Customer engagement remains an ongoing quest for utilities as they seek to establish a continuous dialogue with homeowners to inform and impel them towards greater energy awareness and efficiency. Engaging customers with data that is meaningful and actionable is not a new challenge. For example, SGCC’s 2016 State of the Consumer report points to “growing interest in renewable and smart energy solutions, and consumers who want access to new energy products.”

Duke Energy is set to launch its AMI program in northern Kentucky this month. Duke Energy Kentucky provides services to some 850,000 electric consumers and 529,000 gas consumers. The AMI is expected to help the utility improve its operations and customer services through the elimination of estimated billing and faster detection of power outages and restoration of services.

Xcel Energy has selected Tendril’s Orchestrated Energy for a new smart thermostat optimization pilot. Xcel Energy customers in Colorado and Minnesota will stand to achieve energy savings by optimizing their smart thermostats with tailored cooling schedules during the heat of summer. The personalized schedules may be able to reduce cooling peak load by up to 50 percent and lower energy consumption from cooling by up to 20 percent.

NYSERDA has launched a new website aimed at connecting businesses and electric utilities, and fostering the development of new ideas and profit models between them. The REV Connect digital portal is a part of the state's REV plan to boost clean energy and reimagine how the utility business model operates.

Drive your electric car to your solar-powered home, plug it in to charge and enjoy the flexibility provided by the oversized battery parked in the driveway. It's a long-sought environmental ideal, but one that may be getting closer to reality as automakers throw their technical expertise and deep pockets more directly into new ventures in the energy business.

America’s energy storage market just had its biggest first quarter in history, and is growing exponentially with GTM Research projecting it to reach roughly 2.6 GW in 2022 – almost 12 times total 2016 market size, with surging deployment in the utility-scale storage projects. This growth opens up tremendous opportunity for storage developers worth $3.2 billion in 2022 and $11 billion cumulatively from 2017-2022.