I adore the supporting line of Microsoft Hohm’s recent press release: Hohm Scores help everyone answer the question, ‘Am I an energy hog or an energy miser?’ Now, loving alliteration as I do, being an old defunct English major, I went with the pig/prince combo for my own title. Still, whichever way you type it, the message is clear: Do you know how you are spending that energy, and are you spending it wisely?
According to the release from Microsoft, they can answer that particular question for about 60 million homeowners with its Hohm Score, which estimate’s a home’s efficiency based on what appears to be data readily available from realty websites and pictures from Google Earth (ah, Microsoft tells me it's from Bing, not Google Earth)---although my particular estimate didn’t include the fact that I do, in fact, have central heat and air. It’s true that my little old 1926 bungalow didn’t have such luxuries up to about 10 years ago, but it does now. So, I probably shouldn’t be so darn proud of my Hohm Score number.
But, I am.
Hohm Scores are calculated by comparing a home’s actual and potential energy efficiency, and is grounded with advanced analytics licensed from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and statistical data from the Department of Energy, according to Microsoft. In addition to individual scores, Hohm Scores are available by ZIP code, city and state so anyone can compare a home’s score with others around the country.
Microsoft estimates the national average Hohm Score at 61, with Hawaii topping the list at 81 and with Texas coming in last with 51. (Yes, you want a higher number, apparently. Otherwise, I have no idea what that number actually means.)
My personal home state of Oklahoma came in pretty close to Texas at 52. When your summers are 107 degrees and, yet, you still have winters with ice storms and blizzards, you use a lot of energy, my friend. With weather such a factor, I’m not sure if Hawaii’s top score is more to do with greener peeps making greener choices or just nice ocean breezes. We could really use those ocean breezes here in Tulsa.
My Hohm Score? 82. That’s right. I totally trumped even the great leading state of Hawaii. Why? Well, some of it most likely has to do with that inaccurate info about my heating and cooling system (and is, therefore, wrong). There’s probably a lot of gray area with those numbers there, but, if this number is accurate, I’d attribute it mostly to space. My house is less than 1100 square feet. That saves a boatload of energy.
So, while it’s probably not entirely accurate, I like my little green house. (No, literally. A green house. There’s a house on the website next to my Hohm Score, and it’s painted a very eco-friendly shade of green. A little green home icon that tells me how awesome I am to Mother Earth.)
Now, in real life, my house is literally gray. Painted gray.
And, well, as mentioned, there’s probably a little gray area in my online green home, but, darn it, I’m still gonna be proud.
Wanna know your score? Hit this link: HOHM SCORE
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
ABB Looks to Balance the T&D Future
About 10:30 this morning, global vendor powerhouse ABB announced a new project---not a new bit of software, not an updated FACTS system, but an investment. ABB is building a cable factory. It will construct this new factory in the United States to manufacture high-voltage land cables for power transmission.
This announcement was also made live by Enrique Santacana, president and CEO of ABB Inc. in North America, at the ABB Automation & Power World conference and exhibition, ABB’s customer event held this year in Houston, Texas, to a room full of industry press who were almost collectively surprised.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Cali Utility Learns Painful PR Lesson
There’s no doubt that Pacific Gas and Electric screwed up when they didn’t react immediately to growing complaints about the utility’s massive smart metering program. But the fault wasn’t with the meters, it was with the marketing.
The program itself is actually quite efficient, with only one percent of the 5.5 million meters installed having any sort of glitch. A margin for error that small is rare in any business. Heck, even those consumer opinion polls have a 3-5 percent margin of error, and they aren’t even putting together any technology. So, one percent is positively amazing. Unfortunately for Pacific Gas and Electric, though, that one percent translates to about 50,000 people---a number of which were not very happy about being lumped into that problematic percentile. And so they tattled … a lot. And they went above the utility’s head to daddy regulator with that tattling.
Now, every customer at some time has had an issue with their power company, even executives with the power company: the bill’s too high or the lights are off or that pole transformer in your backyard is flaming (and your lights are off). But, for the most part, you see a problem, make a phone call, the company fixes it---and everyone moves on with their lives. It’s efficient and simple, but it’s a system based entirely on reaction.
Reaction doesn’t work well in keeping emotions from boiling over, and reactions can make a boiling emotion explode as well. There is no moving on or fixing a problematic smart meter in the mind of an angry customer once the seed of negativity is planted. All he knows is that his power used to be cheaper and now this shiny newfangled, expensive doohickey is making it uber-expensive (in his way of thinking). And, when he complains, the power company refuses to take it out.
This is where community outreach really is key---and really was lacking in the case of Pacific Gas and Electric. They were doing everything right; they really were. But, they didn’t advertise that fact. They didn’t trumpet and promote and show customers how great the smart meters were for them individually. Nor did they warn about small problems that would arise with any new program. If consumers had been given the facts, the potential issues, and a lot of happy metering thoughts beforehand, would Pacific Gas and Electric have been forced to answer to the California Public Utilities Commission and the state Senate about that tidal wave (in their thinking) of customer issues? Perhaps not.
Community outreach isn’t new to utilities. A lot of them have learned, over the years, that right-of-way management and tree programs, which often involve on-site interaction with individual customers, goes more smoothly with warning: a phone call, a smattering of pamphlets stuck in doors that say “We’ll be here on Thursday.” It keeps the “freak out” factor to a minimum. No one runs outside in his bathrobe spilling coffee and screaming at a surprise work crew pruning his precious pecan tree if he knows that crew’s coming and that the pruning is necessary.
However, that concept hasn’t yet been applied to the programs for implementing smart grid technology, and it should be. More awareness equals less scary. That’s always the case. And no company should rely on the consumer to be interested enough to go search out that information themselves. A consumer motivated to research is usually in one of two emotional states: happily looking for a secondhand Wii or really, really angry about his bill. And, let’s be honest, no one happily shops for a smart meter. Instead, that smart meter is thrust upon him. So, shower---heck, pour---on the information. Saturate.
Pacific Gas and Electric has learned their lesson. They are working on new options for customers concerned about their smart meters, including adding more customer service representatives, making metering information more clear and creating a dedicated answer center just for smart meters. These are all absolutely the right track; it just would have been easier to be proactive and nipped this issue in the bud by starting out this program with those things in place---because new will always be scary to a customer until it’s not new.
Let’s hope that other utilities learn from this as each one considers, pilots and implements a smart grid program: Work on the technology. Absolutely. Figure out the financing … but, first, over inform the consumer, make them so aware of the smart grid and the smart meter that each could recite tomes on the subject. It may seem silly, but it could save a lot of headaches dealing with regulators because, as Pacific Gas and Electric found out recently, each and every angry consumer is also an angry constituent.
The program itself is actually quite efficient, with only one percent of the 5.5 million meters installed having any sort of glitch. A margin for error that small is rare in any business. Heck, even those consumer opinion polls have a 3-5 percent margin of error, and they aren’t even putting together any technology. So, one percent is positively amazing. Unfortunately for Pacific Gas and Electric, though, that one percent translates to about 50,000 people---a number of which were not very happy about being lumped into that problematic percentile. And so they tattled … a lot. And they went above the utility’s head to daddy regulator with that tattling.
Now, every customer at some time has had an issue with their power company, even executives with the power company: the bill’s too high or the lights are off or that pole transformer in your backyard is flaming (and your lights are off). But, for the most part, you see a problem, make a phone call, the company fixes it---and everyone moves on with their lives. It’s efficient and simple, but it’s a system based entirely on reaction.
Reaction doesn’t work well in keeping emotions from boiling over, and reactions can make a boiling emotion explode as well. There is no moving on or fixing a problematic smart meter in the mind of an angry customer once the seed of negativity is planted. All he knows is that his power used to be cheaper and now this shiny newfangled, expensive doohickey is making it uber-expensive (in his way of thinking). And, when he complains, the power company refuses to take it out.
This is where community outreach really is key---and really was lacking in the case of Pacific Gas and Electric. They were doing everything right; they really were. But, they didn’t advertise that fact. They didn’t trumpet and promote and show customers how great the smart meters were for them individually. Nor did they warn about small problems that would arise with any new program. If consumers had been given the facts, the potential issues, and a lot of happy metering thoughts beforehand, would Pacific Gas and Electric have been forced to answer to the California Public Utilities Commission and the state Senate about that tidal wave (in their thinking) of customer issues? Perhaps not.
Community outreach isn’t new to utilities. A lot of them have learned, over the years, that right-of-way management and tree programs, which often involve on-site interaction with individual customers, goes more smoothly with warning: a phone call, a smattering of pamphlets stuck in doors that say “We’ll be here on Thursday.” It keeps the “freak out” factor to a minimum. No one runs outside in his bathrobe spilling coffee and screaming at a surprise work crew pruning his precious pecan tree if he knows that crew’s coming and that the pruning is necessary.
However, that concept hasn’t yet been applied to the programs for implementing smart grid technology, and it should be. More awareness equals less scary. That’s always the case. And no company should rely on the consumer to be interested enough to go search out that information themselves. A consumer motivated to research is usually in one of two emotional states: happily looking for a secondhand Wii or really, really angry about his bill. And, let’s be honest, no one happily shops for a smart meter. Instead, that smart meter is thrust upon him. So, shower---heck, pour---on the information. Saturate.
Pacific Gas and Electric has learned their lesson. They are working on new options for customers concerned about their smart meters, including adding more customer service representatives, making metering information more clear and creating a dedicated answer center just for smart meters. These are all absolutely the right track; it just would have been easier to be proactive and nipped this issue in the bud by starting out this program with those things in place---because new will always be scary to a customer until it’s not new.
Let’s hope that other utilities learn from this as each one considers, pilots and implements a smart grid program: Work on the technology. Absolutely. Figure out the financing … but, first, over inform the consumer, make them so aware of the smart grid and the smart meter that each could recite tomes on the subject. It may seem silly, but it could save a lot of headaches dealing with regulators because, as Pacific Gas and Electric found out recently, each and every angry consumer is also an angry constituent.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Illinois paints black hat on ComEd
I don’t think ComEd had bad intentions when it offered the Illinois legislature $500 million in recession assistance this week to balance the budget, but, apparently, the state of Illinois, the state attorney general and a lot of the representatives thought ComEd evil incarnate for even making the proposal.
The whole snafu is really a problem with assumptions---and, as you might recall from the old grade school adage, one becomes a bit of a patootie when one assumes. But, how did this clever, interesting PR and business concept from ComEd go so horribly wrong in such a short amount of time?
Let’s start with ComEd’s assumptions. What did they do wrong? They assumed this offer would be taken at face value. I understand their point, really. It’s basic logic. The state of Illinois is having serious economic difficulty. We can help out with that and, in addition, guarantee ourselves that this recession won’t cut heavily into our own coffers with this offer of a cash influx for a bit of a “in the black” rate guarantee. In their world, that’s a “win-win,” one might say. However, this offer spawned a lot of black visions they didn’t really count on---not in terms of positive revenue but in terms of inferred villainous thoughts.
What the utility didn’t seem to count on was the assumption on the part of consumer groups, state regs and the general government that this offer was the tip of a large iceberg. ComEd never cross-applied the current, angry “anti-big-business” recession mindset to themselves; they never saw that coming. And, to be fair, I don’t think ComEd intended to “Goldman Sachs” the heck out of the Illinois people, but they really should have seen that mindset forming miles down the road, given the state of the economy.
Here’s the bottomline, ComEd: You’re a big business. Right now, Americans hate big business. Additionally, power is something they need. You don’t mess with the basics (even in theory) when the basics are all the people can count on. We may not be able to spend on a new car, but we can at least watch “Billy the Exterminator” each week on A&E as a luxury. Don’t mess with my Billy time (even just in theory). Finally, you offered a concept that’s very different, very new and very unusual. New, different and unusual usually translates, on first glance, as ‘scary.’ The psychology behind this has a lot of problematic layers.
So, no, I don’t believe that ComEd was looking to bait a consumer trap with this cash influx, but the state attorney general and those pesky consumer groups pounced on those assumed problematic layers. They painted ComEd as an electric Mephistopheles looking to benefit on the state’s economic problems with a signed-in-blood devil’s contract and every single consumer would be playing an unwitting Faust in this scenario. And you know what happened to Faust, right?
Is that true? Most certainly not. There’s more than a tad bit of paranoia in that scenario. But, if it bleeds, it leads, as they say in this business---and an assumption like that makes a rather staid story of a potential public/private contract so much more juicy. So, the assumers bled that story good and dry until there was nothing left for ComEd to do but yank the offer off the table and walk away before they disappeared under the growing, giant black hat that had been foisted on them.
In America, we have an odd relationship with business. On the one hand, we want it to thrive. We deregulate, moan about investments, deregulate again---all on the hopes that the perfect competitive market will form and make business a darn good deal. We love the idea of business. On the other hand, even though we cater to businesses, we don’t trust them---especially after the economic issues of the last few years. We don’t see businesses as trying to help the greater good; we always assume that any offer from the business world comes with heavy, waxy strings. We hate the idea of business.
It was those assumed strings---which really didn’t seem to exist in reality---that killed the ComEd offer. It wasn’t a bad concept. ComEd could have gotten some assurances and played the hero. The budget could have gotten a bit of a nice cash influx and moved a bit forward in trying to close that gap in the economy. But, in the end, our human fallacies and our very human suspicion killed that deal before anyone gave the possibilities a chance. Would it have worked? Who’s to say? The state of Illinois lit the structure on fire before they even got a good, long look at the wood. It might have been a Frankenstein; it might have been a friend. We’ll never know.
The whole snafu is really a problem with assumptions---and, as you might recall from the old grade school adage, one becomes a bit of a patootie when one assumes. But, how did this clever, interesting PR and business concept from ComEd go so horribly wrong in such a short amount of time?
Let’s start with ComEd’s assumptions. What did they do wrong? They assumed this offer would be taken at face value. I understand their point, really. It’s basic logic. The state of Illinois is having serious economic difficulty. We can help out with that and, in addition, guarantee ourselves that this recession won’t cut heavily into our own coffers with this offer of a cash influx for a bit of a “in the black” rate guarantee. In their world, that’s a “win-win,” one might say. However, this offer spawned a lot of black visions they didn’t really count on---not in terms of positive revenue but in terms of inferred villainous thoughts.
What the utility didn’t seem to count on was the assumption on the part of consumer groups, state regs and the general government that this offer was the tip of a large iceberg. ComEd never cross-applied the current, angry “anti-big-business” recession mindset to themselves; they never saw that coming. And, to be fair, I don’t think ComEd intended to “Goldman Sachs” the heck out of the Illinois people, but they really should have seen that mindset forming miles down the road, given the state of the economy.
Here’s the bottomline, ComEd: You’re a big business. Right now, Americans hate big business. Additionally, power is something they need. You don’t mess with the basics (even in theory) when the basics are all the people can count on. We may not be able to spend on a new car, but we can at least watch “Billy the Exterminator” each week on A&E as a luxury. Don’t mess with my Billy time (even just in theory). Finally, you offered a concept that’s very different, very new and very unusual. New, different and unusual usually translates, on first glance, as ‘scary.’ The psychology behind this has a lot of problematic layers.
So, no, I don’t believe that ComEd was looking to bait a consumer trap with this cash influx, but the state attorney general and those pesky consumer groups pounced on those assumed problematic layers. They painted ComEd as an electric Mephistopheles looking to benefit on the state’s economic problems with a signed-in-blood devil’s contract and every single consumer would be playing an unwitting Faust in this scenario. And you know what happened to Faust, right?
Is that true? Most certainly not. There’s more than a tad bit of paranoia in that scenario. But, if it bleeds, it leads, as they say in this business---and an assumption like that makes a rather staid story of a potential public/private contract so much more juicy. So, the assumers bled that story good and dry until there was nothing left for ComEd to do but yank the offer off the table and walk away before they disappeared under the growing, giant black hat that had been foisted on them.
In America, we have an odd relationship with business. On the one hand, we want it to thrive. We deregulate, moan about investments, deregulate again---all on the hopes that the perfect competitive market will form and make business a darn good deal. We love the idea of business. On the other hand, even though we cater to businesses, we don’t trust them---especially after the economic issues of the last few years. We don’t see businesses as trying to help the greater good; we always assume that any offer from the business world comes with heavy, waxy strings. We hate the idea of business.
It was those assumed strings---which really didn’t seem to exist in reality---that killed the ComEd offer. It wasn’t a bad concept. ComEd could have gotten some assurances and played the hero. The budget could have gotten a bit of a nice cash influx and moved a bit forward in trying to close that gap in the economy. But, in the end, our human fallacies and our very human suspicion killed that deal before anyone gave the possibilities a chance. Would it have worked? Who’s to say? The state of Illinois lit the structure on fire before they even got a good, long look at the wood. It might have been a Frankenstein; it might have been a friend. We’ll never know.
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