Step 1: Natural Gas

Pass the new Pickens plan to convert commercial fleet vehicles to natural gas.

Pickens’ Plan proposes that the natural gas that is currently used to fuel power plants be used as a fuel for class 7 and 8 semis.

The technology needed for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles such as City buses, fork lifts and passenger cars with CNG drivetrains is available now. Honda sells the Civic GX, with a 170-mile (270 km) range. In addition, it is possible to convert vehicles to run on CNG in addition to leaving the conventional fuel injection intact, allowing the driver to switch back and forth at will. Kits are available for the do-it-yourselfer. One can buy a CNG
compressor called Phill that hooks up to the city natural gas line making it possible to refuel a CNG car at home.

Secondary benefits

1. Natural gas prices are at record lows and the sector is beginning to slow. What people may not understand is this does not just impact natural gas companies. Equipment manufacturers and other material suppliers for the industry are also hurt by the suppressed gas prices. A new demand source would strengthen the demand for equipment and services to support the industry.
2. Significant reduction in the reliance on foreign oil. A 10 – 20% reduction, roughly $300 billion would change the dynamic between the US and foreign sources of oil. The US would move from being a hostage to a valued customer.
3. Infrastructure job creation would also be a secondary benefit. Additional midstream and distribution infrastructure would need to be built to support additional point of delivery for natural gas.

Step 2: Solar

There are landfills across the country operated by both private and public entities. Many of these have been capped and are impermeable. This land can never be rezoned or used for any other purpose. This leaves hundreds if not thousand of acres of land in proximity to cities and towns just sitting there with refuse underneath and nothing happening on top.

Regional renewable power generation

• Local and county governments need to form partnerships right now with providers to build solar arrays that can supply power to the cities and towns that own these tracts of land. Operating agreements can be put in place that will reduce the overall spend of tax payer dollars and potentially create sources of revenue for the local governments by selling excess power generated on the open market.
• Private providers of waste management services, such as Waste Management are already
  making the transition to use their landfills as sources of power generation with both solar and methane for from biofuel.

Secondary Benefits

1. Reduce the power costs to operate local government buildings and facilities.
2. Job creation. People will be needed to build, operate, and maintain the solar
   plants and the electric infrastructure to carry the power.

These steps are not silver bullets to permanently fix US energy challenges but they are incremental steps that are achievable and once in place will have a direct impact on jobs and energy. Common sense incremental steps are the only reasonable way to fix the energy
hole the US has been digging for the past 30 years.

Are the tools in your contact center helping to reduce costs and the training time involved with getting a new service agent ready to support customers?

Where do your agents spend the most time referring to procedure documents or other job aids?

If the solutions in place today can’t support the rules and processes for your business, and you are relying on the agents to ensure compliance it leaves your organization in a tough position when senior agents leave.

1. Call centers routinely collect data on “average” performance, such as average handle time, average speed of answer and average hold time, without delving into the details behind the averages. Which makes perfect sense from a management standpoint, but large call volumes can smooth out the peaks and valleys of performance over time.
2. Call centers typically perform quality reviews on less than one-half percent of calls received. Poor performance by individual employees – and perhaps the overall call center – can go unnoticed because the ‘average’ metrics will not reveal it.
3. Call centers often fail to periodically review their processes. When they do, they frequently lack statistically valid data to perform the reviews. Without detailed knowledge of call center processes, utilities are unlikely to recognize and correct problems.

As I have worked with clients and had discussions with others in the industry, this seems to be a question everyone is pondering.  The answers are varied in approach and tone:

• Dynamic Pricing – Whether punitive or incentive-based, hitting the pocket book is almost always effective but can damage the relationship with consumers and make conversations with regulating bodies much more contentious.
• Conservation Programs – Educate the public on the high value of lower demand.  Less fuel, less need for additional construction, less reliance on inefficient or dirty generation assets.
• Improved System Stability – DR can be used to avoid brown-outs and reduce the chance of over-capacity problems that plague many systems.
• Cost – Working with the utility to develop profiles that lower overall usage and reduce consumption at times of peak demand can reduce the $/kwh that utilities pass on.

Consumers demand perfect service, low rates, 100% control & privacy, and instant response in the event something happens.

Utilities want to deliver perfect service, keep consumers rates as low as possible yet still earn a profit, create alternative demand response approaches by more granular control of consumption on the grid, and have the highest possible response times in the event something happens.

Opposing point number 1: Perfect Service
Doesn’t exist and won’t exist in our lifetimes. In order to provide perfect service the national electric and gas distribution infrastructure would have to be built to accommodate maximum peak demand. This level of consumption is fair below average or base load and would represent an enormous amount of assets that would be idle for long periods of time. Construction costs would be enormous, rates would skyrocket, and the target is always changing. Some may vaguely at this point remember speeches by President Obama, Secretary of Energy Chu, and other industry leaders about why 10 – 30% reductions by 2020 were important. If not you can search on energy reduction policies for 2020 and find tons of information at the state and federal agency levels. Bottom line, demand will outpace capacity for the next decade. The question for consumers and utilities to ask is how to achieve these reductions, because in emergency situations more efficient homes and business make a difference between rolling blackouts and no rolling blackouts.

Opposing point number 2: Low rates
Rates are not going to go down. There it is, accept it and move on. Basic supply and demand applies here; demand is continuing to grow while supply is struggling to keep up. Smart Grid is not going to lower rates, consumers could see a reduction in their bill from using energy smarter but rates per kilowatt hour will not be lowered as a result of putting a smart meter at homes, smart plugs/IHDs in the home and enabling more granular control. If you add in the demand of perfect service referenced above lowering rates becomes impossible. What consumers should be demanding are the tools to manage their power consumption better. Shockingly the exact opposite is happening as vast amounts of consumers dig in at the thought of the utility, who supplies all of their power already, knowing how it is being used in the home at the major appliance level. Unless you are Dr. Evil channeling off power to build your next generation death ray, what is the real negative impact to you as a consumer?

Going back to our title and original two questions:

1. Last week’s rolling blackouts, are the energy companies to blame? The energy companies have to share some blame in the event, but consumers do not get to skate on this one. Many of the major utilities in Texas have been advancing Smart Grid and Sustainable Community programs for the past 18 – 24 months and consumers have not shown the slightest inclination as a majority to get on board or acknowledge the reality that electricity, natural gas, and water is a shared commodity. Consuming energy more intelligently is not infringing on your constitutional rights, in fact it is just the opposite. Being a smarter consumer of energy in all its forms is being a good citizen of this country and member of your local community.

2. Last week’s rolling blackouts, where was Smart Grid and why didn’t it help? The electrical grid, with the exception of some large and small pilots, has not changed just because a smart meter has been installed at a consumer’s home. Without the cooperation of consumers to allow, some parts of the home to managed, aka turned off for short periods of time, utilities are constrained to turning off blocks of homes being powered on a shared circuit at the substation. The same method we have always used, or at least the last 25 years. In short Smart Grid didn’t help because on a large scale it does not exist yet.

There were a lot of contributing factors beyond those I have discussed today, to last week’s rolling blackouts. All parties share blame including regulators, consumers, and energy providers. The way forward is to work together as consumers and providers, a simple concept that is now and will continue to be a struggle to make a reality.

But it wasn’t. Rolling blackouts started early in the day and affected significant portions of the state. Residences, businesses, schools, even hospitals were in the mix. As we saw on the news, the group responsible for electric reliability (ERCOT) put out the call for additional capacity but utilities were unable to answer the bell. The blackouts continued throughout the day. I have heard my whole life that Texas has little to worry about when it comes to power because we have our own grid. Sounds great until your “own grid” doesn’t have enough power for the people who live on it.

When the utilities were confronted by consumers about the value of smart meters, the standard marketing campaign double speak told us that they were the key to the Smart Grid and were going to give us unparalleled reliability. Instead, we saw a first in my lifetime, outages across the state. Then, to add insult to injury, we were told to expect more blackouts and that everyone should curb their usage at home during this record cold. How about, “We are working hard to rise to the challenge and get the necessary resources online”?

The federal government decided that fast-forwarding our utility infrastructure into the future was worthy of hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and you all lined up to get your share but we are left wondering if “spend it fast” was the total depth of the plan to use that money. Electrons are a commodity but when you start asking me to participate by checking my daily or hourly consumption, curb my demand at peak times, and work with you to ensure the health of the systems you have to start thinking differently. It is time for you to start thinking about your service in terms of product.


We are past the era of being amazed that the lights come on when we flip the switch. Complicated problems require thoughtful answers. Quality service, clear customer engagement, and a well-communicated plan must be part of the strategy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/us/14meters.html?_r=1&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell&partner=rss&emc=rss

If additional oversight will be needed to ensure meter benchmarking and calibration testing above what utilities have done historically is required, what is the incremental cost of deployment and long term support going to be?

Couple of interesting facts about smart phones and the market forecast for adoption:

1. GSM and Smart Phones combined made up 63% of the world market in 2006

2. The iPhone & Blackjack for consumers, and Blackberry for businesses have completely changed the way phones are viewed and utilized

3. Each new generation of phones enhances capability and security

The role of the In-Home Display is to provide the consumer with relevant actionable data about their energy consumption and account. Yet, how many of us keep our phone/PDA within easy reach, even at home? While the IHD would give a counter top presence in the home, is it likely to become just another item on the counter taking up space that is eventually disregarded completely?

The long term view has to be yes without a doubt. The global cell phone market devotes billions to marketing and sales, constantly touting the smart phone as a lifestyle device. Utilities may have a unique relationship with consumers, but why try to compete for consumer attention?

If you want to get the most out of those federal funds not allocated to smart meters, refocus grant dollars going towards IHD’s into, Smart Thermostats, Consumer Portals, and Web Applications targeted to smart consumer devices.

Smart Grid creates a unique challenge, mainly based on the fact that the scope of a given smart grid project can have widely varying scope. It can be targeted to the home, specifically inside the home beyond the meter, or focused on the telecommunications and managing assets more effectively through distribution automation.

Given all the variables and conditions that can exist it can be daunting for managers and executives to get a comfort level with all the costs associated and value they can expect in return.

The good news is, smart grid solutions can be adapted to suit most situations. Leaving managers and executives to ask some fundamental questions:

What do my customers really want?

What does my utility really need?

Those two answers will help determine a direction for not only smart grid but for the overall business and technology strategy of the organization.