In an interview with APPA, Brianna Bennett, Sustainability Coordinator at Massachusetts public power utility Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant, discusses a case study that shows how HMLP achieves savings through a strategic demand response effort.
Bennett was joined in the Public Power Now podcast interview by Chris Kelly, Vice President at Beam Reach Consulting Group. The firm helped to “tell the story in a case study that's now been published” on APPA’s website, he noted.
The utility partnered with Connected Homes, a demand response program administered by Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company's Next Zero team and powered by a virtual peaker technology platform that communicates with enrolled devices.
When customers enroll eligible smart devices, such as thermostats, mini-split controllers, EV chargers, batteries, and water heaters, the utility gains the ability to automatically ship those devices' energy consumption away from costly peak demand periods.
HMLP's Demand Response Program
HMLP's demand response program “is an opportunity for us and our customers to take advantage of the smart Wi-Fi devices that we all have in our homes, put them to use, and shift energy use away from peak hours to create savings for both the utility and the customer,” Bennett said in the interview.
Customers can earn bill credits by enrolling eligible thermostats, mini-split controllers, EV chargers, EVs, batteries, and water heaters.
“When we have soaring electricity demand, we can communicate with those devices and reduce our demand, and that allows us to avoid the times when electricity costs the most and when it generates the most emissions.”
The program is called Connected Homes, and it's administered by the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company’s MMWEC’s NextZero team.
MMWEC started NextZero as a way to work with MLPs on their energy programs like demand response, Bennett said.
HMLP works with NextZero “on what we want the program to look like, how to engage customers, and who's actually earning bill credits. NextZero works with Virtual Peaker, the software platform provider that enables demand response. So Virtual Peaker is the company that's sending all the signals and helping us actually control devices.”
Case Study Shows Benefits of Joining Established Demand Response Program
The case study shows how joining an established demand response program can deliver immediate value.
Specifically, within one year of joining the Connected Homes program, HMLP achieved over $70,000 in net avoided transmission and capacity costs after accounting for program expenses.
Bennett detailed the elements of how the utility achieved this success.
She cited two factors.
“First, NextZero was already running Connected Homes as an established program with other public power utilities in Massachusetts. NextZero and those utilities are the ones who really paved the way through the initial learning curve of setting up a demand response program,” she said.
“We didn't have to build the program from scratch or negotiate the deal with Virtual Peaker ourselves, and that really allowed us to hit the ground running so we could just focus on tweaking things where we needed to and marketing the program to our customers.”
The second factor “was definitely the way we got the word out. We recognized from the start that the only way for us to see savings was to get our customers to actually care and then join the program.”
The utility started by sending letters and emails to all the customers who previously participated in a behavioral EV program to get them enrolled.
“That was pretty low-hanging fruit where we leveraged an existing list of customers we knew would be interested so that we could get decent participation right off the bat.”
The NextZero team “also provides free marketing resources to participants, which allowed us to regularly post about the program on social media, and then we've given out flyers with QR codes to the website and had NextZero talk at our events like the EV Ride and Drive and open house, a heat pump forum, and our board meetings,” Bennett said.
“So we've had them in the community talking to customers in addition to the standard marketing material.”
Bennett also described what she has seen as the most effective ways to engage customers in terms of demand response programs, especially when asking for some level of device control.
“When we first launched the program, I got a lot of calls from customers with questions about data privacy, eligible devices, and just how the program works,” she said.
“Every call and question I got went towards my question of whether customers understand what we're doing and how can we make this easier for them. As we went along, we added things to the webpage and tweaked the marketing and guidelines to try to make the program as engaging as possible.”
A lot of customers who were on the fence “felt more comfortable once they were able to call us up at the utility and talk through their questions. It is always nice to get a real human on the other end of the phone who will actually listen to you and try to address your issue. I think it was very important that NextZero was available to talk to people and also that HMLP was trained on the program and available.”
Bennett said that she was often assuring customers when they called that they have full control over their devices.
If the utility calls an event, they can opt out anytime. “And if we call a couple of events every month, we're not going to take somebody's credit away if they have to skip one or two. If you need to charge your EV for a big trip and we call an event, you can opt out of that. And that removed a big fear factor for customers. I think they need to know they can trust us, and to that end, we always try to be fully transparent.”
Bennett also noted that customers don't have to do anything once they sign up. The program's automated, “so unless they need to opt out, they just let the devices do their thing and earn credits.”
She said that some customers don't have an eligible thermostat or EV because that manufacturer hasn't opted in yet. “And we don't just say sorry and turn those customers away. In those situations, when the customer reaches out, I take down their information and I keep a list so that if that brand ever joins the program, I know which customers I can reach out to.”
NextZero has been great “about working with manufacturers and expanding the program. So I've already had a few customers that I've been able to call back and say, Okay, your device is now in the program. Let's get you enrolled.”
HMLP recently started a peak alert notification system with NextZero so that even if a customer doesn't have an eligible device, they can still sign up for those alerts on when to reduce their energy consumption and then they get text messages or emails.
“This is a great way to keep those customers actively engaged and aware of the program until they do end up purchasing an eligible device that will automatically shift that energy load for them.”
For other public power utilities considering a similar program, what's one piece of practical advice that often gets overlooked?
“I would say don't overcomplicate it,” Bennett said. “Find your partners, make a plan, and then go for it, and be ready to adjust as you go. If you have a program that nobody's using, there's probably a reason for that. So run surveys to figure out whether people have heard of it or not, whether there are specific reasons they're not participating.”
As a utility, don't be afraid to get creative with customer outreach, “like the folks at HMLP and others that we've seen, and consider resources that provide immediate feedback to customers on their savings or positive environmental impacts, or even how they're helping their neighbors by participating in the program,” Kelly said.
