Microgrids: Game Changing Solutions (Webinar)

Editor's Notes

• #7 Smart Grid solutions are gamechangers for utilities – you will need to transition from limited ratepayer engagement models to multi-channel consumer engagement and enlightenment models. Most business focus on growth models. Utilities have always been able to grow without selling more because consumers use more anyway. Now how will you adjust to no growth or reduced usage. And if you are thinking that the status of your utility will never change, just remember: “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin
• #8 These are the components of our Consumer Focus Strategy. Our topic today focuses on communications and education for internal and external audiences, and these activities are tightly integrated to Change Management. As we’ve said before, the Smart Grid is transformational, and the transformations that occur within a utility are as vitally important as the transformations that consumers will face with electricity. Therefore, we always start with Change Management as the first step in the Consumer Focus Roadmap to create the right foundation for the technology, process, people, and cultural changes to support consumer-centric operations. We’ll talk more about some of the other components of the Consumer Focus Strategy at upcoming seminars in July and August, so just offer this very brief overview of the Consumer Focus model. Benchmarks are key to fully assess your investments in any introduction of new technologies or services, because you can create a snapshot of before and after the project is completed. Benchmarks give you a foundation to set specific goals or key performance indicators to monitor overall program progress and achievement of goals. The Consumer Focus Model offers the end state vision of how you want to communicate, educate, engage, and enlighten consumers. Its akin to having a destination for a vacation trip. You may not know exactly what restaurants you’ll be dining at on that San Francisco vacation trip, but you know you’re going to San Fran, and that alone drives a lot of decisions. Budget, project plans with risk mitigation and the proper technology foundation are the other important elements to address to ensure successful transformations.
• #9 The Change management team has to first focus on a communications plan for internal audiences, and then build the external plan. These are some of the most important considerations to build internal and external communications plans. We’ll explore each of them in more detail in following slides. Risk Communications - This approach is based on research into risk perception factors that are common among people – regardless of gender, culture, age, ethnicity and so on. Message layers – communicating Smart Grid project benefits generally challenge the short attention spans of most humans. This process of consistent message building blocks overcomes that problem Resource Alignment – your careful planning about messages can be blown away by an unprepared messenger. Our methodology addresses that concern. Communication touchpoints – we have an abundance of channels to deliver messages, and our approach helps you identify and master the relevant ones for any internal or external communications plan. Communications plans are translated into tasks with deadlines, resources, dependencies, and budgets, and must be documented in the project plan for your Smart grid initiative. It’s the only way to track that your messages are aligned with project milestones, and is an easy way to manage accountability.
• #10 Smart Grid solutions are gamechangers for utilities – you will need to transition from limited ratepayer engagement models to multi-channel consumer engagement and enlightenment models. Most business focus on growth models. Utilities have always been able to grow without selling more because consumers use more anyway. Now how will you adjust to no growth or reduced usage. And if you are thinking that the status of your utility will never change, just remember: “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin
• #11 Devolution, from a biological perspective, means a degeneration. From a civics perspective, it means a descent down or a transfer of power. Your communications plan, a key tool in effective change management tactics, is equally applicable to internal and external audiences. We’ve consulted with clients in a range of industries, and the trend is unmistakable – companies want to build opportunities to add products and/or services to increase the revenues per customer. While many utilities currently enjoy a natural monopoly for delivery of electricity, the potential is there for intermediation. Therefore, utilities that want to not only survive but thrive in this disruptive environment introduced by Smart Grid solutions need to organize operations to build trusted advisor relationships with consumers that create significant barriers to entry for competing energy service providers.