Justin Segall, President and Founder at Simple Energy, answers several questions about the challenges and opportunities currently affecting the energy management market:

What do you think is the most challenging issue for your company as it relates to the residential energy management market?

Utility and regulatory decision making and innovation cycles. Historically, regulatory models incentivize utility companies to do ‘just enough’, which does not foster an environment of innovation or a drive to develop models that leverage the digital world and connected smart devices. The process for adoption of these innovations is inefficient, and leaves utility company’s stuck in the ‘status quo.’ Changing this approach efficiently and effectively is Simple Energy and our utility partners’ biggest challenge.

What are the major challenges that your business must address in 2015? 2020?

Utility companies have to decide if they want to be a poles-and-wires company or an energy service provider. The question is then if they want to have that customer service relationship.

From a Simple Energy perspective we are set up to enable the engagement and experience factors for utility customers to help utilities build that relationship. With the entry of new players in the space from device manufacturers to distributed energy providers, the changes for the next five years will be who is leading the energy customer interaction. If utilities step further into the energy services ecosystem, they can be an enabler of it -- or outside providers will continue to disintermediate them.

What are the major barriers impacting consumer adoption of energy related products and services?

The major barriers impacting consumer adoption boil down to motivation and action.

• Motivation - energy is a low interest category. Stop talking about energy and appeal to the personal motivation of the consumer in a way that yields action.
• Action - all too often the process to buy energy related products and services are complicated and take too much time. Lowering the hurdles for customers to jump over (e.g. streamlined purchases and rebates) will increase adoption.

What are the biggest opportunities for the smart home industry to work with the electricity industry?

The historic model for program delivery by the electricity industry is changing. Rather than a pure command and control where the utility picks the devices, installs and manages them - a model that enables customer choice is evolving. The smart home industry can provide a tailor made solution by providing cost competitive solutions that have high customer appeal and help the electric industry meet its energy and demand management needs.

What impact will smart products and smart home services have on consumer adoption and energy solutions?

Smart products and smart home services will accelerate the adoption of other energy services and vice versa. Getting a consumer to change their behavior and allowing the right messaging delivered at the right time through ones smart device is a way to do this. Customers are more likely to adopt this model as it proves convenient and easy to digest.  If you want mass adoption in the market, there needs a way to meet a customer where they are and continue to move them up the adoption cycle.

People can get excited about it. Traditional energy management and deciphering data can be boring. By making the process engaging and fun, and by appealing to other motivations smart products and services can be the next step for many customers and the first step for others.

Justin Segall will be speaking on the panel “Utility Perspectives: Market Impact of New Business Models” at 9:00 AM during Smart Energy Summit in Austin, TX, February 17, 2015. He will be joined by other company representatives from Austin Energy, Schneider Electric, Tendril, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

For more information on Smart Energy Summit speakers, sessions, or topics, visit www.ses2015.com. Registration is still open!

Next: Schneider Electric: Relatively Low Financial Impact of Energy Efficiency for a Household Impacts Consumer Adoption of Energy Management Solutions
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