Leading Through Innovation

October 7, 2020 is Energy Efficiency Day, but for Bidgely’s utility partners, the commitment to global energy efficiency is in full force all year long, with strong results.  At Bidgely, accelerating energy efficiency is part of our core mission. The Bidgely Innovation team has carried the torch of EE Day celebrations by not only exceeding energy efficiency goals, but driving higher CSAT, customer cost savings, digital communication and more. We believe EE objectives thrive when they are practical for the customer, the utility, and the community. Here is a snapshot of how EE meets innovation to create enduring benefits for utilities.

  • Giving utilities the power to offer patented Load Disaggregation for every customer, every meter. Appliance-level insights are the bedrock of customer-centric EE programs. As the pioneer in commercialized load disaggregation, we’ve extended our patented  hardware-free solution to provide utilities with the flexibility to leverage AMI/Smart Meters or Non Smart Meters (NSM) on behalf of residential, SMB/C&I, gas, electric or dual fuel customers. 
  • Modernizing utility offerings to garner customer trust and respect. Utilities need to be seen as the leading energy authority in order to garner the trust and respect of their customers and maximize participation in EE programs. This includes building on the success of Home Energy Report programs with enhanced EE program  value and convenience by combining AI-enabled personalized content, digital-first ongoing engagement and frictionless  customer experiences.. 
  • Accelerating DSM program targeting and synergistic electrification and decarbonization efforts through customer and business intelligence. With program targeting at scale, it’s possible to unlock greater EE savings. With appliance-level usage insights, utilities can customize programs.
  • Integrating EE with a modern retail experience. We help customers think bigger about energy efficiency with Smart Shop™– an end-to-end integrated utility marketplace experience. 

Achieving Results: Global Case Studies on Innovative EE Programs 

The most innovative electric and gas utilities in the world are leveraging the power of UtilityAI to improve engagement for residential and SMB customers in energy efficiency programs and achieve significantly higher levels of kW and therm savings.

It is our pleasure to recognize just a few of our partners’ extraordinary energy efficiency programs that are making a global difference — today, and every day.

TEPCO – Japan

Bidgely is partnering with TEPCO to provide UtilityAI-driven Annual Energy Reports to a subset of the utility’s 29 million customers. For the first time in Japan, these Annual Energy Reports are providing customers with a breakdown of home energy consumption by appliance category as a means to encourage energy efficiency behaviors. The reports also include rate plan and other TEPCO-provided program and service recommendations specific to individual homes based on advanced analysis of customer smart meter and other data. 

Though data collection is ongoing, so far 66 percent of TEPCO customers have followed the Utility-AI-informed rate plan recommendations, reinforcing deeper customer engagement. Looking forward, TEPCO plans to leverage UtilityAI’s analytics as part of a corporate-wide paper-to-digital conversion for its energy efficiency program customer interactions and more.

SoCalGas – California, USA

At SoCalGas, each year brings a new challenge to top the therm savings realized the year before. With that goal in mind, the utility began a program for the 2020 winter season to extend a digital-first, UtilityAI-driven HER 2.0 program to realize therm savings among a new customer segment: 405,000 medium-consumption customers. The new HER 2.0 digital communications featured greater and more helpful detail than the utility’s legacy paper reports, as well as positive, proactive messaging to better inspire and empower customers to save energy.

SoCalGas successfully deployed the HER 2.0 solution in less than three-and-a-half months and immediately exceeded the program’s energy efficiency goals, with 286,540 therms saved between December 2019 and February 2020. Beyond demonstrating measurable gains in program participation, HER 2.0 yielded a meaningful overall boost to customer satisfaction and engagement. 

Rocky Mountain Power – Western USA

Rocky Mountain Power selected UtilityAI to replace its legacy HER program with Bidgely’s advanced HER 2.0 solution to expand a more interactive and engaging program to a greater number and cross section of customers. The utility was committed to simplifying and facilitating customers’ efforts to reduce electricity consumption and maximize savings by moving beyond conventional methods of general peer comparison reporting to reporting that delivers a wider variety of more personalized appliance-level energy use information and specific conservation recommendations.

The Rocky Mountain Power HER 2.0 program was successfully deployed in less than six months, and provided a frictionless transition for legacy HER program participants to the new platform. By modernizing and personalizing customer engagement, the HER 2.0 program generated 41GWhs of energy savings in less than one year. More than a superior HER solution, the implementation of UtilityAI also allowed the utility to realize measurable gains in its customer satisfaction and engagement programs, encouraging greater participation in future energy efficiency initiatives. 

Similar programs with a sister company in the region yielded equally compelling results. Customers reported an 85 percent satisfaction rate for a digital-centric Home Energy Reports (HER) program delivered in partnership with Bidgely. According to evaluations by Cadmus, typical HER programs yield 65 to 78 percent customer satisfaction, whereas the 2018-2019 HER 2.0 program achieved 85 percent customer satisfaction in Washington. Through the program’s personalized customer communications, customers also experienced a 37 percent email open rate and 86 percent “Likes” on email communications. Notably, in a four-month span, the program achieved more than 18,200 MWh energy savings at a 25 percent cost reduction compared with paper-based HER programs. 

Gas Utility – Midwestern USA

In 2019, a Midwestern gas utility partnered with Bidgely to replace its legacy Oracle Home Energy Reports program with a multifaceted HER 2.0 solution designed to simultaneously improve customer engagement and satisfaction and produce greater energy efficiency and sustainability gains — all with cost effectiveness in mind. Beyond wanting to improve upon their Oracle experience, the utility sought a nimble HER solution that would enable more meaningful interaction with a wider range of its customers in accordance with evolving customer demands. The utility also needed the ability to offer appliance-level insights without having to deploy smart meters. 

By upgrading to Bidgely’s UtilityAI HER 2.0 program, the utility was able to reinvigorate its existing paper reports program, layer on digital HERs for those paper report customers for whom the utility had email addresses, and also treat an additional 250,000 customers with digital-only alerts — extending and democratizing the program to also serve low to medium consumption customers who were also potentially low to medium income. DSM savings exceeded the annual target and reached 500,057 MCF saved in 12 months, surpassing the savings target for program year 2019 by 33 percent.

Electric Utility – East Coast USA

When it comes to a brighter energy future, energy efficiency gains are further amplified by progress toward electrification and decarbonization. With that in mind, a utility serving 300,000 customers on the East Coast of the United States sought to better serve its customers by designing new EV rate options and EV programs tailored to meet their needs. 

The utility turned to Bidgely’s UtilityAI disaggregation technology to determine the size of all EV chargers in use, as well as the time every EV owning customer charges his or her vehicle. These analytics informed a new rate structure and a range of programs for EV owners that streamlined marketing dollars, increased energy efficiency and deepened customer engagement. 

We applaud these innovative utilities who are charting a new path toward the future of energy efficiency, and invite utilities worldwide to join the conversation about what UtilityAI makes possible. 

Join the Movement 

Change happens when we work together. Join our commitment to driving EE and industry improvement by joining the conversation and explore the power of UtilityAI

Categories: Bidgely

Abhay Gupta

I founded Bidgely to change the way we use energy, everyday. It's the little things we do, working with our utilities, that add up to massive savings, efficiency, and just maybe, a better world.