Could AT&T’s Digital Life Make the Smart Grid “Smart” for Consumers?

One of the biggest challenges smart grid implementations face is that utilities and other stakeholders have done a poor job of bringing consumer benefits to life. The ability to monitor and control home energy usage is what consumers seek, and that’s what’s lacking in smart grid rollouts. Some companies have started to rollout pieces, but the technology infrastructure to tie this all together and company to drive adoption has been absent— until now.

Enter AT&T.

Digital Life Suite, AT&T

It’s called the Digital Life Suite, and it brings security and home automation to AT&T customers. While I am guessing that the suite was meant to grab share from ADT and local security companies, home automation could be a huge driver for this product. After all, it does have the ability to activate appliances from a mobile device, and it could:

• work with other devices for energy measurement
• tie into smart grid information and give consumers real-time data
• provide accurate information on how much energy is used by appliances
• offer tips on optimizing energy usage

Given the low trust that many energy providers have, I’d partner with AT&T to promote smart grid benefits and let their brand cache help drive adoption and reduce consumer doubts. This could be a game-changer.

Digital Life Suite Links: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=22821&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=34415, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHUP8UMAE8Q, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySpaGgj5U70&feature=related

Tags: AT&T, Energy, energy management, home automation, Smart Grid

Green And More – Worth Gold to Electricity Providers

I was disheartened earlier this week during a conversation with an executive from an electricity provider that operates in competitive markets.  We were discussing a vision of the energy industry’s future where providers invested in building their brands and provided customers value-add programs and services instead of just competing on price.  It’s not the first time my vision has been politely dismissed.  But, more importantly, I’ve never been dissuaded either. 

So, imagine my happiness in reading the findings from the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) survey, “Consumer Pulse Research Program Wave 2.”  While the report was focusing on awareness and perceived benefits of the smart grid, it confirmed that utility customers care about more than cost. 

In fact, the report stated that consumers would pay a higher electric bill if it included the integration of renewable energy.  These results, leveraged and messaged correctly, will go a long way toward dispelling the myth that customers only care about saving money or attaining a flat-rate price. 

Patty Durand, executive director of the SGCC, also pointed toward other opportunities to serve the customer beyond price.  She emphasized the importance of  adding consumer segmentation to exisiting demographic information as a way to identify higher value opportunities and improve results. Specifically, the SGCC research noted that the most important benefits of the smart grid varied by respondent segment.  And, overall, once they laid out all the benefits and concerns to utility customers, smart grid favorability improved significantly. Her conclusion was that people want to know more, and once they are educated, they are more interested in the benefits.

This gives us hope, as we believe that providing green energy options along with other programs and services is the pathway to building brand differentiation and better margins.  So, while this report has a slightly different take and pertains to smart grid adoption,  the two prespectives are certainly related.  Perhaps our vision for a brigher future is closer than it seems.

Tags: Consumer Pulse Research Program Wave 2, Energy, Patty Durand, SGCC, Smart Grid, Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative