a means to continue to deepen and expand on personalized customer touchpoints initiated during the Awareness and Desire-to-Own steps, Bidgely’s EV Solution equips energy providers with a wide range of consumer research calls-to-action, ranging from low-lift suggestions such as “check out this article to learn which EV is best for you” to higher-lift diligence opportunities such as “use a purchase calculator to evaluate your buying options.” The goal is to synthesize vehicle pricing, available incentives, charging equipment costs and more to help buyers make sense of EV budget inputs and feel confident in their purchase decision. When informed by smart meter analytics, traditional one-size-fits-all buyer’s guides are transformed into more personal, relevant and action-oriented research tools.

“If a customer is trying to learn more about an EV, we wanted to create a space for them to go to find all the information they need. ‘What does electric fuel look like?’ ‘How easy is it to charge in my neighborhood? Or my city?’ ‘How far can I go?’” says Austin Energy EV Program Specialist Bobby Godsey.  “Our vision for our EV buyer’s guide is to improve the customer experience from start to finish. We want to educate them about what car they want to buy and what vehicle would work best for them based on how many miles they drive, how many seats they need, their budget and more. They can pick the color that they want, whether they want leather seats, or two or four doors. Once they narrow it down to the car they like, our buyer’s guide actually shows them live car inventory that is available in Austin. It’s updated three times a day. So now they can narrow down their EV options to the car they want, find that EV on a lot and see the price, and then go to that lot and test drive it.”

The J.D. Power Electric Vehicle Consideration Study found that if consumers have taken a ride in an EV, they’re three times as likely to consider buying one versus someone who hasn’t interacted with an EV. Energy providers can tap into that persuasion reality by facilitating dealership test drives and hosting driving experience opportunities.

Step 4: Shopping

“The auto dealership industry has always been a hurdle, and we’ve been looking at it for years now,” says Godsey. “When our team went out to engage in conversations with the dealerships, we heard some pushback from sales teams who said EVs are hard to sell. We have to recognize that at the end of the day, a salesperson is trying to earn money, and the easiest way to make money is to sell what they know. Right now, the cars they know are gas vehicles.”

With that in mind, Godsey said the Austin Energy team tried to conduct EV classes with dealership sales teams, but sales personnel turnover was high, and they would lose the educational investment with each subsequent round of new hires. So now the utility has diversified its education efforts to include both consumer empowerment and in-dealership resources.

“What I love about our buyer’s guide is that it equips our customers to go to the dealership knowing exactly what they’re looking for and that their specific vehicle is waiting on the lot for them to test drive. And at the same time, from the dealerships perspective, the salesperson sees an Austin Energy customer come in already informed by their buyer’s guide research, which makes the sales process that much easier,” says Godsey. 

“One of the things that we offer to dealerships in our region are Chargeway kiosks. They’re a great tool that, in my opinion, really explains electric fuel in a way that makes sense to everybody,” he adds. “The salesperson can use the kiosk as a tool to confidently explain to you what electric fuel looks like and where to charge. You can even take a look at a road trip on the kiosk. Maybe you live in Austin and you want to take a road trip to Nashville or to New York or to LA. The kiosk will show you all the charging stations available to you on that route, which helps to overcome range anxiety.”

To streamline dealership partnership efforts, Bidgely’s Analytics Workbench provides granular EV analytics for every EV owner in a service territory to enable energy providers to see total charging consumption and EV load by region, zip code, substation or feeder. EV ownership often grows in pockets, meaning that dealerships in those high-growth regions are best-situated for utility-dealership collaborations.

PLAYBOOK: EV Adoption Playbook

Step 5: Ownership 

The energy provider’s role in the buyer’s journey doesn’t end with the vehicle purchase. New drivers are eager to receive information about how to get the most out of their car after they drive it off the lot. 

Bidgely’s AI-powered EV detection at the household level makes it possible for energy providers to identify new EVs in their territory and proactively welcome and engage with new drivers, setting them up from the start to manage their EV charging and optimize their ownership experience.

Some energy providers engage electricians and maintain a list of qualified Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) charging installers for their customers. Selling EV chargers and offering charger installation and maintenance services promises to generate significant new and diversified utility revenue. For example, energy providers who use Analytics Workbench to detect homes with L1 chargers can develop a targeted campaign to transition those customers to L2 chargers, including product and service promotions. 

Other energy providers run EV drivers clubs in which EV owners can interact as part of a community with both the utility and other drivers. Encouraging EV owners to share their experiences with each other and evangelize EV ownership with other potential EV buyers plays a significant role in building EV adoption momentum. The JD Power study found 46 percent of those who own an electric vehicle are “very likely” to consider another one, making the energy provider’s investment in improving the EV ownership experience and promoting EV communities a solid growth strategy.

Successfully Driving the Journey

“One of the things that we wanted to test was how many EV sales we could help influence. We had a challenge to reach 5000 through the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge,” said Atchley. “In under two years we surpassed that goal, and we’re now building on that success and continuing to grow our EV programs to move the community along. It’s about changing behaviors. It’s about shifting mindsets. It’s about getting people thinking about alternative modes of mobility and how we can address greenhouse gas emissions. We support the city of Austin’s goal to achieve net zero by 2040. And we’ve got to do it with transportation. That is what is fueling the work that we’re doing here in Austin to drive change with electric vehicles.”

To hear more from the Austin Energy team about their industry leading electric vehicle program, check out their 2021 Engage session Electric>Gas: How Austin Energy Is Building EV Champions on demand. Learn more about how Bidgely’s EV Solution can empower energy providers to drive the EV buying journey.