As consumers, we have been conditioned to expect efficient, seamless and customized interactions with our service providers -- from our phone company to our bank. And we’ve become accustomed to these providers widening their net and delivering a broader array of services over time. Take, for example, credit card companies. Ten years ago, they were a means to an end.

If you have read the classic novel Great Expectations, you will realize that plot twists result in both great opportunities and inevitable surprises. As you launch or grow an analytics initiative, do not follow the lead of Charles Dickens’ characters. Instead, see if this beginner’s guide can help you to minimize the pain and maximize the gain on your analytics journey.

A new housing development in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul will use grid-interactive electric thermal water heaters to enable the Midwest’s first community energy storage project. Country Joe Homes’ Legacy 2 development in Lakeville is building 79 homes over the next two years. Each home will have 80-gallon water heaters manufactured by Steffes Corp.

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission last week approved two new solar programs for customers interested in rooftop panels or energy storage in an effort to expand those resources while also clarifying the terms of existing programs to provide greater certainty. The PUC approved a “Smart Export” program which offers a new option for customers installing rooftop solar combined with battery storage.

Will making customer rebates more convenient transform the energy landscape? Simple Energy thinks so. For the past few years, the Boulder-based startup has been developing and deploying utility-branded marketplaces equipped with instant rebates, which allow customers to apply for an incentive at the point of purchase. This week, Simple Energy announced it’s opening up its API so that customers can also instantly validate and redeem rebates in third-party marketplaces.

When I sat down to talk to Gil C. Quiniones, the president and CEO of the New York Power Authority (NYPA), about the state’s transformative strategies for this installment of our New York State of Energy blog series, he’d just returned from hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico two days before. Despite his focus on getting back to running the largest state public power utility in the U.S., the plight of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) was still weighing on him.