Soon your utility will help select your next car

That’s the plan anyway, as utilities want to recommend electric cars to their customers so as to sell more electricity and make more money. But there’s much more to it than that. Enter the ‘trusted energy advisor’.

For a long time utilities have been seeking better ways to engage with their customers, says PEI.

Jeff Hamel, director of energy and housing partnerships at Google, says that the Nest smart thermostat – which is part of the hardware product line that Google provides – is a good example of a simple way that utilities are partnering with their customers.

Google’s program is called Rush-hour Rewards, and it allows customers to agree to let their utility adjust their thermostat during times of peak energy demand. In exchange for allowing their utility to adjust their thermostat, customers get monetary rewards.

Online marketplaces are another example of how utilities are looking to help customers make good decisions about their energy use, says Hamel.

“There is a phrase where utilities want to become the ‘trusted energy advisor’ for their customers,” he adds, explaining that, for example, Eversource customers in New England in the US would look to their utility “for anything that they may be needing — from a smart thermostat to a new air conditioning unit all the way to bigger electric appliances like an electric vehicle”.

“One of the tools they are using to help manifest that is through these utility branded marketplaces,” says Hamel.

Continued here.