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Published on January 27, 2014
Author: GaldeMerkline
Source: slideshare.net
The New Energy Consumer Handbook
Contents Foreword 03 1 Executive summary 06 2 Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 14 3 The energy marketplace currents of change 30 4 Structuring for success: An enterprise view of customer operations 48 5 Core competencies of the next-generation energy provider 58 5.1 Delivering operational excellence 66 5.2 Optimizing consumer interaction 84 5.3 Creating lasting consumer engagement 106 5.4 Extending the value proposition 141 6 The change-capable energy provider 172 Conclusion 185 Special report: Small and medium businesses: The untapped energy consumer 186 Special report: Retail revisited: New energy market strategies 212 2 The New Energy Consumer Handbook
Foreword For utilities, the foundation of the energy marketplace is shifting. Increasingly, business models and operational approaches of the past are being stretched to their limits, and a tipping point is approaching. Providers face a market in flux with a range of disruptive forces: increasing adoption of microgeneration in Germany and Australia, new regulatory mandates encouraging competition in the United Kingdom, the rise of natural gas in North America, and a growing focus on consumers in Asia and South America—to name a few. The landscape for providers is being reshaped by a confluence of diverse, changing consumer preferences, technology innovation, shifting regulatory trends and an undercurrent of sustainability. Amid this change and uncertainty, there are incredible new opportunities to engage consumers, reduce costs, increase revenue and deliver on demandmanagement objectives. But to seize these opportunities, many providers are being challenged to rethink their relationships with consumers and their role in the marketplace more broadly. The specific challenges and opportunities vary across markets; however, the bottom line is the same: The status quo is no longer an option. Historically, providers have thrived in an environment of growing energy demand and consumer engagement focused on a standard set of commodity-centric value propositions. As consumer, technology and regulatory demands have shifted, many organizations have added layer upon layer of new capabilities—in turn adding complexity and cost and, in many cases, unintentionally contributing to consumer dissatisfaction. In this environment of uncertainty and market disruption, energy providers must reinvent their organizations with a focus on simplification, agility and flexibility. Such a foundation will allow providers to pursue new opportunities and address challenges with speed and certainty, regardless of how the market unfolds. Establishing a roadmap for change is difficult in the best of times and, facing widespread uncertainty, the challenge for energy providers has intensified. It is against this backdrop that the New Energy Consumer Handbook was developed. It draws upon four consecutive years of end-consumer research, analysis of consumer and technology trends, insights from leading energy providers, cross-industry experience and Accenture's knowledge of managing utility customer operations. The chapters offer our latest observations and insights on successful strategies providers are implementing today and a vision of the competencies that will be critical to success in the future. Greg Guthridge Managing director Accenture Energy Consumer Services Many of the concepts and insights discussed in the handbook are universal and apply equally to competitive and noncompetitive energy markets. Understanding that there are differing priorities based on the regulatory environment, the handbook draws attention to those differences, and we have specifically included a discussion of the trends in competitive markets within the section Special report: Retail revisited: New energy market strategies. The shift underway is reshaping the industry landscape and, regardless of the regulatory environment, new market entrants are beginning to play a role. They are engaging consumers with innovative value propositions and staking their claim to parts of the energy value chain that increasingly extends into homes and businesses. Providers must move decisively to build a foundation for the future. I hope this handbook provides you with fresh ideas and actionable insights that help to frame the journey ahead and inspire dynamic new approaches to succeed in the evolving energy marketplace. Foreword 3
Navigating the handbook Welcome to the third edition of our New Energy Consumer Handbook. The handbook offers a view of global trends shaping the marketplace and emerging disruptions that are changing the industry. It includes case studies of leading providers who are establishing innovative approaches to creating value for themselves and for consumers. Despite continued market uncertainty, providers understand they must act now to establish core competencies that will serve as a foundation for success regardless of how the marketplace develops. To this end, in this current edition, new chapters have been added to help providers identify tactical approaches and define a roadmap for the future. 4 The New Energy Consumer Handbook The updates to the handbook offer a fresh view of the challenges and opportunities ahead while also providing a practical view of the competencies needed for the future. Perhaps most importantly, the handbook offers actionable steps on how providers can start to build for the future today. Each section of The New Energy Consumer Handbook will resonate differently with each provider based on the specific market context and operational priorities. For those who have read previous editions, new content has been added throughout and two new special reports have been created to bring an in-depth view of the opportunity to engage small and medium businesses and the shifting dynamics of competitive retail energy markets. The handbook is organized into six main sections and two special reports: 1. Executive summary. An overview of industry concepts, external market forces and emerging core competencies discussed throughout the handbook. 2. Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace. Discussion of the macro trends creating opportunities and challenges in the energy ecosystem. 3. The energy marketplace currents of change. Analysis of disruptive trends within the industry and strategic business models for the consumerfacing utility.
4. Structuring for success: An enterprise view of customer operations. Discussion of the shifting nature of the energy experience and the need for providers to break down operational silos to become more consumer-centric. 5. Core competencies of the nextgeneration energy providers. An exploration of the core competencies that will form the foundation for success in the evolving energy marketplace. Explores four emerging competencies: 5.1 Delivering operational excellence. How will providers simplify operations to remove consumer "dissatisfiers" and create a rhythm of continuous improvement? 5.2 Optimizing consumer interaction. How will providers reduce costs and improve the consumer experience with shifting channel preferences and rising expectations for digital experiences? 5.3 Creating lasting consumer engagement. How will providers establish long-term satisfaction and loyalty by engaging consumers in new and innovative ways? 5.4 Extending the value proposition. How will successful energy providers tap into innovation to craft new consumer-oriented value propositions and capitalize on emerging opportunities? We hope this handbook provides new ideas, tangible examples and actionable next steps to address the challenges ahead, while also offering insights to help capture new opportunities as the energy marketplace continues to evolve. 6. The change-capable energy provider. Factors that will help solidify change and establish an ongoing competency, including the new requirements for talent in the new energy workforce. 7. Special report: Small and medium businesses: The untapped energy consumer. Drawing on Accenture's global survey of small and medium businesses, the report explores the opportunities for engaging the "neglected middle." 8. Special report: Retail revisited: New energy market strategies Analysis of competitive energy markets focusing on trends and leading strategies across the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Foreword 5
1 Executive summary Consumer, technology and regulatory changes are creating an increasingly complex energy ecosystem—one that is testing utilities' ability to evolve. Energy providers will continue feeling the effects of critical trends in product innovation, shifting interaction paradigms, innovative partnerships and the changing role of data in consumers' daily lives. Successful providers will focus on establishing new competencies while perfecting the operational basics that enable high performance. 6 The New Energy Consumer Handbook
Executive summary 7
Utilities have largely delivered on the core purpose of the energy value chain: to provide safe, reliable, low-cost energy. While that purpose remains important, achieving it is no longer enough to drive success. Around the world, utilities are facing fundamental changes. Energy consumers' expectations are increasing, technological advances are creating exponential step-change, and regulatory and market forces are fueling complex, sometimes contradictory, priorities for providers. In short, marketplaces are transforming and creating new strategic challenges and operational pressures that cannot be ignored. Energy consumerism and technology advances are creating a powerful force of change Recognizing the fundamental shifts underway, many providers have begun the journey to becoming more consumer focused. While there has been success in certain areas of the business, for many utilities, step-change transformation remains elusive. Nevertheless, energy consumerism is on the rise, with consumers seeking smarter solutions for home energy management and other lifestyle products and services. As consumers increasingly turn their attention to products and services enabled by renewable energy advances and beyond-the-meter technologies, the evolving energy marketplace is taking different shapes and forms around the world. Regardless of geography, the challenge is clear. To address the needs of the New Energy Consumer, utilities must bring focus and discipline to current operations while finding ways to continue building the next-generation competencies that will define "business as usual" in the future. Consumers are advancing as well, becoming more mobile, more social and increasingly interconnected. Around the world, mobile and Web adoption is not only fundamentally shifting channels of interaction, but also enabling entirely new value propositions centered on convenience-oriented "set-and-forget" solutions. Social media has also matured to a point where it has become a viable tool for marketing, sales and service. 8 The New Energy Consumer Handbook Innovative utilities and vendors are engaging consumers through social media and building a next generation of applications that bring together new channels, new technologies and deeper consumer insights to create a social and entertaining energy experience. In large part, technology is the primary driver for increasing consumer expectations, as it has unleashed exponential change in functionality and information available to the energy industry. For example, smart technology is enabling a new era of mobile applications and integration with emerging channels for consumer communications. Accenture analysis and experience suggest that 40 to 60 percent of core meter-to-cash processes will need to be redesigned with the introduction of a full suite of inhome smart technology and supporting consumer programs and services. Smart meter rollouts are continuing globally, with regulation driving large rollouts in such markets as the United Kingdom and France. High-profile challenges with consumer engagement in some regions have underscored the need to develop, communicate and deliver on compelling consumer value propositions for smart metering investments. Intertwined with smart metering, "big data" has emerged as another disruptive force. Big data requires utilities to develop innovative new approaches to analytics and data architecture. It also creates opportunities to monetize information. Changing regulations and a new sustainable mindset are quickly changing the energy landscape Partly in response to consumer demands and emerging technologies, regulatory and market forces are also influencing the landscape. Regulators are seeking to balance requirements to upgrade and invest in infrastructure with the cost impact on energy consumers. In some geographies, a wave of market liberalization likely will bring new entrants and new innovations. In other regions, pressure from consumer groups and governments is leading to new rules that likely will spur energy providers to refocus on consumer engagement and satisfaction. Sustainability is gaining momentum on regulatory, government, consumer and corporate agendas—so much so that it is increasingly woven into the fabric of business as usual. The shift toward renewables and increasing adoption of distributed generation by both commercial and residential consumers is creating a wave of new opportunities for utilities. It is also straining infrastructure and creating a need to shift the revenue mix away from what has long been the core product: energy. Industry convergence is bringing new competitors while extending the energy value proposition Industries are beginning to converge, driven in part by shifts in consumer behavior, technology trends, regulatory demands and the rise of sustainability. In noncompetitive energy markets, other providers are entering the beyond-themeter market with products and services designed to complement the commodity provided by the regulated utility. In competitive markets, energy companies are competing against each other, individually vying for a broader share of consumer spend. Some nontraditional providers are eyeing energy as a means of increasing their share of spend and customer retention. Across markets, new entrants—including consumer goods and telecommunications companies— are making bold moves into the home, offering energy audits and advice, integrated home monitoring solutions and home energy generation packages. As a diverse set of new entrants emerge in many markets, they are competing for value with energy-related products and services (see Figure 1). In some cases, the challenge from new entrants is product- or service-oriented; in others, it stems from the strength of their brand reputation and consumer relationship. Regardless of the offerings or roles these organizations pursue in the energy marketplace, it is clear that many have the capabilities and experience to attract and retain consumers and create innovative new energy-related value propositions.
Figure 1. New players present opportunities and threats to a utility's consumer base. Co mm er c Ut ili Grocery retailer MultiMulticommodity commodity utility utility General goods retailer SingleSingle commodity commodity utility utility Demand aggregator Home improvement retailer Beyondthe-meter value Electronics retailer Online service provider Electronics manufacturer Telecommunications provider Network communications manufacturer Internet service provider Today, utilities remain consumers' first point of contact regarding energy and energy-related purchases. As beyond-themeter opportunities increase, competition across commodity providers will increase: • Commercial retailers can combine the sale of energy-related products with installation and management services. These providers generally have strong physical retail footprints, which they can leverage to educate and engage consumers on products and services. By nature, these companies have customer-centric operations and strong brand awareness among consumers. Wireless provider ic rv se me Ho e a uf an M Home security provider Automotive manufacturer pr ov ide rs Home maintenance provider Equipment manufacturer ct ur er s ers ail et lr ia s tie Because mind share will be important, these retailers pose a credible challenge to utilities. • Home service providers are adept at using high volumes of data to create consumer profiles and target products accordingly. In some markets, these providers are already emerging as competitors, selling energy at discounted rates in order to expand their share of consumer spend and increase customer loyalty. • Manufacturers see opportunities to help build ubiquitous network access and interoperable communication devices. Executive summary 9
Market currents are shaping a marketplace of accelerated change and disruption Core competencies are emerging that will define who will succeed in creating and capturing value As a range of market forces redefine the energy marketplace, market trends are also redefining the playing field. These currents of change highlight disruptions shaping future key challenges and opportunities. In many ways, response to these disruptions will define how utilities will evolve and the kinds of energy providers they will be in the future. Delivering on consumers' need for 24/7 access and increased choice will reshape product offerings and further blur lines between the commodity and additional products and services. As utilities evolve, they will need to strengthen their focus on innovation, product development and consumer insight while developing a diverse set of partners that enable renewed relevance and value creation. As the marketplace is being redefined from the outside in, so must providers redefine themselves from the inside out. Indeed, in many cases the way utilities have been built has made it increasingly difficult to respond effectively to the change and disruption that defines the evolving marketplace. The status quo for many utilities is accelerating dissatisfaction among consumers. Siloed business units, rigid processes and fractured customer experiences are increasingly visible. In fact, Accenture believes that many providers could reduce controllable operational spend by as much as 30 percent simply by addressing the critical consumer "dissatisfiers"—an approach we call the economics of dissatisfaction. To be successful in the evolving energy marketplace, utilities will need to take deliberate action. They must embrace a bold vision in reformulating their strategies and understanding, reaching and engaging new energy consumers. In many markets, small changes may not be sufficient. Instead, energy providers will need to determine if new business models are required to respond to the emerging opportunities and challenges. By doing this, providers can take proactive steps to shape the energy marketplace and stake a claim to increasingly sought-after opportunities. Furthermore, as the scope of customer operations expands to include new programs, products and services, complexity will increase. This will magnify operational challenges and drive a vicious cycle of added cost and stagnated customer satisfaction. 10 The New Energy Consumer Handbook Increasingly, business as usual is not an option. However, facing a marketplace filled with disruption and uncertainty has made developing long-term strategies and practical next steps challenging. Within this environment, utilities should look inward to unravel years of operational history that have often led to layers of complexity. Going forward, providers should relentlessly focus on simplification, flexibility and agility. Using this lens, providers will need to build four core competencies that will create a basis for success regardless of how the evolving marketplace unfolds. While there is no single "right" roadmap, Accenture believes that focusing on delivering operational excellence, optimizing consumer interaction, creating lasting consumer engagement and extending the value proposition will holistically define successful energy providers of the future. These competencies are key to remaining relevant and profitable and to delivering on the shifting expectations of consumers, employees, regulators, governments, shareholders and society at large. Tapping into new talent and becoming "change capable" will enable energy providers to excel in the face of disruption Change is not a simple process, particularly for established utilities with a long, successful history of reliable energy delivery and customer satisfaction. However, disruption and the need to change are seemingly omnipresent in the energy marketplace, with no signs of a slowing pace. Thus, evolution is not only inevitable, but also brings a need for new types of talent. Indeed, there is a widening gap between the skills of today and the skills that will be required in the future. As providers look to engage consumers, leverage big data and become more than commodity providers, a new set of employees will emerge. These workers require greater skills, greater specialization and more education. In many cases, they will represent a new generation with different expectations of their employers. Evolving to meet changing consumer demands will also mean evolving to meet different talent demands. To that end, providers need to explore new talent pools and work quickly to attract and retain the high-value talent of tomorrow—individuals who may not view the utility industry as their first choice for employment.
Changing talent, changing technology, changing consumers—as utilities work to respond to the forces shaping the marketplace and to develop new core competencies, they must take a truly methodical approach to establishing agility and flexibility within operations. In the past, change programs were often part of large system implementations and were designed to be one-time initiatives. Facing a cycle of continuous change, providers must embed change and make it part of everyday operations. Engaging the untapped middle Not as large as commercial consumers, but also not the same as residential consumers—small and medium businesses (SMBs) are often a "neglected middle" for utilities. But as utilities look for growth opportunities and new strategies to drive step-change improvement in consumer engagement, SMBs are emerging as a key opportunity. Accenture's 2013 global research, Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, shows that SMBs have a range of unique values and preferences when it comes to energy. In fact, SMBs report that they expect solutions from their energy providers targeted to their businesses, and although they do not feel they are receiving them today, many would be willing to pay for such solutions. To engage SMBs and capitalize on the opportunities they offer, utilities must move quickly to define and deliver value for this sometimesoverlooked group of consumers. The retail renaissance is upon us The long-awaited renaissance of competitive retail energy markets is now upon us. Spurred by innovative new value propositions for energy and other products and services, competitive energy marketplaces are driving renewed consumer engagement and expanded revenue opportunities. However, extending into new areas requires new capabilities and a nimbleness to compete with a diverse group of new entrants in the energy marketplace. At the same time, consumer and government pressures have also brought a renewed focus on simplicity and transparency. So while the opportunities are great, so too are the challenges, not least of which is achieving profitable growth in a time of squeezed margins and fierce competition. While many providers have already begun to explore new products and services, going forward, success will increasingly be determined by speed to market. Competitive energy providers must continue to build nimble consumeroriented organizations that can quickly identify and react to new opportunities. Executive summary 11
Conclusion A new, more dynamic energy marketplace continues to take shape. More active consumerism, advancing technologies, regulatory shifts and a focus on sustainability are changing the industry as we know it. Industry convergence is bringing new competitors but also creating new value propositions with the potential to redefine how consumers use energy and interact with their providers. In this environment of disruptive change, utilities have incredible opportunities to become dynamic, consumer-focused organizations at the leading edge of shaping a new energy marketplace. But this is a pivotal point and the decisions made today will define the role of energy providers in the future. Hanging in the balance is not only the energy consumer relationship but also the longterm relevance of energy providers. 12 The New Energy Consumer Handbook Developing a roadmap for the future in the face of uncertainty and disruption is a significant challenge. Providers must work to establish operations, technology platforms and a workforce that can respond with speed and agility as opportunities emerge. Ultimately, this requires new competencies for reinventing the consumer-facing organization and delivering on the promise of a new era of customer operations.
Accenture's New Energy Consumer research program Accenture undertook the multiyear New Energy Consumer research program to help gas, electricity and water utilities understand emerging consumer needs and preferences, to identify new challenges and opportunities and to bring focus to the critical competencies required to succeed in the evolving energy marketplace. Over the past four years, the initiative has collected consumer insights from interviews with more than 40,000 end consumers around the world. For more information on the survey methodology and sample, see page 250. The program also incorporates global market perspectives from secondary research, market analysis and experience working with some of the world's leading energy providers. Taking a holistic view of the marketplace, the program also incorporates insights from a survey of customer executives with 20 leading utilities and an in-depth analysis of technologies that are reshaping the consumer energy marketplace. Specifically, across four years of endconsumer research, the initiative has explored a range of topics including: • 2010 - Understanding Consumer Preferences in Energy Efficiency offers a consumer view to support the increasing industry focus on smart metering and demand management. This first global study produced valuable insights into consumer preferences in energy efficiency, awareness, readiness and willingness to take action. • 2013 - Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience looks to the path ahead for energy providers addressing key consumer "dissatisfiers" and offers insights to help deliver on the diverse expectations and needs of residential consumers and SMBs. • 2011 - Revealing the Values of the New Energy Consumer explores the emergence of a new energy marketplace through a worldwide end-consumer survey looking at preferences, opinions and priorities in beyond-the-meter products and services offered by utilities or other emerging providers. • 2012 - Actionable Insights for the New Energy Consumer focuses on digging deeper to develop actionable insights and tactical implications for the emerging energy marketplace. This study explores consumer choice, connection and loyalty, and provides a fresh view of how consumers want to interact with their energy providers, the products they value and what drives their purchasing and loyalty behavior. Executive summary 13
2 Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace The energy marketplace is fundamentally changing as the traditional value chain gives way to a new model—one with bidirectional flows of energy, information and revenue. Consumer behavior, technology advances, regulatory shifts, increasing focus on sustainability and global economic trends are shaping a new energy marketplace that requires providers to establish a clear, focused path for reinventing themselves. 14 The New Energy Consumer Handbook
Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 15
Technologies, consumers, regulators and a focus on sustainability have created a need for utilities to fundamentally reshape business strategies. As nontraditional entrants continue to appear in the energy marketplace, providers must find new platforms to create value for themselves and consumers. Until recently, the energy marketplace had remained fairly static. With a focus on the safe, reliable delivery of reasonably priced energy to consumers, providers have consistently earned reasonable returns on investment. In many parts of the world, utilities have been key enablers of an era of economic development. Providers have been able to rely on expanding economies to spur infrastructure investment, increase energy demand and grow revenues. However, for many utilities, the days of reliable growth built upon continued economic expansion are gone. Energy providers now face uncertain environments shaped by forces that challenge the status quo. On the demand side, new natural gas extraction techniques, the global economic slowdown, the eurozone crisis and the falling cost of solar technology are shifting the foundations of the market. Meanwhile, exponential adoption of smartphones and other changing consumer behaviors are creating a more connected and quickly changing consumer. In many regions, the introduction of emissions regulations has increased costs and created mandates for energy conservation. Just a decade ago, many of these changes would have been difficult to predict. Even long-developing trends such as the shift in growth from developed to developing economies are having profound impacts on energy providers. Those focused on developed countries face tough economic environments and must reinvent themselves in order to grow or even profitably stay the course. Global providers may begin to see opportunities in Asia and Latin America, where demand for energy is increasing. 16 The New Energy Consumer Handbook Success in the future energy marketplace will require providers to keep a keen eye on broad macroeconomic and consumer trends while still anticipating innovations that will affect the marketplace. Accenture believes four broad forces are shaping the energy marketplace and redefining the consumer landscape. Not every force applies equally in all geographies or to all energy providers, but to some degree, all players are feeling, or will experience, the effects of: • Advancing technology. • Shifting consumer preferences. • Government policies. • Increasing focus on sustainability. As a result of these forces, the energy marketplace has begun to converge with other industries, with utilities and new entrants alike seeking new growth opportunities and competing for value. Advances in technology have triggered a wave of innovation In-home technologies, mobile technologies and smart meters are converging to give consumers unprecedented insight into and control over how they consume energy. Consumer technologies and increasing interest in energy-related products and services are advancing independent of regulatory environment and smart grid infrastructure. Many home energy management technologies are still the purview of early adopters and technology enthusiasts; however, this is shifting as solutions become more integrated, lower in cost and more automated. Where smart meters have been rolled out, however, providers are leveraging the technology to offer new Web and mobile capabilities that allow consumers to view and compare their energy usage and set usage notifications. Advancing technology is raising the bar for energy providers, and Accenture's research, Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, indicates that once consumers have a smart meter, they have higher expectations of their energy providers (see Spotlight: Will a smart meter make your consumers more demanding?). The market for beyond-the-meter products and services is undergoing major change and growth, as adoption increases and costs decrease for distributed generation and home management products. While some technologies such as electric vehicles have been slower to take hold, others such as photovoltaic panels have accelerated substantially. Smart thermostats, smart appliances and other, more basic technologies are also gaining a foothold in consumers' homes. Accenture analysis has shown that adoption will continue to expand as consumers upgrade old models with new smart-enabled devices and appliances.1 Driven by government and utility incentives, technology adoption is set to occur even more rapidly in Japan and other regions with significant peak demand or capacity constraints. Fast-rising energy costs are also quickly creating a market for energy management technologies in regions such as Australia, where electricity prices have increased more than 90 percent and gas prices more than 60 percent in the past five years.2 As more consumers purchase these technologies, utilities face the challenge of managing their impact. But
they also have an opportunity to move beyond commodity sales—offering new products and services in regulated and competitive markets. Of course, that opportunity is not exclusive to energy providers. Indeed, new competitors are also pursuing the potentially lucrative home services market. Telecommunications companies, security firms and consumer retailers have emerged as some of the first movers, offering home energy monitoring and home automation solutions. Meanwhile, technology start-ups are venturing into the market regularly with home energy management products and services that they hope will resonate with consumers. In some cases, these start-up companies piggyback on utilities' investments in smart metering to leverage usage data for their own means. The US-based energy monitoring start-up forgitit does just that. The service caters to consumers in competitive electricity markets, automatically monitoring energy usage and providing a Web portal where consumers can get tips to reduce bills and benchmark usage. When a consumer's contract is up for renewal, the service will automatically assess the energy plans available from different providers in the market and enroll the consumer in the best option based on usage behavior.3 software and a mobile application to view usage. It can also connect with smart GE appliances to manage usage for consumers using variable rates or demand-response programs.6 Advances in technology are fueling change not only in the residential energy market but also among SMBs. From smart buildings to microgeneration solutions aimed at small businesses, the marketplace is expanding rapidly thanks to new, technology-enabled value propositions. These technologies are spawning competitors that pose a challenge as utilities must vie for consumer trust and share of spend in the beyond-the-meter market. Emerging technologies are challenging utilities' current business strategies, forcing each organization to reinvent and rethink the products and services it brings to market, as well as how it defines, understands and serves consumers. Advances in technology may also be the catalyst for a long-awaited boom in the energy management market. For example, ThinkEco, an energy-efficiency products company, has developed the modlet®, a smart plug that allows users to monitor and control energy usage of devices plugged into it. Through a Web and mobile application, consumers can actively manage energy consumption without advanced metering or smart grid infrastructure.4 The plug is already being used for demand-response programs, including Con Edison's coolNYC initiative, which used the plugs to decrease air conditioning usage during hot summer months.5 Similarly, GE offers Nucleus™— an energy management system that uses a small device plugged into an outlet to communicate with a home's smart meter. Once connected, the system provides energy management Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 17
Spotlight: Will a smart meter make your consumers more demanding? of 80 percent rollout by 2020. Mass rollouts have already been completed in Italy and Sweden. Similarly, smart metering deployments in Australia are moving forward, while China and Brazil are continuing to pilot the technology. Smart metering rollouts continue to advance globally. Experts estimate that by 2016, the installed base of communicating meters around the world will reach nearly 35 percent of households.7 In the United States, smart meter rollouts have slowed as government stimulus has begun to expire. In other regions, smart meter rollouts are just beginning to advance and scale. In the United Kingdom, energy providers are moving quickly to deploy smart meters to the majority of consumers by 2019. In other European countries—where cost-benefit analysis shows a positive outcome—providers face a mandate In short, smart metering is alive and well, driven in large part by government mandates and stimulus funding. After early experiences with some public backlash in the United States, energy providers and other organizations have exhibited a consistent focus on engaging and educating consumers on the benefits of smart metering. Despite education efforts, more than half of consumers report that they are not familiar with the term "smart meter." Some of the regions with the lowest awareness—Spain and France—will soon have large-scale meter rollouts underway.8 For energy providers, the questions of how to engage consumers and how the post-smart-meter world will look are important considerations. Although there is no single correct answer, researchbased insights point to some potentially effective approaches: • Consumers are interested in learning about smart meters. In Accenture's research, Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, 93 percent of consumers reported they would like to learn more about smart meter functionalities. In particular, they are keen to learn about how a smart meter will affect their bill, how it will work and whether it will require additional installation and maintenance costs. Figure 2. Consumers expect additional products and services along with a smart meter. Along with your smart meter, which of the following energy-related products or services would you expect from your energy provider? Mentioned in top three Personalized advice on actions I could take to reduce my bill 58% (i.e., suggested actions based on the appliances I have or the times at which I use energy) Personalized advice on products and services that I could purchase to help me reduce my bill 45% (e.g., simple improvements to my home, products to automate my energy management) Early notifications when my bill might be higher than normal 41% (e.g., higher than last month, higher than the same month in the year before, etc.) Automated home energy management products 31% (i.e., programmable appliances) Microgeneration products to generate energy at my home 28% (e.g., solar, wind, etc.) Increased functionality on Web and mobile channels 27% (i.e., ability to view my usage in real time) Enhanced customer service 15% (i.e., expanded call center hours of operation) Social games to compete with friends and neighbors on decreasing energy consumption I would not expect additional products or services if I had a smart meter Base: All respondents Source: Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, Accenture, 2013. 18 The New Energy Consumer Handbook 8% 13%
• Once consumers have a smart meter, they develop higher expectations of their energy providers. On average, 87 percent of consumers report they would expect additional products and services if they had a smart meter. Topping the list of expectations: personalized advice to help reduce energy bills and early notifications when bills might be higher than normal (see Figure 2).9 During smart meter rollouts, consumers want to be engaged and educated. Once smart meters are in place, consumers expect providers to leverage the technology to offer a new energy experience—one that is more personalized and proactive, particularly when it comes to saving money. • Findings from the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, a US-based nonprofit, also suggest that smart meters will create new expectations of providers. When asked about the importance of specific benefits of smart grids and smart meters, US consumers reported the most important are renewables that are easier to connect to the grid and outage prevention or reduction in length of outages.10 Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 19
Consumer behaviors and values are at an inflection point As technologies continue to advance, consumer behaviors and values are also shifting. Consumers are more mobile, more social and more connected than ever before. Consumers are also increasingly motivated by more than monetary value. At the same time, shifts in consumer demographics and economic development are affecting energy consumption. Indeed, three major shifts are changing where and how energy is being consumed. Shifting economics of consumption The economics of where energy consumption is occurring are shifting rapidly, as greater disposable income brings millions in emerging economies into the consuming class. According to Accenture analysis, China and India are projected to experience a combined increase in household income of US$4.6 trillion from 2010 to 2020. By 2020, Turkey is anticipated to have an extra 4.7 million households with annual incomes more than $30,000—and Mexico another 3.3 million.11 Population growth, economic development and a growing middle class are creating demands for more industry, bigger houses and more consumer appliances—all of which require more energy. At the same time, slowing economic growth, low population growth and the slow but steady adoption of more energyefficient building materials and consumer appliances are significantly affecting energy demand in developed economies. The emerging divide is starkly evident in Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, which shows that the intention to spend money on energyrelated products and services is heavily skewed toward emerging economies (see Figure 3). Thus, while overall global energy demand is projected to grow 70 percent by 2035, the majority of that growth will come from emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil.12 In fact, longterm projections show that across energy sources, per-capita consumption in North America and Europe is likely to fall as consumption rises in other regions. Figure 3. Consumer intentions to spend money on energy-related products and services are consistently higher in emerging economies. In the next 12 months, are you planning to spend money on energy-related products and/or services for your home (e.g., energy-efficient appliances, smart thermostats, etc.)? Denmark Netherlands Average 34% 28% Norway 41% Sweden Belgium Canada United Kingdom 36% France 45% Germany 35% 45% China 27% 48% Poland 72% 84% South Korea 71% 27% 26% Spain 48% Italy 54% Turkey Japan Yes Source: Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, Accenture, 2013. 20 The New Energy Consumer Handbook 62% 87% South Africa Base: All respondents 40% 73% Singapore Brazil 34% Australia United States 68%
For energy providers, this shift in consumer consumption highlights the need to search for new long-term revenue opportunities in developed economies. Further, it highlights the increasing challenges and opportunities for energy and additional products and services in emerging economies. While not every energy provider is positioned for global growth, those that are can look to longterm opportunities in some of the fastestgrowing consumer markets. Digital enablement There is no question that consumers have gone digital. Accenture's 2013 consumer electronics report shows that across the United States, Japan, Germany, France, China and India, 94 percent of consumers have computers and more than half have smartphones.13 The mass adoption of these technologies and the channels of interaction they enable has fundamentally changed how consumers interact with their providers and with each other. providers leveraged social media as a part of conversations that spawned 11.5 million social media mentions.14 At the same time, smartphone traffic to utility websites increased by as much as 16,000 percent during and after the storm.15 While this might be an extreme example, consumers' continued move online is changing the nature of consumer engagement across the customer life cycle. Whether to educate consumers, sell new products, encourage self-service or create value with new services, digital must be considered as part of every initiative. Changing ideology More content than ever is being presented to consumers, and much of it is beyond any one company's control. Third-party content is increasingly insistent and influential—and can appear anytime, anywhere and from anyone. Within this context, energy providers are challenged to not only reinvent service channels but also find innovative ways to engage consumers. Providers need to tap into social, mobile and local channels to deliver tailored experiences and personalization at scale. The possibilities for new energyrelated value propositions are growing exponentially thanks to new energy management technologies, increased information on usage, microgeneration options and increased awareness of where energy is coming from. For energy providers, the challenge is to gain insight into how the values of specific groups of consumers are changing and to identify new ways to engage and capitalize on shifting ideologies. While price is still the bottom line when it comes to energy, consumers are exhibiting shifting ideology. Increasingly, they want tailored products, services and experiences that align with their personal values. Today's consumer is better informed than in the past, with unprecedented access to information and an increasingly amplified voice through online and social channels. As an example of some of the values consumers are bringing to their energy-related decisions, in Revealing the Values of the New Energy Consumer, Accenture asked consumers what factors would motivate them to enroll in an electricity management program. Sixty-nine percent selected "decreasing my personal environmental impact" and 68 percent selected "having better control of heating and cooling in my home."16 In a very short period of time, digital enablement has transformed some processes and interactions for utilities. Consider outage notifications. For mass outages, mobility and social media have become the pre-eminent channels for real-time updates and even service interactions. While this may have been unthinkable even just a few years ago, when Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeastern United States in 2012, a number of organizations took to social media as a communications channel. The Red Cross, local and federal emergency response organizations and energy as locally produced wind power, online forums for businesses to discuss energy policy and energy packages or brands that support local sports teams. Across industries, consumers are showing signs of independence and a propensity for valuing uniqueness in the products and services they choose. In some markets, this has also manifested in interesting ways when it comes to energy. In Germany, for example, more than 1 million households and smallscale investors have turned into energy producers. At the same time, more than 100 "bio-energy villages" have formed, seeking to produce their own heat and power supply locally.17 In competitive markets, this has spawned innovation— including niche energy products such Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 21
Government and regulatory shifts are creating incentives that are changing the marketplace Around the world, many regulators are facing increasingly broad challenges, from managing asset recovery for smart grid and smart metering projects to fielding consumer complaints. At the same time, many governments—and in turn, regulators—are seeking ways to reduce commodity consumption through carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, energy-efficiency stimulus programs and other legislation and regulation, such as conservation targets and decoupling. By promoting a shift to renewable energy generation, conservation and energy efficiency, many regulators are creating favorable conditions for a beyond-the-meter market. Such a market encompasses a variety of new energy-related, value-added products and services for consumers. In some geographies, government policies are having a significant impact on end consumers and energy providers. In the United Kingdom and Germany, the aggressive shift toward renewables likely will cause higher energy costs for consumers in the near future, which in turn may erode trust in energy providers. In some cases, incentive programs for residential solar have also affected energy providers by impacting satisfaction and increasing cost to serve. In Australia, for example, utilities have experienced a spike in complaints accompanying the increasing adoption of residential solar panels. In 2012, the Victoria Energy Ombudsman reported a 57 percent spike in tariff complaints, driven largely by concerns about how energy retailers had applied solar feed-in tariffs.18 22 The New Energy Consumer Handbook These policies and regulatory actions challenge utilities' status quo, encouraging them to develop new strategies for the marketplace. These actions also create attractive market potential for new cross-industry players. Based on geography and regulatory framework, utilities need to assess competitive threats, including how much time they have to prepare. Even in highly regulated markets, crosscommodity competition will begin to increase. For example, in some regions commodity prices are making natural gas an attractive consumer alternative to electricity for energy-intensive appliances such as water heaters and furnaces. At the same time, different types of providers are working to capture ecominded consumers by positioning their energy as the "greenest." Meanwhile, some regulators have invited utilities to help craft new legislation. Regulators and utilities are using rich data from smart grid pilot programs to help set policy and regulatory frameworks. Such collaboration provides utilities an excellent opportunity to be early adopters and participate in shaping the evolving energy marketplace. It also helps utilities assume an active role in reshaping their strategy and operations for continued success in the new environment. Sustainability is increasingly a business imperative Increasing awareness of the impacts of climate change, resource scarcity and rising energy costs have pushed sustainability into the fabric of many organizations. While pressure from consumers and environmental groups has certainly played a role in moving sustainability up the corporate agenda, economics are now causing a quiet revolution within companies of all sizes. Looking specifically at large companies, the UN Global Compact–Accenture CEO Study showed that nearly one-quarter have set specific targets for buying or investing in renewable energy for their operations.19 More than half of the Fortune 100 companies also have specific greenhouse gas and renewable energy targets for their operations, with many aiming to achieve significant results by 2015.20 According to the recent UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study, 91 percent of CEOs will employ energy-efficiency measures to address sustainability issues over the next five years.21 As an example, Google has invested significantly in 10 clean power projects since 2010, in part to help build capacity to fuel its data centers with clean energy.22 In the past, many large organizations met their targets by purchasing renewable energy certificates or signing power purchase agreements. Today, large organizations are also pursuing direct, on-site investment because of attractive government incentives and public relations opportunities. Large organizations are not the only ones adding momentum to the sustainability movement—consumers are also moving the needle. A 2012 global consumer study found that 85 percent want more renewable energy, 74 percent have a more positive perception of brands that use wind energy and 49 percent would pay more for products with renewable energy.23 While consumer values may differ by region, in some geographies, a consumer shift toward distributed energy generation is reshaping the energy industry. In Germany in 2012, for example, 51 percent of all the renewable energy capacity was owned by private citizens, and this number is growing.24
As sustainability gains momentum as a shared imperative, energy providers face new challenges and opportunities. Certainly there are opportunities to grow revenue by helping organizations meet sustainability targets. Specialized offerings for energy-intensive operations are one option. With this in mind ComEd, a major US utility, recently launched an offering for data-center energy efficiency and is delivering advisory services on how to reduce energy costs.25 Helping to bring transparency around which organizations are truly sustainable is another opportunity. In Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, more than half of SMBs reported they are interested in obtaining or currently have certifications for being a sustainable business.26 As consumers continue to vote with their wallets, energy providers could become trusted advisors in clarifying or even certifying who is and is not operating sustainably. The importance of sustainability is perhaps highlighted most for water. In some regions, water scarcity is already causing rationing and increases in prices. In Australia, for example, the average price of water per household increased by more than 16 percent between 2009 and 2010.27 This increase has impacts on consumers, water utilities and energy providers, which often use significant amounts of water in order to generate energy. Water management will continue to grow in importance globally and is already a topic of public and media discussion. In the future, water utilities and significant water users such as electricity or gas producers likely will find themselves in the middle of complex and highly visible sustainability discussions. Sustainability is creating new opportunities for energy providers to find ways to support this shift, but it also fuels pressures to look inward. The utilities industry accounts for approximately one-third of the global greenhouse gas emissions, and this may grow as global energy demand increases.28 In fact, between 2010 and 2035, global demand for energy is expected to increase by 30 percent with the majority of supply coming from fossil fuels.29 Energy providers have a key role to play in the shift toward more sustainable economies and infrastructure. Going forward, providers can tap into sustainability for new business opportunities but must also pay attention to their environmental footprint, identifying their own ways to support sustainability. Spotlight: Can a utility offer the fastest Internet in the world? The answer comes from US utility EPB, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The small municipal utility "completed the final touches on one of the fastest Internet pipelines in the world, and it activated the first automated switches on its electricity network. The combination constitutes the backbone for a US Department of Energy–funded smart grid network that is expected to save the utility and area businesses tens of millions of dollars annually." In doing so, "[EPB] will go head-to-head with [telecommunications providers] to offer its existing consumers an ultrahigh-speed Internet connection at a whopping one gigabit per second—more than 200 times faster than the average US download speed. With this, [video] uploads go from several minutes to just seconds."30 With the network in place, EPB offers consumers Internet, home phone and television services.31 Other utilities have also seen a similar opportunity to have their infrastructure become multipurposed. Silicon Valley Power, a municipal utility in California, recently began offering free Wi-Fi access over the utilities network that was built for water and electric smart meters.32 Although laying a fiber network to all homes is not necessarily scalable for a large, multijurisdictional utility, these examples demonstrate where a utility has found a way to extend its reach in the consumer marketplace. Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 23
The evolving energy marketplace is driving convergence The convergence of technological, consumer, and government and regulatory market forces coupled with an increasing focus on sustainability are creating opportunities for utilities and new entrants. This is not the first time utilities have recognized the possibilities of capturing value beyond the commodity. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, leading global utilities extended their business models into value-added products and services. Their goals were to pursue new revenue streams, find new consumers for their commodity service and increase consumer retention. Lacking the support of the appropriate technological advances, consumer demand and regulatory climate, these initiatives often fell short of their goals. Accenture's consumer research has demonstrated that consumers continue to be open to receiving and acquiring various electricity-related products and services from new market players: 73 percent of respondents indicated they would consider purchasing electricity or energy-efficient products from at least one provider other than their utility (see Figure 4).33 Thirty years later, we are seeing a similar global movement toward valueadded products and services that move outside the traditional scope of utility offerings. This time, however, the environment has changed. Technologies, consumer demand and government bodies have aligned to create the conditions for new opportunities in the energy marketplace. In essence, the lines between markets and value pools are blurring. Consequently, utilities are not the only ones hunting for value. Figure 4. Consumers continue to show significant interest in alternative providers. You may currently, or in the future, have new companies offering you electricity, energy-efficient products (i.e., smart thermostats), and/or related services (i.e., customized information on your electricity consumption) on top of their traditional products and services. Would you consider purchasing electricity, energy-efficient products, and/or related services from the following providers: 73% Online site (e.g., Amazon, Google) (i.e., retailer, phone or cable provider, online site) 45% 47% 49% Phone or cable provider 73% Consumers considering alternative providers for purchasing electricity and beyond-the-meter products and services 50% (e.g., AT&T, T-Mobile, Orange) 2013* Yes, could consider a provider other than a utility/electricity provider 59% 2011 Note that local examples of retailers, phone or cable providers were provided in each country Base: All respondents *2013 scope = 2011 + Norway, Poland, and Turkey Source: Delivering the New Energy Consumer Experience, Accenture, 2013. 24 The New Energy Consumer Handbook 59% Retailer (e.g., Best Buy, Tesco, Carrefour)
Utilities can view these entrants as new challengers for the consumer experience and share of spend in the beyond-themeter marketplace. Or they can frame convergence as an opportunity to grow their market position. Utilities have an opportunity to create additional value by deepening relationships and addressing consumer needs through new, tailored products and services. Just as telecommunications companies now offer television service and cable television providers now deliver home telephone service, utilities may once again have a tangible opportunity to expand their traditional footprint. Accenture's Actionable Insights for the New Energy Consumer survey shows that consumers globally are interested in receiving nonenergy-related services, such as home repair or telecommunications, from their energy provider (see Figure 5).34 Figure 5. Consumers are interested in receiving a range of non-energy-related services from their electricity providers. In addition to energy-related products and services, how interested would you be in receiving the following from your electricity provider? 52% Home repair services 49% Telecommunications services 40% Home services 33% Insurance services 29% Banking services (e.g., plumber) (e.g., television, Internet, phone, mobile) (e.g., home security, video monitoring in your home) (e.g., home, auto, life) (e.g., bank account, credit card, mortgage) Base: All respondents Somewhat + very interested Source: Actionable Insights for the New Energy Consumer, Accenture, 2012, www.accenture.com. Forces shaping the evolving energy marketplace 25
Case in point: Would you like energy with that mobile phone package? While many new entrants in the energy ecosystem are aiming squarely at a piece of the smart home, others see opportunities for the commodity itself. Seeking new growth opportunities and products to increase consumer stickiness, Deutsche Telekom subsidiary Magyar Telecom began a pilot program to retail energy in 2010 and scaled nationally in Hungary in 2012. Using the commodity as a tool to gain more consumers and increase average revenue per user while increasing stickiness of a broader package of energy and telecommunications products, Magyar has emerged as a viable competitor to energy providers. Indeed, Magyar has reported that customer churn can be reduced by as much as 50 percent by signing them to an energy contract along with other products or services. With product bundles that discount energy 5 to 8 percent, Magyar has a compelling value proposition for consumers.35 Energy margins are 26 The New Energy Consumer Handbook lower than those on its other products. However, Magyar has made it clear that energy is a strategic product. In a time when revenues from high-margin voice products are falling, Magyar is using energy to drive loyalty and provide a foundation for growing other parts of the business.36 Based on the company's success, it seems likely that as other Eastern European markets liberalize, energy providers will need to brace for a new breed of Magyar-style competitors. Another example is Australia's Dodo, a low-cost telecommunications and insurance provider that expanded its offerings to include a full set of home services. These offerings span home phone, mobile, Internet and alarm monitoring, as well as gas and electricity. With steep discounts of 20 to 30 percent for bundling products and paying on time, the consumer value proposition is clear: "Bring your full set of home services to us and we can save you money."37 As the energy market continues to converge with other home services, energy providers will need to cast a watchful eye on new competitors and value propositions that could begin to undermine core commodity revenues. But this is not only a threat. Providers must also watch for a new set of potential partners that may have strong consumeroriented capabilities and brands looking to extend into energy. on on off
Spotlight: Who will win the race for the smart home in North America? In North America, a race into the home is underway. Service providers across multiple industries are looking to stake out territory by extending current product offerings and introducing additional interconnected devices and valueadded services. Similar trends in other markets are also emerging, and while no single provider owns the entire value chain, industries are colliding as home technologies converge. Service providers are quickly positioning themselves to create new value propositions in the home. Telecommunications and cable providers have recognized the possible synergies between their products and home automation. Rogers, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner have entered the market with a mix of home energy management, home automation and security offerings.38 ADT, a US-based home security provider with more than 6 million accounts, rolled out ADT PulseTM, a new home automation and monitoring service, in 2010. ADT Pulse was one of the first efforts by any home services provider to deliver complete home automation on a mass-market scale. The service combines ADT
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text:
Missing Call the Midwife? You should tune into The Mill
Laura Main is swapping Shelagh's life with the nuns of Nonnatus for a stint at The Mill on Channel 4
Actress Laura Main is swapping Shelagh's prim twinsets for dirty raggedy dresses – and the cosy dining room of Nonnatus House for the grim workers cottages of Quarry Bank Mill.
You'd think the two roles would be poles apart, but you'd be surprised at the similarities between Call the Midwife and Channel 4's gritty and grubby period drama…
"In many ways The Mill felt similar [to Call the Midwife] in that it is based in truth, and clearly there is great, great care taken over the authenticity of it all," Laura told RadioTimes.com. "It just felt like it was something else of worth."
"Yet it was going back further," she added. "It was going another hundred and twenty years further. It's period drama, but it is different. And a very different character."
Main plays Rebecca Howlett, a southerner who's travelled to the Mill with her husband John [Mark Frost], father, nephew and three sons. And she's a character Main was eager to ensure wasn't too similar to Shelagh.
"To begin with I was mindful of being different because I have been playing predominantly one role for three series. Call the Midwife takes up half the year, so just to begin with you're making sure you don't have any Shelagh-isms in there!"
While Rebecca is a mother, like Shelagh became at the end of series three, their existences do differ. There definitely isn't a female support network on offer like there is in Nonnatus House.
"It was tough, they [the Howlett's] clearly had to leave [the South]. It's a big period of change. They don't know anybody, they've just sort of arrived, they've left all their friends behind… I'm this lone female all of a sudden. There are a lot of dining room scenes but I was the one providing the food and organising it all, so it's a much more old fashioned, traditional female role."
And, unlike Call the Midwife's dining room scenes, there is no Victoria Sponge, and very little light relief from the daily grind.
"There's no cosiness," admits Main. "It is gritty. They're both gritty but in quite different ways. They both reflect their time."
The Mill's time has moved on a bit from series one. As Esther Price [Kerrie Hayes] comes of age and leaves her days as an apprentice behind, in the background dramas concerned with slavery and race, working conditions, strikes and women's rights play out. And it's a context which without doubt affects Main's character Rebecca.
"She's probably a bit darker [than Shelagh]. But I think we're seeing a different side of her because of her circumstances. There's just that kind of drive to look after her family and survive I think. It's survival instincts because things are that difficult for them as a family. There's more desperation."
Not that filming was all dark and dreary though…
"There clearly was a great camaraderie on set, [she says, as Hayes and Sasha Parkinson giggle loudly in the background] so I guess that the hardest thing is being a part of that but also then keeping sight on how tough things were for them."
So does being involved in The Mill mean there will be more period dramas in the pipeline for Main? Has she found her genre?
"Being involved in a series [Call the Midwife] that returns is fantastic – and it's a great problem to have – but it does leave you with a window of time, so I was lucky to fill that window with another great drama…
"I've not intentionally gone out to get another period drama. We'll just see what happens!"
The Mill series two starts on Sunday at 8:00pm on Channel 4

subset: commoncrawl


text:
"When a Rose Is Not a Rose: A Review of Recent Estimates of Congestion Costs." The Electricity Journal 2004. LBNL-52739..
Electricity Transmission Congestion Costs: A Review of Recent Reports. Berkeley: LBNL, 2003. LBNL-45049..
"Risk-based optimal power flow and system operation state." IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) General Meeting. Calgary, Canada: IEEE, 2009. 1 - 6..
"Optimal generation investment planning: Pt. 2: Application to the ERCOT system." 2012 North American Power Symposium (NAPS). Champaign, IL, USA: IEEE, 2012. 1 - 6..
"An Enhanced Security-Constrained Unit Commitment Model with Reserve Response Set Policies." Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS). 2017..
"Improved controller design of Grid Friendly™ Appliances for primary frequency response." 2015 IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) General Meeting. Denver, CO, USA: IEEE, 2015. 1 - 5..
"Hierarchical decentralized control strategy for demand-side primary frequency response." 2016 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM). Boston, MA, USA: IEEE, 2016. 1 - 5..
Smart Load Report: Smart Loads as a Functional Component when Installed in a CERTS Microgrid (CERTS Phase III). 2013..
Synchronous Generator Report: Capability and Compatibility of a Synchronous Generator when Installed in a CERTS Microgrid (CERTS Phase III). 2013..
"The impact of carbon cap and trade regulation on congested electricity market equilibrium." Journal of Regulatory Economics 40.3 (2011) 237 - 260..
"Performance bounds for robust decentralized control." 2016 American Control Conference (ACC). Boston, MA, USA: IEEE, 2016. 4323 - 4330..
"Decentralized control of distributed energy resources in radial distribution systems." 2016 IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm). Sydney, Australia: IEEE, 2016. 296 - 301..
"Parameterized supply function equilibrium in power networks." 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC). Las Vegas, NV, USA: IEEE, 2016. 1542 - 1548..
"A Comparison of Robust and Probabilistic Reliability for Systems with Renewables and Responsive Demand." 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). Koloa, HI, USA: IEEE, 2016. 2373 - 2380..
"Transient Model of Air-Conditioner Compressor Single Phase Induction Motor." IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 28.4 (2013) 4528-4536..
"A bound on the minimum rank of solutions to sparse linear matrix equations." 2016 American Control Conference (ACC). Boston, MA, USA: IEEE, 2016. 6501 - 6506..
"A hierarchy of polyhedral approximations of robust semidefinite programs." 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC). Las Vegas, NV, USA: IEEE, 2016. 7056 - 7062..
"Acyclic semidefinite approximations of quadratically constrained quadratic programs." 2015 American Control Conference (ACC). Chicago, IL, USA: IEEE, 2015. 5925 - 5930..
"Stochastic AC optimal power flow with affine recourse." 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC). Las Vegas, NV, USA: IEEE, 2016. 2431 - 2436..
"Can Energy Bids from Aggregators Manage Deferrable Demand Efficiently?." 48th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). Kauai, HI: IEEE, 2015..
Air Conditioner Compressor Performance Model. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2008..
"Event classification and identification based on characteristic ellipsoid of phasor measurement." 2011 North American Power Symposium (NAPS 2011). Boston, MA, USA: IEEE, 2011. 1 - 6..
"Building decision trees for characteristic ellipsoid method to monitor power system transient behaviors." IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting. Minneapolis, MN: IEEE, 2010. 1 - 8..
"The Characteristic Ellipsoid Methodology and its Application in Power Systems." IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 27.4 (2012) 2206 - 2214..


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Originally posted at Livejournal Oct. 5th, 2011
Who is telling the story and why? This affects the way they tell it. - Emma Darwin
Also in Emma Darwin's novel-writing course we went over the choices a writer makes in how to tell the story.
The first and most obvious choice is of narrator - are they in 1st or 3rd person (or, god forbid, 2nd)? If the novel is in (or partly in) 3rd person, is the narrator limited to one person's viewpoint or are they omniscient? This of course lead us to head-hopping, the bane of many a writer-reader's life (I know it certainly annoys me). Emma suggested that if you really have to, not to do it more than once a page, and to move to a different psychic distance so as not to confuse the reader. In general, move out to a more remote distance, move across, and zoom back in again.
There was one brief piece of advice about minor characters: don't spend ages describing them, or the reader will think they're more important than they are. I suppose it's different if you want them to be a red herring though....
We also had a discussion on tense. As present tense has no sense of time it can lose tension, but is useful for dreams or flashbacks where a sense of disconnection is needed. Sarah Monette used it to great effect in the first book of the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, Melusine, to differentiate between a 1st person narrator, and the same narrator when he's batshit crazy. Tenses can also be combined to keep plot strands or timelines separate, although this can be quite difficult to do well.
The story itself doesn't have to be told in chronological order, but Emma cautioned against putting the "zingy stuff" at the beginning of a chapter and going back to explain as it breaks the momentum. Also, if you do this and the thing you're explaining turns out to all be a big misunderstanding the reader can feel cheated (I've come across this and yes, it did annoy me).
Whether you're hopping around between timelines or narrators, you should always make sure the reader know where they are. Do something to orient them, preferably within the first sentence. If you're chosing to disorient the reader on purpose, make sure to ground them afterwards - a confused reader can quickly become an irritated reader.
The last things I'm going to mention, because this is rapidly looking like it's going to be a four-part post, are subplots, and backstory. Subplots should be linked thematically to the main plot - difficult if, like me, you have no idea what the theme is when you start, but you can always go back and add things. That's where the handy chart comes in, I suppose. Emma also uses it to plot where significant pieces of backstory are revelaed, although she cautions against getting hung up on knowing all the backstory before you start. What will happen is more important than what has happened, as you write forwards the important backstory will rise to the surface. Hearing a published novelist advocating what is essentially pantsing was a relief to me, since this is how I work. Finding out the backstory as you go is half the fun.
Anyway, I'm going to leave it there and write up the last few bits and pieces in another post.


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Why do people behave irrationally with money?
Think About The Kinds Of Behaviors Driven By Money:
• People lie and cheat over money – We all know about Bernie Madoff.
• People steal and kill over money – Evidence the huge number of financial crimes and murders.
• People marry or divorce over money – Think, Ana Nicole Smith, the ex-playboy model who married a billionaire who was 63 years older!
• People worry endlessly about money – The American Psychological Association reported that money is the number 1 stressor for Americans.
• People even kill themselves over money – Read the following blog and view the CNN interview with Dr. Gottfurcht.
Adolf Merckle blog with the CNN interview with Dr. Gottfurcht
We tell people: "It is important to realize that money by itself does not cause these hurtful experiences. Money is neutral; it's just little coins, pieces of paper or plastic cards. The true cause—the source of our money issues—is what money represents in our minds."
The important questions then become:
Why does money hurt so many people?
Why does money produce so much irrational behavior?
We believe the major answer to both questions is that money is an emotionally charged issue. Our reactions primarily come from childhood experiences. When a child or adolescent is repeatedly mistreated regarding money (whether verbally, psychologically or physically), he or she has a strong tendency either to recreate the experience of being mistreated by money or to rebel by mistreating others with money.
We invite you to reflect upon and send us your comments about how you have developed any irrational or hurtful behavior with money and what you have done to help overcome this behavior.
If you want to learn more about how to navigate irrational financial behavior successfully or how to empower yourself with money, read our Blogs or visit our website, www.psychologyofmoney.com.
Wishing all of you a healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year.
James W. Gottfurcht, Ph.D.
Zoreh Gottfurcht


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Friday, 2 September 2016
Carvel's Lies
Carvel had ended up teaching cultural studies at the University of East London. This was a pathetic destination for Carvel, who had always been a good friend, even if he was a compulsive liar. Every time we met, he said things that were obviously not true. He told me his uncle had been "sewn up the wrong way" after a bowel operation so that shit came out of his mouth. I remember this example because metaphorically this was also true of Carvel who, when he wasn't talking about philosophy or literature, talked complete bullshit. None of his stories, judged individually, were obviously false, for Carvel was perhaps careful to locate them within the circumference of the possible, but cumulatively they added up to a pile of garbage. He told me that he had attended a Noam Chomsky lecture where Chomsky chose to answer a hostile question in Hebrew. But, unbeknown to Carvel, my friend Scott, who speaks fluent Hebrew, was also at the lecture and verified that no such exchange had taken place. Carvel told me a neighbor of his, back in Belfast, kept a pet lion in the back yard and fed it dead pigeons. Or having let slip that he'd never had a driving license, said to me months later that he was doing the Knowledge and planned to be a taxi driver. He told me that he had failed to attend a college dinner because on the way there a car had run over a bird and splattered him with the chattering guts. He told me that he had a friend in the IRA, a one-armed priest, who we could call on should we ever need "a favour".. and so it went on, a concatenation of bullshit.
Nonetheless, I never challenged him on these falsehoods, which to be honest never bothered me very much. This was because I am perhaps too respectful of the fragile fictions people spin around themselves to make their lives tolerable, and it is not for me to unravel these in the name of "honesty". In "telling the truth" there is typically a motive which is questionable, which we fail to acknowledge and which we disown by saying, simply, "but it's true!". Thus our motive is to judge, to expose, to catch out, to embarrass, all excused by the alibi "but it's the truth!" I had no wish to expose, to catch out or humiliate Carvel, I had no particular wish to unravel my friend any more than I might destroy the web of a spider or a tortoise's shell. And in fact, in not challenging Carvel I was respecting his mode of life, which was to weave around himself a cocoon of fictions inside which he disappeared. That was his mode of life, just as one might speak of the mode of life of a bat or other creature. We are all creatures in fact, with our webs, our territories, our nests and secretions, even though these are disguised as words and beliefs and habits. Many of our ways of speaking are in fact ways of crying, of scratching, of nuzzling or hissing. Hence my tolerance for Carvel's lies which were in fact spun by some inner necessity as the silkworm spins its silk.
None of this really mattered to our friendship, on the other hand, which consists solely in an ongoing conversation about philosophy and literature, with its own rhythm and its own rules. Outside that there is nothing. The friendship has an evolution and a life independent of me and independent of him. That is the nature of friendship. Friendships have their own personality separate from that of the actual friends. Or at least that was the case before Carvel's inexplicable marriage. Carvel was certainly the last person I expected to get married. He is no longer the same man, both on account of his job teaching cultural studies and on account of this marriage. Although Carvel's face is roughly the same, his marriage has altered his soul. Similarly, cultural studies had forced him to think about false problems and diverted him into an intellectual wasteland far from his native preoccupations.
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Costs associated with three popular surgeries vary significantly depending on the patient's postoperative trajectory, a recent analysis in Health Affairs found.
The majority of healthcare leaders say they would prefer to make changes to the Affordable Care Act instead of repeal it, according to a survey conducted by HealthLeaders Media.
The Healthcare Leadership Council has outlined a 2017 policy agenda for the new administration and Congress, which details how the government can improve healthcare for all Americans.
More conflict of interest evidence emerges for Rep. Tom Price, MD, Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.
This report is brought to you by HealthLeaders Media.


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Nearly everyone who tries Flex Disc is nervous at first. That is totally normal. Just know that you're not alone! We're here to help you through whatever method you're most comfortable with.
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Hello, to clarify the laptop I'm trying to install debian on is Lenovo Ideapad 120s-14IAP.
Basically what happens it freezes on splash screen.
Using Debian 9.5 amd64 architecture, compiled into usb drive with rufus.
On UEFI architecture it just freezes on splash screen (lenovo logo), on Legacy bios it installs, but then its not possible to dual boot.
The very same usb with the very same debian works fine on my other two computers.
Ubuntu and linux mint (from same usb drive) installs just fine and works well on this laptop on UEFI. So the problem must be within debian.
Tried multiple usb drives too - no success.
Thanks for help.


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Press release from the issuing company
Irvine, Calif. – Roland DGA Corporation, a leading manufacturer of advanced wide-format printers, 3D printers, cutters, and milling and engraving machines, has been recognized as a Top Workplace by the Orange County Register. This marks the sixth year that Roland DGA has been awarded this prestigious honor by the county's largest newspaper.
The list of Top Workplaces is based solely on the results of an employee feedback survey administered by WorkplaceDynamics, LLC, a leading research firm that specializes in organizational health and workplace improvement. Several aspects of workplace culture were measured, including Alignment, Execution, and Connection, just to name a few.
"The Top Workplaces award is not a popularity contest. And oftentimes, people assume it's all about fancy perks and benefits," says Doug Claffey, CEO of WorkplaceDynamics. "But to be a Top Workplace, organizations must meet our strict standards for organizational health. And who better to ask about work life than the people who live the culture every day – the employees. Our research has proven that what's most important to them is a strong belief in where the organization is headed, how it's going to get there, and the feeling that everyone is in it together."
"We're thrilled to be named one of Orange County's top workplaces for a sixth time," said Rick Scrimger, president of Roland DGA. "Consistently receiving this kind of recognition reflects Roland DGA's dedication to its employees and our work environment. While we are committed to continuously providing our customers with high quality products and world-class service and support, we have a lot of fun doing it. That makes Roland DGA not only a successful company, but also the kind of workplace you look forward to coming to every morning."
For additional information on the Orange County 2015 Top Workplaces Awards, visit http://www.topworkplaces.com/frontend.php/regional-list/list/ocregister. To learn more about Roland DGA Corporation, visit www.rolanddga.com.
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Photo: Thomas J. Story
Reader and teacher Kristin Leong of Seattle came up with this drink during her bartending days. "The taste is bright and lush, like a forest lit with Christmas lights." If you want a stronger pine taste, add a drop or two of pine liqueur--but it's delightful just as it is.
How to Make It
Step 1
Put pine needles in a cocktail shaker. Using a muddler, pound until very fragrant. Add lemon slices and a handful of ice. Finely crush, cupping cocktail shaker with hand to keep ice from flying. Add Chartreuse, cover, and shake vigorously about 30 seconds.
Step 2
Fill a rocks glass with ice. Strain cocktail into glass, top with sparkling water, and garnish with pine sprig.


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Downton Abbey's UK broadcaster ITV reported its interim results today with the group's external revenue up 4% to £1.57B ($2.49B). Non-net advertising revenue was up 15% to £730M ($1.16B), driven by production arm ITV Studios, maker of such programs as Hell's Kitchen and the upcoming Mr. Selfridge with Jeremy Piven. ITV Studios is expected to turn a profit of over £100M ($158.7M) for the year "and the number of new commissions and recommissions already secured for 2013 gives us confidence that there will continue to be good underlying growth in the Studios business," boss Adam Crozier noted.
Continuing its five-year transformation plan, the company says total cost savings this year will be about £30M ($47.6M), or £10M ($15.87M) ahead of target. The advertising market has been "broadly flat," Crozier said. Given one-off broadcast events this year including the London Olympics, ad revenues fell 10% in July and 9% in August as many Britons turned to the ad-free BBC. But a drop of only 1% in September put ITV in "positive territory" over the first nine months of the year. Crozier said the event programming impacted ratings, but added, "We do not expect our viewing performance in 2012 to impact our advertising share in 2013 and we are focused on growing our share of viewing next year." Flagship channel ITV1 had a 15.6% market share in terms of viewership to the end of October, down 6% on the same period last year.
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Bayern star Ribery refuses to rule out move to A-League
Outgoing Bayern Munich forward Franck Ribery is open to linking up with Markus Babbel at Australian team Western Sydney Wanderers.
Ribery will leave Bundesliga champions Bayern when his contract expires at the end of the season and the 36-year-old has been linked to Western Sydney and Al Sadd.
Former Bayern defender and Stuttgart boss Babbel – now head coach of the Wanderers – floated the prospect of Ribery moving to the A-League in March.
In an interview with the Herald, Babbel said: "Franck Ribery, of course, I was in touch with him. I said 'OK, if you want to earn a lot of money then you have to go to Qatar or somewhere. But if you want to be a rock star, then you have to come to Australia'.
@FranckRibery on his time at #FCBayern: "After 12 years, it's always difficult. I have fought hard and won so much here. It was a wonderful time for me, for me family. I will never forget it." #MiaSanMia pic.twitter.com/I209Z6uhSr— FC Bayern English (@FCBayernEN) May 7, 2019
"He hasn't decided at the moment but I can't believe that he will come here, because we're talking about a category that normally for the A-League is not realistic.
"We also have to go further, and find a team for next season – I can't wait the next 100 years. If there's a chance there, you have to try it. But the chance to get someone like that is maybe one per cent."
Ribery – who is set to bring down the curtain on his trophy-laden 12-year association with Bayern – was asked about Babbel and reports of a switch to Australia.
"You know that I played football because of the fun and to enjoy it," Ribery told reporters. "I love football.
"If you play well, then you make yourself a great name and the money comes on its own. You earn money for what you did. I do not just play for money.
"But why should not I move to colleague Babbel? I do not know. There are many options. I'm not sure yet where I'm going."
"What we achieved then was crazy, superb, a dream!"— FC Bayern English (@FCBayernEN) May 7, 2019
Ribery has scored five goals in 23 league appearances this season, with the Frenchman set to become the only player to win the Bundesliga nine times if Bayern beat RB Leipzig on Saturday.


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New X4 would be a baby X6. It would share its underpinnings with the X3 but looks-wise will be a smaller version of the sport coupe/SUV X6.
BMW Blog has the scoop on some possible new BMW models, as per the reporting of an apparent inside source who goes by the moniker Scott26. Scott26 has an impressive track record of divulging correct information before release.
Still taken with a healthy does of skepticism, Scott26 reports that BMW is, at the very least, considering the following models: An X4, an X3 M and an X3 35iS.
The most enticing of these is, of course, the X4, which would be an entirely new model. It would basically be a baby take on the X6. Stylistically, it would resemble the X6's sport coupe/SUV design, while the car would share much of its make up of engines and technology, probably even its platform, with the X3 range.
"BMW are keen to capitalize on the success of the X6 by offering a "downsized" version of [it]," writes Scott26 on BMW Blog.
Also on the table is an X3 35iS, sharing the same powerplant from the Z4 35iS as well as the U.S.-market 335iS. That engine is a twin-turbo straight six with 335 bhp (340 PS/250 kW) and 500 Nm (369 lb-ft) of torque.
But that is not to exclude a possible X3 M variant. "An X3M using the powerplant from the upcoming 1M is on the table also," writes Scott26, although, he says, no final decision has been made.
Such reports are difficult to verify but one thing is certain, BMW has built its success over the last decade by introducing new, sometimes niche models, into its lineup, that have been very effective at expanding sales of the brand.


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There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colts with no regrets had got away…
But on 7 November 1992 many of them assembled back at Ruse. It was an event to note the 25 years since their departure from the home of deeds not words.
The event was organised by Robert Fletcher and Craig Bryant from the A team, who yet again impressed the boss but for different reasons this time.
The lads who made it will be, to the best of a fading memory's ability, listed at the end of this small report.
The event took the shape of an assembly and walk around the old school followed by an onsite BBQ overlooking the oval. Ed Mulligan arrived in true form in his same old ford.
Headmaster (the Late James Hoskin) and School Captain, (the ever youthful Don Scott Kemmis) gave their blessing and attended. Bill Toft (DP) also was in attendance.
The 1992 class photo was hardly discernable from the 1967 version except for the colour format.
We planted a tree in the front garden (where boys and girls, I believe!!) still can't walk. No reports yet on how it is doing these 12 years later.
The day concluded with a dinner at Café Stivell (Hunters Hill). We were honoured by the presence of Elaine Peterson and Colin Anderson. Colin spoke as did "the boss".
Col Anderson said, amongst other things:
"So why reunite? What is in the human psyche that tells us, at a certain age, that we need to undergo such a ritual? Are we, like certain types of birds that fly north for the winter seeking warmth and pleasure? Or are we like lemmings… anxious to fling ourselves off the cliff? Are we masochists or optimists?
I mean, lets be honest. When you walked (ran? wheelied?) out the gates of your old alma mater all those 25 years ago, and flung you much hated hats in the air, surely the last thing you could ever have imagined was wanting to see most of your old school buddies ever… and I mean ever – again." [A more complete extract from Col's speakers' notes are published on this site]
So apart from a few pics of the event published on this site, that's it till someone else re-ignites the school motto and does it again while we still have breath.
Participants as best can be recalled:
Col Anderson (Teacher)
Phil Black
Col Brown (now Principal at Yanco!!)
Craig Bryant
Bob Cadden
Robert Chapman
Max Eady
Graham Elder
Robert Fletcher
Chris Hill
James Hoskin (the boss)
Jim Jacobs
Greg Richards
Ron Jamieson
Ed Mulligan
John O'Sullivan
Elaine Peterson (Teacher)
Gary Robertson
"Butch" Viney
Allan Rogers
Don Scott-Kemmis
John Smale
Bill Toft (Deputy Principal)
Warwick Tweedie
Chris Weale.
Apologies in advance if I missed you, corrections gratefully accepted.
Year Pages > 1967 >