President’s Posts

SECC’s President & CEO Nathan Shannon shares monthly insights on the relationship between energy consumers and smart energy technology.

Who Are the Tech-Cautious Savers?

At 25 percent of the U.S. general population, the Tech-Cautious Savers are an essential segment for electricity providers and other stakeholders to understand – not only because of their size, but because they are among the most financially vulnerable and least engaged consumers.
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What Do Americans Think About Home Solar and Battery Storage?

As electricity providers grapple with significant demand growth in the years ahead, customer-sited distributed energy resources (DERs), like rooftop solar and battery storage, are set to play an increasingly important role in maintaining grid reliability and resiliency.
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Three Reasons to Attend SECC’s 2025 Members Meeting

As a membership-based nonprofit organization, the annual Members Meeting & Fall Workshop is a highlight of SECC’s calendar. The event shapes the work that we do, allows members to connect with one another and delivers cutting-edge consumer insights.
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Americans Are Struggling with Their Electric Bills. Here’s What to Know.

When the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) launched its Smart Energy Snapshot Series with the “Alleviating Americans’ Energy Burdens” survey in June 2023, American households were dealing with high energy costs as the economy recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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What We Learned About the Utility-Customer Relationship in 2024

As the energy transition continues, engaging consumers in smart energy programs and services will become increasingly essential in ensuring grid stability, achieving clean energy targets and advancing toward a smarter, more sustainable energy future for all.
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What Are Consumers’ Concerns with Winter DR?

As energy providers increasingly turn to demand response to maintain grid stability and ensure customer comfort over the winter months, SECC conducted a nationwide survey to uncover consumers’ interests, concerns and preferences around participating in such a program.
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Do Americans Want Winter Demand Response?

Faced with growing challenges in managing demand during the winter due to extreme weather events, electrification and other factors, energy providers are increasingly turning to winter demand response programs to maintain grid stability and ensure customer comfort.
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What’s the Ideal Energy Message?

Today’s consumers are navigating a complex landscape of energy messages that may at times feel overwhelming. Messages on a variety of topics are being delivered by their electricity providers, the government and retailers, to name just a few sources, and through many channels (e.g., email, TV, social media, mail and radio). In this landscape, which messages are most likely to resonate?
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How Do Consumers Feel About Utility Communications?

It’s an understatement to say that energy messages targeting consumers come from all sorts of places – manufacturers, retailers, electricity providers, government, etc. – and through a variety of media, including email, TV, social media, mail, radio and more.
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What We’ve Learned About Consumers This Year

2024 has been another year of change and challenge for energy consumers – but also one of opportunity. We’ve seen inflation continue, extreme weather events occur across the country and a somewhat bumpy road for electric vehicles (EVs) emerge at times.
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Who Are Spanish-Speaking Energy Consumers?

To better understand the energy-related needs and interests of Spanish-speaking consumers, we recently conducted the “Don’t Leave Us in the Dark: Engaging Spanish-Speaking Households” survey, the latest installment in the Smart Energy Snapshot Series.
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Three Key Takeaways from the Smart Energy Snapshot Series

To stay current on a wider range of topics and keep pace with fast-moving consumer expectations, we launched the Smart Energy Snapshot Series in the summer of 2023. This new research series quickly captures Americans’ thoughts on timely energy-related topics via brief, nationally representative surveys.
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How Do Consumers View AI for Home Energy Usage?

2024 may very well be recorded as a significant year in the history of artificial intelligence (AI). While ChatGPT, a watershed AI technology, officially celebrated its first birthday near the end of 2023, AI systems have seemingly entered the mainstream this year.
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How Do Small Businesses View Their Electricity Providers?

SMBs can be notoriously difficult for electricity providers to engage – they represent a wide variety of business types; they typically do not have staff dedicated to managing their energy usage; and programs haven’t historically been tailored to their needs, which means the customer relationship often hasn’t been developed.
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Are Small Businesses Interested in Electrifying?

SMBs are often considered the backbone of the American economy – yet, when it comes to energy, they can sometimes get lost in the mix between residential customers who comprise the largest number of customers and larger commercial and industrial customers that generally have dedicated account management teams.
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What Are Consumers’ Cost Concerns Around EVs?

This year has witnessed numerous doomsday headlines for the electric vehicle (EV) market as new car sales temporarily leveled off and some stakeholders, such as Hertz, Ford and GM, shifted their near-term strategies around electric transportation. What does SECC’s latest Snapshot Survey have to say about the future of EVs?
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Are Consumers Happy with Their Electricity Providers?

Investments in modernizing the electric grid have enabled a sea change in the relationship between consumers and their electricity providers. Consumers today have access to many new programs, rate plans and technologies that can help them meet their energy goals.
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Are Consumers Engaging with Their Energy Usage Data?

Over the past decade, the number of smart meters in the United States has grown from less than 60 million to roughly 130 million, representing an 80-percent penetration rate. At the same time, smart home devices – particularly smart thermostats – have gone from a nascent industry to commonplace in American households.
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