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Smart Grid, Smart City Customer Research Findings

Arup | Energeia | Frontier Economics | Institute for Sustainable FuturesIndustry Forum28th July 2014

Customer Survey

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Survey Background

• All customers using product for > 1 month contacted

• Survey via email and phone, in Aug 2013 & Feb-Mar 2014

• Surveyed 47% of eligible trial participants

• Sample sizes Survey Responses

2013 1,710

2014 (repeat respondent) 994

2014 (new respondent) 1,505

TOTAL 3,215

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Survey Background

• Expect some degree of self selection bias in results:

• Trial participants signed up by choice

• Respondents to survey may be those more engaged

with their product and interested in giving feedback

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Customer Priorities

Customers with in-home displays engaged with their energy data much more frequently than those with portals

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Product Interaction

Customers with in-home displays engaged with their energy data much more frequently than those with portals

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Actual vs Perceived

And increased engagement with feedback data DOES actually correlate with higher energy and peak savings

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Product Interaction

But when paired with HAN, Portal can be a powerful tool for bill reductions, despite lower frequency of engagement

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Product Interaction

The more energy data was provided to customers, the more they wanted – very few people felt overloaded with information

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Product Impact

Trialled products increased customer energy awareness, control over consumption & ability to reduce bills … but not all customers ‘convert’ awareness to bill reductions

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Product Impact

Tariff & Technology

Products

Tariff only, Technology only

Products

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Product Impact

• Changes to routine generally did not involve substantial change to people’s daily routines (left)

• Self-reported implementation of behaviour change ‘decays’ over time, but not markedly (right)

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Product Impact

• Expect lower – but not insubstantial – consumer demand reduction on extreme temperature days

• Suggests peak prices more effective than rebates for delivering critical peak day reductions

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Vulnerability Analysis

Financially vulnerable HHs were more willing to shift load, more satisfied with their products and felt more empowered to reduce bills

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Vulnerability Analysis

• Elderly: older households were less likely to engage frequently with the product, obtain the benefits and derive satisfaction, but having a lower income (e.g. pensioners) offsets some of this ‘age effect’.

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Vulnerability Analysis

• Children: Increases the likelihood of the household feeling ‘bill pressure’; limited clear behaviour change difference (slightly higher load shifting); but improved likelihood to recommend.

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Product Type Analysis

• Incentivise or inform: Products combining feedback technologies with a tariff/rebate consistently improved customer outcomes across a range of indicators.

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Product Type Analysis

• e.g. Ability to reduce bills – average score of +0.2 represents clear trend

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Product Type Analysis

• Tariff Type: Peak event products (rebate and tariff) outperformed others across a range of indicators, but BudgetSmart also popular

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Product Type Analysis

• Carrot or stick: Rebate customers thought they saved more (below) but tariff customers actually saved more (Frontier)

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Change Over Time

• Product Satisfaction: Remained steady or improved for 90% of respondent households.

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Future Research

• Dataset available on ICH• Multivariate analysis to isolate the influence of

specific variables on indicators• More cross-question analysis• Greater diversity of extreme peak event

conditions• Choice modelling to interrogate competing

priorities (price vs reliability)

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Questions