Successful Retail Products From the People Who Made Them So
Monday, October 1 - Wednesday, October 3, 2007
San Francisco, CA
This seminar has concluded.
Baseball has its World Series. Hollywood has its Oscars. And the energy industry has
its "Successful Retail Products from the People Who Made Them So." Yes, it's that
time of the year again for successful product managers to "show and share" their
product and pricing stories with you.
Listen to and talk with this year's nominees for outstanding product achievement. For
two and a half days you can immerse yourself in information delivered to you by field-experienced
industry peers who have been refining their product portfolio and pushing
the envelope.
This seminar offers you the opportunity to talk directly with the people who designed
and launched these products.
Speakers: Partial listing, see brochure for complete program
Mike O'Sheasy: Christensen Associates Energy Consulting
Pre-Seminar Workshop: Fundamentals of Rate Design
It's time to "recreate" the wheel-the standard, backbone rates
that your utility depends upon to cover revenue requirements.
Not "reinvent" the wheel, but recreate it based upon today's contemporary
costs and circumstances. Let's face it, many of your primary rates
were probably created in the '80s and since then you've been tweaking
them on a pro-rata basis based upon commission rulings. Consequently,
do your original block rates, time-of-use rates, hours-of-use
or demand rates, etc. still send the right cost-based price signals
to your customers? Maybe, but probably not. The original designers
of your backbone rates may not even be on your payroll anymore.
In addition, you may also be in an unbundled world and in need
of recreating some standard rates for your new world. Well, help
is here: no "tweaking," just the "how to" for creating standard
products based upon given objectives!
Dan Hansen: Christensen Associates Energy Consulting
Revenue Decoupling: Does it Provide an Answer to Correcting
Incentives to Promote Conservation?
Traditional regulated rates recover at least some fixed costs
through volumetric rates. This link between sales and revenue
recovery creates a disincentive for the utility to promote conservation
and energy efficiency, as reductions in sales below expected levels
lower the utility's realized rate of return. Revenue decoupling
mechanisms, which attempt to remove (or "decouple") the link between
sales and revenues, have been proposed as one means of removing
this disincentive. This half-day session will:
- Review the rationale behind revenue decoupling.
- Discuss the arguments made for and against decoupling by
utilities, consumer groups, and environmental organizations.
- Describe the different decoupling mechanisms that have been
used in both electricity and natural gas markets.
- Provide illustrations of how revenue decoupling mechanisms
work in practice.
- Describe the pros and cons of alternatives to decoupling,
including:
- Straight fixed variable rates
- Lost revenue adjustments
- Statistical re-coupling
Mark Martinez: Southern California Edison
Developing New Paradigms for Demand Response in California
This session will cover:
- The difference between reliability and price responsive
programs.
- Why and to whom it is important.
- Three basic questions for DR programs in the future—what
is it worth, who's in charge, and how much do we need?
- The Rise of the Aggregator—is outsourcing the answer?
- New concepts for DR-cafeteria-style program design, meterless
settlement, and the Home Depot section called "Enabling Technologies."
Bob Hughes: Georgia Power
FlatBill Select: Fixed Billing for Your Business Customers
Bob will describe why medium-sized customers find value in fixed bill
just like mass-market customers have. This session describes a pilot that is an outgrowth
of the successful Georgia Power residential FlatBill program, called FlatBill Select.
- Why offer the product?
- Who is the target market: small- and medium-sized business customers?
- Why they participate?
- Results.
Lynn England: GoodCents
Customer Viewpoints on Demand Response Product Options
- Why customers want to participate before they try it.
- What customers think of the program.
- What customers think of the equipment.
- What customers think after they try it.
- How often customers interact with the system.
Anthony Star: CNT Energy
Residential Real-Time Pricing: From Pilot to Scale
From 2003 through 2006, the Chicago-based Community Energy Cooperative ran the nation's first residential real-time pricing pilot program.
- Why did the Community Energy Cooperative develop this program?
- How did participants in the program do? Did they save money and change energy use? Did they like it?
- How have policy makers in Illinois embraced residential real-time pricing as part of the ongoing transformation of the market?
- How does real-time pricing create the potential for lower energy prices, and new and expanded energy efficiency programs and technologies?
Jan Moore: Direct Options
Using Data to Identify, Develop, and Promote Rates and Tariffs that Meet Customer Needs
Mark Weaver: Georgia Power
Lessons From the Largest, Most Mature RTP program in the Country
What is Real-Time Pricing (RTP) at Georgia Power?
- Results at Georgia Power using RTP.
- How can we have RTP and not harm other customers, or how it can help other customers?
- Demand response results from RTP pricing.
- RTP options and alternatives for Georgia Power customers.
Lorrie Maggio: Progress Energy
The Fixed-Bill Program—One Size Doesn’t Fit All
While a fixed-bill product has been around for many years, it has been a "one-size-fits-all" offering. Lorrie will reveal how her utility is looking to change this
product to meet changing customer needs and internal company strategy.
Angela Nichols: OGE Energy Corp.
Fixed Billing: All You Can Eat Electrons?!
Do these customers "pig out" at the electron buffet or do they count their kWh calories? And do they "party hearty" especially when others are hungry too?
Preliminary results of a Summer 2007 evaluation of response by residential and commercial customers to a permanent fixed-bill program.
David Wade: EPB of Chattanooga
FlatBill Products for Public Power? Yes!
This innovative product has seen success in the investor-owned utility markets, but would the same success be seen by public utilities?
- Why would a public utility offer a FixedBill type product?
- How have customers responded to FixedBill?
- Next steps.
Jim Thompson: Gulf Power
Critical Peak Pricing—One Approach
Reaping the scale economies in large-scale demand response—an update on the nation's leading CPP program, GoodCents SELECT, the multiple award-winning
Residential Price Responsive Load Management Program at Gulf Power. Jim will provide insight into how Gulf Power developed a customer-focused
program that incorporates sensible rate design with customer automation. This innovative demand-response program provides substantial peak load
reduction while allowing choice, control, and savings for the customer.
Monamee Adhikari: Georgia Power
Critical Peak Pricing Using the Carrot not the Stick—Another Approach
Hear about a new concept for residential customers. Learn how one utility is planning to use an incentive or reward program to achieve demand response
rather than a penalty for not taking action during a critical peak period, while at the same time taking advantage of the AMI technology for billing and
interfacing with the customer.
Giuliana Rossini: Hydro One Networks Inc.
A Real-Time Display that Delivered a 6.5% Reduction in Power—and Without a “Reward” Program!
Learn about Hydro One's successful completion of supplying 30,000 of its conservation-conscious electricity customers with in-home power usage displays.
- Hear how the deployment of in-home power usage displays has enhanced Hydro One's customer satisfaction levels.
- Assessment of a pilot program which demonstrated customers saved, on average, 6.5% in their electricity consumption if they had an in-home display.
©2008 Christensen Associates Energy Consulting, LLC
