Perspective: Helping Utility Customers Understand Their Bills

This IDC Energy Insights Perspective provides a look at the variety of options open to utilities to help customers understand and manage their utility bills. There are dozens of options available for presenting data to customers to help them visualize the connection between their consumption, the weather, and the cost of electricity, gas, or water. Plus there are more channels than ever to reach customers — paper-based mail, email, Web portal, smartphone, and in-home displays. This Perspective focuses on the analytics behind the presentation of information.

Utilities have a lot of incentives to help their customers understand their bills. Education about consumption goes a long way to increasing customer satisfaction and decreasing high bill complaints and related call center costs. Education may even help reduce credit and collections costs. There is a move as well by one vendor to promote education as an energy efficiency measure to be considered alongside compact fluorescents and Energy Star appliances in delivering against utility savings goals.

Smart meters have opened up a whole new source of information about consumption at different times of day. In a study conducted in the summer of 2010, IDC Energy Insights found that half of utilities that have installed smart meters are presenting smart meter data to the customer. Some of the smart grid business cases are even predicated on reduced capital investment for power generation or power purchase, as customers are encouraged to reduce their consumption to manage costs.