RubberVines Establishing Utility Connections

Energy Literacy

Aristotle famously said, “we are what we repeatedly do.” So it should come as no surprise that a substantial majority in the utility industry, often dominated by engineers, are energy experts. But as a relative newcomer to the utility industry, I am often struck how quickly these colleagues forget that customers are generally illiterate and uninterested in energy matters. Customers do not share their passion and enthusiasm for demand response, critical peak pricing and integrated resource planning. Most customers cannot adequately explain the difference between alternating and direct current. Yet utilities spend vast sums deploying new technologies and infrastructure to make the grid more efficient and smarter, but by comparison, precious few resources are spent on making customers smarter.

Energy literacy will become much more important in the next few years, as the new Smart Grid provides more data, more transparency and more leverage for customers. Utilities cannot expect customers to make well-informed decisions on demand response programs, various rate options, or energy efficiency without a fundamental understanding of what drives their energy consumption and cost. This is analogous to the recent emphasis on financial literacy. Our educational system traditionally focused on algebra, geometry and calculus, leaving students largely unequipped to properly evaluate credit card offers, home loans or other personal finance products later in life.

Can energy literacy be embraced by utilities? Yes. Utilities already have significant experience advocating consumer energy efficiency using rebates and other incentives. They have community engagement and outreach staff presiding over sizeable marketing and awareness budgets. Redirecting some of these resources will be critical in expanding energy literacy, without which, customers will not understand the value propositions of increasingly complex utility programs and services.

The potential benefits of energy literacy are substantial. It enables utilities and customers to interact in new, more meaningful ways. It can drive organizational efficiencies, provide enhanced customer feedback and ultimately create more value for both the utility and the customer. Will utilities voluntarily adopt the notion of customer energy literacy? Or will energy literacy be mandated by regulators, as with so many other aspects of the energy industry? Only time will tell, but customers are notoriously impatient.

Post by Nikolas