Officials with JEA and Lakeland Electric –- Florida public power utilities -- on Oct. 28 provided details on pilot programs the utilities implemented to help non-residential customers and managers track and reduce energy use through interactive interval data dashboards.
GiGi Carroll, Program Manager at JEA, and Korey Bush, Assistant General Manager for Customer Service at Lakeland Electric, made their comments at the Florida Municipal Electric Association’s 2025 Energy Connections Conference & Trade Show in Jacksonville, Fla.
Bush noted that in August 2023, Lakeland Electric partnered with Automated Energy (now known as Brillion) to pursue the pilot program.
While Lakeland Electric has had AMI data available for its residential customers for many years, the “missing piece” was the utility’s large C&I customers, “our consumers that really drive a lot of our businesses.”
Bush noted the effort involved a three-pronged strategy. First, “what can we do with this twelve years of data that we’ve got on these customers and leveraging it – taking that snapshot of the residential space and putting it in a commercial space and what are they going to want to see?”
The second prong involved “providing those customers with the analytics so they can judge for themselves and make business decisions, make shift changes, make operational decisions,” that will provide opportunities to create greater revenue for the customers.
The third prong relates to providing account managers with a tool “and overall give the utility a win of these larger customers shifting their demand and lowering consumption and then also giving us a snapshot and a better way to serve them.”
He noted that when Lakeland Electric originally considered this tool, it wanted something that would be user friendly for customers.
“Everybody wants something of a little bit different data set,” so what’s something, for example, that one of the utility’s bigger production facilities wants to see?
“So we wanted something that was user friendly, that would optimize the information that they wanted, that was built for them and then works with all of your utilities,” Bush said.
He noted that the tool includes 30-minute interval data that customers “can pull up anytime and they have the capability to customize their dashboard to the information that they want.”
“Currently, we have 88 meters on this program,” Bush said. The plan is to now go from 88 to 200 meters and shifting from a pilot “to cover most if not all of our larger key accounts” for C&I customers.
Carroll explained that JEA decided to pursue its pilot because “we wanted to demonstrate that it was possible -- proof of concept – can we leverage the AMI data to be able to remotely direct customers…to correct inefficient building operations and estimate what their savings could be. If they make these changes, what could your savings be over the year.”
The timeline for the effort was six months and customers were partnered with an energy advisor at no cost to the customer. JEA used existing program funds to pay for the pilot.
JEA’s benefit was that it “was a very positive customer experience from beginning to end.”
She said that the average “measure life [for] this type of energy savings is about seven years. Energy equity in action – meaning you could have a rebate program for your customers, but if you don’t have the money to invest then who’s giving you a rebate if you can’t make that original investment?”
Also, “strategically deployed it could help with grid operations, depending on which customers that we choose,” Carroll said.
The program also complements JEA’s portfolio.
Along with JEA, consulting firm ICF and Power Takeoff were involved in the effort. ICF is JEA’s Business Rebate program implementation contractor and negotiated with Power Takeoff, which is the company that was used by JEA to do the “virtual commissioning.”
Data delivery involved 15-minute interval data with a two-year history.
JEA decided to test the program on the City of Jacksonville, which has “hundreds of buildings and meters.” She noted the variety of buildings in the city include big buildings, community centers, public libraries, office buildings, City Hall and sports and entertainment complexes.
JEA ultimately decided to utilize primarily city buildings for the project.
Among the lessons learned from the project included, among other things, the need for guardrails for implementation to serve more customers within an allowed budget.
The total projected energy savings under the program is 773,153 kWh. “That’s just with a handful of customers,” she noted.
Going forward, the goal is not to focus on key accounts for the program, but rather to offer it to JEA mid-segment customers, Carroll noted.
A focus on economically challenged areas could yield energy savings that in turn could allow for funds to be reinvested into those areas, creating economic redevelopment opportunities, she said. Churches, schools, and non-profits are also targeted segments that historically benefit from virtual commissioning.
