Shining a Light on New Rate Plans for Residential and Business Customers
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Uplight’s platform
- Uplight’s rate analysis tool
Tech Stack
- Machine-learning methodologies
- AMI interval data
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Customer Satisfaction
- Energy Saving
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
- Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
Applicable Industries
- Utilities
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Energy Management System
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Uplight is the technology partner for energy providers and the clean energy ecosystem. Uplight’s software solutions connect energy customers to the decarbonization goals of power providers while helping customers save energy and lower costs, creating a more sustainable future for all. Using the industry’s only comprehensive customer-centric technology suite and critical energy expertise across disciplines, Uplight is streamlining the complex transition to the clean energy ecosystem for more than 80 electric and gas utilities around the world. By empowering energy providers to achieve critical outcomes through data-driven customer experiences, delivering control at the grid edge, creating new revenue streams and optimizing existing load and assets, Uplight shares a mission with its clients to make energy more sustainable for every community. Uplight is a certified B Corporation.
The Challenge
Implementing new rate plans to align demand with supply is becoming critical to more and more utilities. However, new rate plans for business and residential customers can result in customer confusion and frustration—whether they are opt-in or opt-out. According to J.D. Power, utility customer price satisfaction drops by 10% when defaulted onto a TOU rate. A TOU rate transition can be stressful for both utility employees and customers. It can seem that customer needs are at odds with regulatory and internal requirements. Thankfully, utilities have gained experience helping customers through rate transitions. This experience identified best practices of the three e’s: empathize, educate, and empower.
The Solution
Uplight helps utilities prevent rocky rate roll-outs and become a trusted energy advisor through a personalized utility customer experience, targeted marketing and grid-optimized enrollment. The utility uses Uplight’s platform to help advise and enroll their SMBs and C&I customers on the most optimal rate plans. The utility integrated Uplight’s rate analysis tool into their MyAccount portal to help over 600,000 business customers analyze how hypothetical changes to usage would impact their rate and compare their current rate plan with other options. A large Southwestern IOU transitioned its residential customers to new TOU and demand rates with a goal of getting customers on to service plans that best fit their needs, reducing associated call center volume spike and improving CSAT. They not only needed to educate customers about their new plans, but also how to best manage their energy bill. Using AMI interval data, historical usage information and machine-learning methodologies, the utility utilized Uplight’s platform to segment their customers by service plans, analyze on- and off-peak usage and demand patterns. The utility then delivered next-best-actions tailored to each customer through personalized print and email energy reports, self-service online portal, energy assessment, and through the call center.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
IoT Solutions for Smart City | Internet of Things Case Study
There were several challenges faced: It is challenging to build an appliance that can withstand a wide range of voltage fluctuations from as low at 90v to as high as 320v. Since the device would be installed in remote locations, its resilience was of paramount importance. The device would have to deal with poor network coverage and have the ability to store and re-transmit data if networks were not available, which is often the case in rural India. The device could store up to 30 days of data.
Case Study
Automation of the Oguz-Gabala-Baku water pipeline, Azerbaijan
The Oguz-Gabala-Baku water pipeline project dates back to plans from the 1970’s. Baku’s growth was historically driven by the booming oil industry and required the import of drinking water from outside of the city. Before the construction of the pipeline, some 60 percent of the city’s households received water for only a few hours daily. After completion of the project, 75 percent of the two million Baku residents are now served around the clock with potable water, based on World Health Organization (WHO) standards. The 262-kilometer pipeline requires no pumping station, but uses the altitude differences between the Caucasian mountains and the capital to supply 432,000 m³/d to the Ceyranbatan water reservoir. To the people of Baku, the pipeline is “the most important project not only in 2010, but of the last 20 years.”
Case Study
GPRS Mobile Network for Smart Metering
Around the world, the electricity supply industry is turning to ‘smart’ meters to lower costs, reduce emissions and improve the management of customer supplies. Smart meters collect detailed consumption information and using this feedback consumers can better understand their energy usage which in turn enables them to modify their consumption to save money and help to cut carbon emissions. A smart meter can be defined in many ways, but generally includes an element of two-way communication between the household meter and the utility provider to efficiently collect detailed energy usage data. Some implementations include consumer feedback beyond the energy bill to include online web data, SMS text messages or an information display in consumers’ premises. Providing a cost-effective, reliable communications mechanism is one of the most challenging aspects of a smart meter implementation. In New Zealand, the utilities have embraced smart metering and designed cost effective ways for it to be implemented. The New Zealand government has encouraged such a move to smart metering by ensuring the energy legislation is consistent with the delivery of benefits to the consumer while allowing innovation in this area. On the ground, AMS is a leader in the deployment of smart metering and associated services. Several of New Zealand’s energy retailers were looking for smart metering services for their residential and small business customers which will eventually account for over 500,000 meters when the multi-year national deployment program is concluded. To respond to these requirements, AMS needed to put together a solution that included data communications between each meter and the central data collection point and the solution proposed by Vodafone satisfied that requirement.
Case Study
NB-IoT connected smart meters to improve gas metering in Shenzhen
Shenzhen Gas has a large fleet of existing gas meters, which are installed in a variety of hard to reach locations, such as indoors and underground, meaning that existing communications networks have struggled to maintain connectivity with all meters. The meter success rate is low, data transmissions are so far unstable and power consumption is too high. Against this background, Shenzhen Gas, China Telecom, Huawei, and Goldcard have jointly trialed NB-IoT gas meters to try and solve some of the challenges that the industry faces with today’s smart gas meters.
Case Study
OneWireless Enabled Performance Guarantee Test
Tata Power's power generation equipment OEMs (M/s BHEL) is required to provide all of the instrumentation and measurement devices for conducting performance guarantee and performance evaluation tests. M/s BHEL faced a number of specific challenges in conducting PG tests: employing high-accuracy digital communications for instrumentation, shortening setup and dismantling time, reducing hardware required, making portable instrument setup, avoiding temporary cabling work and the material waste costs
Case Study
British Gas Modernizes its Operations with Innovative Smart Metering Deployment
The UK government has mandated that smart meters are rolled out as standard across Great Britain by end of 2020, and this roll-out is estimated to create £14 billion in net benefits to the UK in consumer energy savings and lower energy generation demand, according to the Oxford Economics report, “The Value of Smart Metering to Great Britain.” While smart-metering systems have been deployed in many countries, the roll-out in Great Britain is unique because it is led by energy retailers, who have responsibility for the Electricity and Gas meters. The decision to have a retailer-led roll out was made by DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) to improve customer experience and drive consumer benefits. It has also led to some unique system-level requirements to support the unique local regulatory model.
