Promoting change throughout energy systems using economic
incentives - A novel approach to electricity billing to improve
The City of Summerside’s energy security and reduce its carbon
emissions
by
Megan McCarthy
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for an honours degree in Environment, Sustainability, and Society
at
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
1 August 2012
© Copyright by Megan McCarthy, 2012
5
DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT
The undersigned hereby certify that they have read and recommend to the College
of Sustainability for acceptance a thesis entitled “Promoting change throughout
energy systems using economic incentives - A novel approach to electricity billing to
improve The City of Summerside’s energy security and reduce its carbon emissions
” by Megan McCarthy in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
honours.
Dated:
Supervisor:
_________________________________
Readers:
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
6
DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY
DATE:
1 August 2012
AUTHOR:
Megan McCarthy
TITLE:
Promoting change throughout energy systems using economic
incentives - A novel approach to electricity billing to improve The City
of Summerside’s energy security and reduce its carbon emissions
DEPARTMENT OR SCHOOL:
DEGREE:
Bachelor of
Management
College of Sustainability
CONVOCATION:
April
YEAR:
2013
Permission is herewith granted to Dalhousie University to circulate and to have copied
for non-commercial purposes, at its discretion, the above title upon the request of
individuals or institutions. I understand that my thesis will be electronically available to
the public.
The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the thesis nor extensive
extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author’s written
permission.
The author attests that permission has been obtained for the use of any copyrighted
material appearing in the thesis (other than the brief excerpts requiring only proper
acknowledgement in scholarly writing), and that all such use is clearly acknowledged.
_______________________________
Signature of Author
7
Abstract....................................................................................................................................13
1
Introduction .......................................................................................................................14
1.1
2
Objectives ...................................................................................................................17
Background and Literature Review ...................................................................................21
2.1
Energy security and the electricity-chain stakeholders .............................................21
2.2
Current Electricity Billing Landscape ..........................................................................22
2.2.1
Issues Arising From Traditional Bill Design ..........................................................22
2.2.2
Solutions to the Issues Associated with Traditional Bill Design ..........................23
2.3
Current Installations of Alternative Billing Solutions .................................................26
Norway.........................................................................................................................27
O-Power .......................................................................................................................27
C3 Energy & Efficiency 2.0 ...........................................................................................28
GE Nucleus ...................................................................................................................29
SAP AG .........................................................................................................................30
Xfinity Home ................................................................................................................31
HP Exstream .................................................................................................................32
Microsoft Hohm & Google Powermeter .....................................................................33
ecobee & Energate ......................................................................................................34
2.4
2.4.1
Utilities/Suppliers ................................................................................................35
2.4.2
Electricity consumers ..........................................................................................37
2.4.3
The environment and environmental policies ....................................................38
2.5
3
Potential changes to the jurisdiction’s future energy security ..................................35
Summary.....................................................................................................................39
Methods ............................................................................................................................41
8
3.1
Survey .........................................................................................................................41
3.1.1
Reasons for using a surveying method................................................................41
3.1.2
Methods used for creating the survey ................................................................42
3.1.3
How the survey is conducted ..............................................................................44
3.2
Questions ....................................................................................................................45
3.2.1
Demographics ......................................................................................................46
Question 1: Postal Code ..............................................................................................46
Question 2: Total number of residents in the household ............................................47
Question 3: Age ranges for the household’s residents ...............................................47
Question 4: Gender of the bill payer ...........................................................................47
Questions 5 and 6: Number of residents in each home who are male and female ....48
3.2.2
Dwelling Characteristics ......................................................................................48
Question 7: Dwelling style ...........................................................................................48
Question 8: Approximate square footage ...................................................................49
Question 9: Number of rooms throughout the household .........................................49
Question 10: Heating methods used in the dwelling ..................................................50
3.2.3
Current Electricity Billing Statements..................................................................50
Question 11: Current electricity bill knowledge ..........................................................50
Question 12: Propensity to read monthly billing statement .......................................51
Question 13: Current knowledge of electricity behaviours and environmental issues
.....................................................................................................................................52
Question 14: Desired knowledge of electricity behaviours and environmental issues
.....................................................................................................................................53
3.2.4
Future Electricity Billing Statements ...................................................................54
Question 15: Preferred suggestions for new billing measures ...................................54
9
Question 16: Historical comparison graph ..................................................................55
Question 17: Peak-shifting graph ................................................................................55
Question 18: Kilowatt-hour equivalency graph ...........................................................56
Number 19: General electricity saving tips .................................................................57
Question 20: Most important behavioural change motivators...................................57
Question 21: Pooling electricity savings to use for energy efficient hardware...........58
Question 22: Willingness to use electricity savings to change heating sources .........58
Question 23: The type of reward system preferred for reducing consumption .........58
Question 24: Frequency of bill viewing preferred .......................................................59
Question 25: Preferred format of receiving billing statement ....................................59
3.3
4
Summary.....................................................................................................................60
Results ...............................................................................................................................61
4.1
Most significant findings.............................................................................................61
4.1.1
Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour ..................................................................................61
4.1.2
Decide on the best method to both communicate heating source replacement
programs to the jurisdiction’s customers and how to encourage uptake of these types
of programs......................................................................................................................64
4.1.3
Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new frequency
and/or format ..................................................................................................................66
4.1.4
How to measurably improve the environmental impact of the energy system
with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement .......................................68
4.2
5
Summary.....................................................................................................................70
Discussion ..........................................................................................................................72
5.1
Explanation for findings ..............................................................................................72
10
5.1.1
Method for tallying results ..................................................................................72
5.1.2
Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour ..................................................................................73
5.1.3
Decide on the best method to both communicate heating source replacement
programs to the jurisdiction’s customers and how to encourage uptake of these types
of programs......................................................................................................................74
5.1.4
Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new frequency
and/or format ..................................................................................................................75
5.1.5
Determine how to measurably improve the environmental impact of the energy
system with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement ...........................76
5.2
Limitations of the survey ............................................................................................77
5.3
Summary.....................................................................................................................78
6
Case Study: The City of Summerside .................................................................................80
Affordability .................................................................................................................82
Availability....................................................................................................................83
Acceptability ................................................................................................................84
6.1
7
Primary Research Survey ............................................................................................85
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................88
7.1
Recommendations......................................................................................................89
7.2
Future work ................................................................................................................90
8
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................92
9
Bibliography .......................................................................................................................93
10
Appendices ......................................................................................................................98
APPENDIX A: Maritime electric bill sample .................................................................98
APPENDIX B: O-Power historical billing sample report ...............................................99
APPENDIX C: GE Brillion software screenshot ...............................................................5
11
APPENDIX D: Ecofactor software screenshot ................................................................6
APPENDIX E: ecobee hardware and software screenshot.............................................7
APPENDIX F: Energate home automation system .........................................................8
APPENDIX G: Summerside primary research survey .....................................................5
APPENDIX H: Summerside survey invitation .................................................................6
APPENDIX I: Summerside current electricity statement sample ...................................5
APPENDIX J: Summerside primary research survey results...........................................6
12
Abstract
With energy demands increasing rapidly, energy suppliers are struggling to keep
up. Upgrading the existing systems comes with an enormous price tag for the supplier,
who in turn must recover these costs by increasing rates to the consumer. Not only are
the supplier and consumer strained by this solution, but the environment suffers as
well, since roughly 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels. In order to ensure
that resources will be available to meet the needs of future consumers and to protect
our fragile environment from depletion and pollution, it is critical that changes occur
now. Maintaining a balance in the energy system consisting of the supplier, the
consumer, the government and the environment needs to be achieved in order to
ensure energy security. To do this, each stakeholder’s needs must be determined and
taken into consideration. Primary research confirms that currently, the consumer’s
biggest concern is affordability, while the supplier’s is reducing production cost. The
government sets policies and guidelines that must be met to protect all stakeholders,
while the environment often takes the brunt of our collective actions.
The objective of this thesis is to determine the viability of promoting behavioural change
in consumption habits in order to reduce the amount of electricity used, shift on-peak
loads to alleviate the need for costly upgrades, and to encourage the use of renewable
energy sources. By inviting consumers to participate in a supplier endorsed survey to
determine their main concerns and motivators, the goal is to develop a customized
billing system for the supplier that will motivate consumers to reduce energy usage. In
turn, this alleviates the strain on the existing system, substantially reduces costs to the
end-user, encourages the use of alternative energy, and protects the environment. This
model is tested using a case study on The City of Summerside, Prince Edward Island.
13
1
Introduction
An energy system is a supply and demand feedback loop, the structure of which is
determined by overarching governmental policies: energy, the good in demand, is
delivered to the consumers through an internal conversion and transportation process,
whereby the good is consumed and the environment is impacted. This impact is
assessed and in turn affects the governmental policies (Hughes, 2011). The system is an
interactive amalgam of “one or more energy chains responsible for meeting the energy
demands of energy services or end users” (Hughes, 2011). Increasing demand for
electricity, resulting from a growing number of services, which rely on this resource, has
highlighted the electricity chain as a key segment of the overall energy system (U.S.
Energy Information Association, 2012). The electricity chain, like the other chains that
construct the energy system, is comprised of a group of stakeholders: the electricity
supplier, the consumer of electricity or end-user, the government and its policies, and
the environment (all parties affected by dynamics of the chain). Stakeholders fulfilling
their various roles together create and are affected by the dynamics of the multifaceted
electricity chain.
As seen below in Figure 1, similar to an organism, in order to maintain equilibrium and
healthy function within an energy system, all of the stakeholders must have their needs
met. The need for balance remains when introducing changes to the electricity chain, as
all stakeholders are necessarily dependent on and impacted by each other: no segment
of the chain exists in isolation.
Figure 1: A generic energy system (Hughes, 2011)
14
In order to keep the chain in balance through change, it is important to define all of the
stakeholders’ goals to develop an understanding of their needs. End-users’ goals are to
reduce monthly bills, and for some, to reduce environmental impact (Accenture, 2011).
For example, Nova Scotia Power recently introduced an energy rate hike that will likely
increase their customer’s bills by an average of $10 or 10% per month (Alberstat, 2011).
This is problematic for the lowest-earning 20% of Nova Scotians who already spend 6.4%
(wood) to 11.2% (low efficiency fuel oil furnace) of after-tax income of their income on
fuel and electricity compared to the top earners in Nova Scotia who spend 1.6% (wood)
to 2.9% (low efficiency fuel oil furnace) of their after-tax income comparatively; where
energy poverty is defined as individuals spending over 6% to 10% of their after-tax
income on energy (Hughes & Ron, 2009). Consumers are looking for ways to reduce
these costs in order to afford basic needs, such as food and housing.
For electricity suppliers, the cost of meeting increasing demand for electricity has
resulted in sizable infrastructure costs. In order to mitigate these costs, electricity
suppliers require people to more effectively distribute peak usage from times when
demand is highest to times when demand is lower (Accenture, 2011). This change in
distribution of users’ usage hours lowers demand during peak hours and better uses
costly infrastructure at times when it would normally be underutilized. Reduction of
usage at peak allows the electricity producers to avoid the impending upgrades to new
infrastructure that would allow for increased capacity. Though one of the supplier’s
main goals is to minimize peak usage; the overall goal is to reduce production costs.
For the environmental stakeholder, the threat of climate change is daunting. This threat
is in part fueled by electricity use, which emits harmful greenhouse gases, which
includes CO2, into the atmosphere. Some governments have acknowledged this threat,
and instructed policymakers to develop policy in an attempt to protect the environment
from global warming and consequential economic instability. In Nova Scotia, the
Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act was created with this
environmental protection in mind, and strives to reduce Nova Scotia’s electricity usage
by 25% over the next eight years (Government of Nova Scotia, 2012). The needs of the
15
environment and goals of the Nova Scotian government converge to quantitatively
(either in terms of money or carbon emissions) reduce environmental impact.
The overall stakeholders’ needs are viewed in terms of “energy security”. Despite the
fact that there is no common working definition of energy security (Hughes, 2011), the
most common definition is ‘‘the uninterrupted physical availability at a price which is
affordable, while respecting environment concerns’’ (IEA, 2010). From this, energy
security can be defined in terms: affordability, acceptability, and availability (the three
‘A’s) and their relation to energy flows and processes (Hughes, 2011). Affordability
refers to the price of energy, acceptability refers to the environmental consequence of
the method of derivation and result of use, and availability (or accessibility) refers to the
ease of access and the amount of energy available for use (Hughes, 2011). It is
important to address the issue of energy security, as any disruption to one part of the
electricity chain or energy system (for example, supply shortages or price increases)
could destabilize entire systems, and negatively impact many stakeholders. Ideally, if
jurisdictions address issues of energy security now, they may only be required to instate
preventative measures, and not experience the ramifications that can accompany an
unbalanced energy system and the need to instate reparative measures. In order to
avoid the latter situation, the question must be asked: what changes must stakeholders
of the electricity chain institute in order to improve the jurisdiction’s energy security?
Research into this question has been, and will continue to be, conducted by focusing on
changes to electricity consumers and suppliers and their relationship with the other
stakeholders; the governmental policies and the environment.
Through conducting a case study in the City of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, a set
of methods have been developed to improve energy security by using incentives that
target overconsumption and alternatives to space heating. Employing the monthly
electricity billing statement as a mechanism to educate consumers about electricity
purchases with the incentive of increasing their savings, an attempt was made to reduce
peak loads from the supplier side while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions. As
the monthly billing statement is the main point of contact between producer and
16
consumer (Purdue, 2009), the billing statement holds great potential to effect consumer
behaviour. However, in its current form, these bills leave consumers confused and
unaware of the true cost of their energy purchases (Darby, 2006). As one study puts it,
“consider groceries in a hypothetical store totally without price markings, billed via a
monthly statement... How could grocery shoppers economize under such a billing
regime?” (Kempton & Layne, 1994). The goal of the project is to quantitatively benefit
stakeholders in Summerside through determining the potential of and employing the
monthly billing statements in order to create systemic change throughout an electricity
chain. A list of objectives outlined below detail the purpose of this thesis both in terms
of what it aims to accomplish through a surveying method and what the pilot project
aims to complete for Summerside. In order to first establish the appropriate objectives
for Summerside, a review has been performed on Summerside’s electricity system by
conducting a case study which includes primary research on customer’s billing
preferences, the changes introduced to Summerside’s electricity system, and the
resulting impacts on stakeholders’ energy security. Assessment of data collected has led
to recommendations and suggestions for future work with regards to meeting
Summerside’s goals that are detailed in the conclusion at the end of this thesis. The
remaining chapters discuss the methods of conducting research, discussion of the
primary research survey, the case study’s observed results, as well as further
suggestions, potential errors in the data, and any limitations encountered.
1.1
Objectives
This objectives section refers both to the original objectives that were set out for
Summerside as the mandate for this thesis as well as to the specific objectives
constructed for the survey itself:
1) Conduct a case study on Summerside’s energy jurisdiction:
Conducting a case study on the jurisdiction in question will ensure that all of the
underlying goals of the area can be taken into consideration when determining how
best to implement a new billing regime in the form of reformatted billing software.
17
2) Survey a random sample of the population on their electricity billing statement
opinions and habits:
The following list of objectives, accompanied by a description of the information the
researcher has hypothesized that the survey will provide, shapes the foundations
for what the results will be geared towards finding. As mentioned in part 1) of this
section, the following list of objectives is derived from the jurisdiction’s goals that
were discovered when their case study was conducted:

Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour.
With this information, the proper energy security measure to target in the
jurisdiction can be brought to light based on the findings from residents on what
they value the most.

Decide on the best method to both communicate Summerside Electric’s space
heating program to its customers and to encourage uptake of the program.
Again, this information will help the researcher target a specific type of incentive
program based on the findings from the survey, therefore improving the city’s
energy security by educating residents on the benefits of switching to a more
secure source of energy for space heating. This includes determining if an Energy
Savings Account is a feasible way to encourage Summerside Electric’s mandate
of helping their customers switch to electric heating. An Energy Savings Account
is something that has been developed uniquely for Summerside Electric in light
of their need to help their customers make the switch from their traditional oil
based furnaces, which statistics show that roughly 75% of the residents have, to
ETS units and electric furnaces (Hughes, 2011). It works off of the premise that
customers essentially finance new heating units with these accounts by paying a
set fee or baseline rate per kilowatt-hour (kWh) that reflects the price they are
currently paying for their fuel oil based furnaces. The difference in cost that
occurs due to the high savings of the new ETS units accumulates in this savings
18
account for the consumer, which studies show could be up to $900 per year
(Hughes, 2011), and serves to pay off the unit in a short period of time. This
way, Summerside Electric’s customers stand to begin saving on their heating
costs in as little as 3 years, after paying off their system, without negatively
impacting the supplier themselves since this plan helps earn them new heating
customers, as they do not offer heating oil as a part of their services.

Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new format.
Customers cannot currently access their electricity bills online in The City of
Summerside. They also do not have access to real-time feedback information or
billing updates that are delivered more frequently than once per month. This
will test to see if customers would be willing to make use of things like web or
mobile applications and if more frequent updates on electricity expenditures
would help residents learn to conserve. This principle is the same idea as
knowing your cell phone minute usage throughout the month; it is nearly
impossible to begin to reduce consumption or to save cell phone minutes if you
are unaware of what you have used so far.

Measurably improve the environmental impact of Summerside’s energy
system with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement.
Encouraging the uptake of ETS units using this new type of a billing system will
help facilitate improvements to the acceptability metric of energy security due to
the fact that simulations show that CO2 emissions released from the usage of
wind power via ETS units would be greatly reduced.
3) Results are tabulated and recommendations are crafted in light of the findings:
The bolded statements from above are now re-evaluated and the results from the
submitted surveys are tabulated to provide guidance towards meeting these
objectives. The overarching goal is to use this information to help smooth the
transition from the old billing system if the results conclude that a new system
19
would indeed be beneficial for the jurisdiction’s residents as explained in the Future
Work section.
The first of the objectives for Summerside, and other electricity jurisdictions wishing to
upgrade their existing billing systems, will now be completed by conducting a case study
on their operating environment. For the purposes of this thesis, the researcher has
already conducted the case study on the environment that modern electricity suppliers
currently operate under in order to help construct relevant objectives as a basis for this
thesis. This analysis will now be explained in detail throughout Chapter 2.
20
2
2.1
Background and Literature Review
Energy security and the electricity-chain stakeholders
A characteristic shared by all jurisdictions is the requirement of an energy system, which
is made of one or more chains that represent the flows of energy from various sources
to meet demand from end-users (Hughes, 2011). Figure 2 represents a single process in
a chain that together with other processes creates the chain on which this project
focuses: the electricity chain.
Figure 2: A generic energy process and its flows (Hughes, 2011)
As seen above in Figure 2, the energy system is comprised of energy inflows and
outflows between the system’s four main entities: electricity sources (suppliers),
electricity end-users (consumers), policymakers and their policies, and the environment.
Together, each energy source forms its own separate chains, which all work in parallel
to each other making up the jurisdiction’s energy system. Using the energy security
framework as outlined by the IEA as “availability and affordability (of its converted
energy flows) and acceptability (of its losses and emissions flows)”, it is possible to
measure and record effects on the system (Hughes, 2011). This framework, at the end
of Chapter 2, will be applied to the findings in an attempt to determine effects of the
proposed changes made to the billing format on the jurisdiction’s energy security. In
order to understand and assess the proposed format changes and the desired
consequences, it is first necessary to further understand the current situation of the
various stakeholders.
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2.2
Current Electricity Billing Landscape
2.2.1 Issues Arising From Traditional Bill Design
In order to stay in business and turn a profit on their supplied services, electricity
suppliers track the amount of electricity used by each customer and charge them for
that amount using the rate model in place. Traditionally, induction meters have been
used for this measurement. Induction meters record the consumption of electricity in
consumer’s homes by noting the KWh used over the time period of a few months
(Hughes, 2012). The difference between an induction meter and an interval, or Time-ofUse (TOU) meter that will be discussed in Section 2.2.2, is the length of the interval
between each type of meter’s readings (Hughes, 2012). Since induction meters are
limited to tracking usage over such a long period of time (a number of months), the two
types of rate models that can be used in conjunction with these meters are: the flat-rate
billing model, which is one single rate that is multiplied by the sum of the hours used
over the billing period (usually one month), or the block rate billing model, which
categorizes customers into blocks depending on the amounts of electricity consumed
(Hughes, 2012). For example, there could be a rate block for customers who use from 0200 kWh, then a different rate for those who use between 200-500 kWh, etc. (Hughes,
2012).
According to a report on the importance of billing rate structures, “at a minimum, a rate
model is a means of generating revenue from customers. However, rate models can do
far more than this; judiciously applied, they can influence customer consumption
patterns by rewarding changes in behaviour” (Hughes, 2004). This can be seen in block
rates that are structured to encourage consumption like in the case of declining block
rates. Customers who fall into higher usage blocks, usually commercial customers, are
given a discount for using more, which in theory, stimulates (and certainly does not
dissuade) further consumption (Hughes, 2012). Encouraging consumption is the
supplier’s means of earning higher revenues for more services rendered. Assessing the
declining block rate policy through an energy security lens, it decreases affordability for
22
those within the electricity chain who can afford it least (as it provides cost cuts for the
larger consumers, who tend to be larger companies and larger property owners),
decreases acceptability through encouragement of greater electricity consumption, and
through this encouragement, decreases future availability. Aside from rate structures
that discourage customers from increasing resource conservation, traditional bills are
generally seen as too complicated, and are often misunderstood. As can be seen in
Appendix A, current billing formats focus on total monthly charges, summing the total
kWhs used, the different efficiency charges and rate riders applied by the utility.
Recently some have added small measures such as historical usage charts and small tips
to increase energy efficiency (Maritime Electric Company Ltd., 2012). Often, these bills
provide direction to a tutorial on the supplier’s website that explains the monthly
statement (Maritime Electric Company Ltd., 2012). In order to visualize the landscape
that the current billing formats create for electricity customers, one could re-invoke the
grocery store imagery from the introduction where no prices exist on individual items in
the store and customers receive a lump-sum billing statement for their purchases at the
end of each month (Kempton & Layne, 1994). If grocery shoppers were unaware of
what each item cost, it would be nearly impossible for them to figure out where to cut
back and what items were responsible for the lion’s share of the price. It is the same
type of scenario faced by the customer when they receive their electricity bill at the end
of the month. The bill provides no breakdown of how this energy was used, meaning
the customer has no way of determining what behavioural changes to adopt, as these
statements only provide the information of amount used and resulting cost.
2.2.2 Solutions to the Issues Associated with Traditional Bill Design
Development of an effective means to encourage behavioural change towards
electricity consumption is a key in maintaining a stable electricity chain. As previously
mentioned, energy poverty is increasingly becoming an issue in places like Nova Scotia
where simply having the ability to turn on the lights at night is becoming a luxury for
some. One way to help people mitigate rising electricity costs is to encourage them to
reduce their usage, as it has been shown that as much as 36% of energy consumption is
23
dependent upon behaviour (Wood & Newborough, 2003). This demonstrates great
potential for change in regards to use of kilowatt-hours, and therefore affordability, for
electricity consumers. A central factor preventing this change has been the lack of
incentive and guidance for this change provided by traditional induction meters and
billing structures. In order to combat this problem, the interval or “Smart” meter was
invented that records consumption at the time-of-use (TOU) and measures use at a
much smaller interval (usually every hour, but it can be as often as every 15 minutes)
(Hughes, 2012). Data recorded by these meters can be transmitted to the utility
through an Internet connection (Hughes, 2012). The intervals allow the supplier to
better comprehend electricity use due to increased accuracy of monitoring. This
information can also predict usage trends more accurately allowing the supplier to set
lower rates for use at lower demand times in order to give customers incentive to use
electricity during off-peak hours.
These methods, known as peak shaving and valley filling, are depicted in Figure 3. They
do not reduce the amount of electricity used, but instead redistribute use to times of
lower demand on the generating capacity of the electrical infrastructure in place
(Hughes, 2012). For example, the redistribution of consumer use of dishwashers and
laundry machines to night instead of day (the typical peak usage time, depicted by the
peaks on the red line in Figure 3) prevents producers from needing to increase output
capacity for times of high usage. On the graph, this creates less extreme peaks and
valleys, and less generating capacity is required overall. Again, if incentives are
perceived to add enough value for the customer, peak shifting can be achieved, leading
to filling in the valley and creating more balanced grid loads, as depicted by the green
line in Figure 3.
24
Figure 3: Peak shaving and valley filling graph
In order to help calculate rates and manage the loads appropriately, the supplier can
use a Demand Side Management (DSM) system, which can help suppliers to reduce
consumption, react to fluctuations in supply levels by controlling demand, better predict
energy use resulting in less shortages or over-purchases, run the grid more efficiently,
and to avoid failures and reduce outages (SAP AG, 2011). This essentially works to
manage the load efficiently as depicted by the green line in Figure 3. DSM systems also
allow for integration of renewables into the electricity mix, as they enable suppliers to
control intermittent sources (such as wind power) to ensure a constant supply of
electricity despite that these sources do not consistently generate electricity.
DSM systems can also be used in conjunction with the customer side of the software
that shows customers how to understand the data reflecting patterns of their personal
electricity use and how to maximize both their home’s cost and electricity efficiency
(SAP AG, 2011). Use of DSM systems and comprehensive billing provide a key
component in solving current billing issues: Without software to process data being
produced by the Smart meters and without a way to present this information to
customers comprehensively, there will be no convenient method for consumers to
adopt behavioural changes (SAP AG, 2011). The DSM system is made increasingly
relevant by the large amount of Smart meters recently distributed and the inefficiency
of these smart meters without an accompanying software package to translate the data
25
into something meaningful (SAP AG, 2011). “In 2008, less than 4% of the global installed
base of 1.5 billion electricity meters could be regarded as smart devices. Four years
later, this penetration has grown to over 18%, and should exceed 55% by 2020”
(Marcacci, 2012). Adequate software to pair with this technology is a necessity, as their
usage will soon be ubiquitous.
This situation was assessed and explained by the American Council for an EnergyEfficient Economy in a meta-study that took 65 papers on introduction of Smart meters:
“advanced meters alone will not achieve energy efficient behaviour change but with a
healthy mix of behavioural science, policy, and enabling-technologies, these technology
and networking systems could achieve dramatic energy savings. If utilities begin to
recognize the customer as a large resource for demand & cost management, a new
utility services paradigm that leaves room for a whole host of new energy management
products and services is possible. Now seems to be the time to act to take advantage of
the growing public interest in energy and the growing number of products and services
available on the market” (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010). This study also predicted the
high likelihood of third party players leading the integration of Smart-meter technology
with billing systems, as suppliers generally do not have time to invest in these endeavors
(Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010). The following section compiles a list of these third
parties and illustrates their ideas and actions, as well as the varying success of these
ideas and actions.
2.3
Current Installations of Alternative Billing Solutions
With the large window of opportunity in this market for lucrative improvement of
jurisdictions’ energy security, several entities (including countries, corporations and
governments) have taken some of the measures outlined in the previous section to
better the electricity supplier-to-customer relationship through improving billing and
rate structures. As bills are the main contact point between utilities and their
customers, there have been many attempts to redesign the electricity bill to improve
26
this communication channel. The following is an analysis of some of these major
installations throughout the world.
Norway
Norway was a pioneer in conducting research regarding the effects of billing to energy
consumed in residential households. A three-year study in Oslo in 1994, by Wilhite and
Ling, compared the effects of TOU billing over direct-debit deposits and examined the
impact of bill design on changing energy consumption behaviour. Their findings showed
that, after testing 1300 participants, redesigned energy bills resulted in an average
reduction of 10% of energy consumption (Wood & Newborough, 2003). The findings
from a questionnaire given to homeowners showed customers who received the test
bills paid more attention to their monthly statement, were more likely to discuss these
bills with other family members, and desired the continuation of the experimental bills
(Wood & Newborough, 2003). They also found the cost of more frequent and
informative bills were minimal in relation to the savings produced by the bills and that
“each kWh of saved energy has a cost of only about $0.01” (Wilhite & Ling, 1995).
While $0.01 cost per kWh does not take into consideration the fact that reduced
consumption will ultimately lead to reduced revenues to the supplier, other measures
on the bills like load demand can help to mitigate these costs by providing savings in
other areas. The measures used on the bills in the study were deemed to be so
effective that they have since been adopted into Norwegian legislation and are still used
today (Wood & Newborough, 2003).
O-Power
O-Power, in operation since 2007, is a multi-million dollar U.S. company (O-Power,
2012), and has had the biggest impact in the U.S. market in terms of redesigning energy
bills and influencing energy consumption behaviour. Redesigned bills for over 52 utilities
in 22 states, claims to have saved over one terawatt hour in electricity consumption
through implementation of their software platform (O-Power, 2012). They have
witnessed average consumer savings range from 2.5% - 5% since they began operations
27
5 years ago (O-Power, 2012). On their website, O-Power has posted several studies of
their research and literature alluding to potential customer savings in terms of kilowatthours and dollars. As of 2012, O-Power claims to have saved their customers upwards
of $128 million dollars and 1.6 billion pounds of CO2 (O-Power, 2012).
Their software did not focus on integrating customer data with new interval meters, but
instead used the current induction meter data. In order to enter the market quickly,
they began by working with the current dominant technology, and maintained capacity
to transition to interval meter technology once it becomes more readily available. As
can be seen in one of their sample reports in Appendix B, the information on which they
focus are historical comparisons between the homeowners current month and previous
year’s same time period, tips on how to reduce consumption and save money, and a
comparison between neighbours with similar sized dwellings (O-Power, 2012). This
strategy has resulted in O-Power as the first to fill this market niche, but they will soon
be forced to further develop this strategy as the Smart meter technology and its
proponents are gaining popularity.
C3 Energy & Efficiency 2.0
One of the largest players in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and DSM
market, Siebel deals with accounting and billing software. Their founders recognize the
power of energy efficient software and technology, and began creating a company
around this premise called C3 Energy in 2009 (C3 Energy, 2012). The Board of Directors
and Managers includes the CEO of Siebel Systems, the former Senior VP of Oracle
(another large utility CRM/DSM company), the President of Yale University, the former
Secretary of Energy for the United States, and Condoleeza Rice (C3 Energy, 2012). Still a
start-up company, they are currently completing several pilot studies after their first
major round of financing (C3 Energy, 2012).
Efficiency 2.0 is a start-up company that originally began charging for its service as a
web-based social networking site based on reducing residential energy consumption
(Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010). They used incentives in the form of coupons to online
28
stores for encouraging reductions in electricity consumption (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al,
2010). This business model was uncommon for these types of companies, and it
remains unknown the degree of incentive to change energy behaviour provided by
coupons. Since compilation of Efficiency 2.0’s research, there have been significant
changes to the organization. Efficiency 2.0 is no longer an independent company, as it
was absorbed by C3 energy, which employs Efficiency 2.0’s software as their operating
platform (C3 Energy, 2012).
This operating platform is an integrated package of software applications that: serves as
both DSM and CRM software which work to analyze energy data; tracks, manages, and
reduces energy consumption and emissions; plans, executes, and tracks optimized
strategies for energy use and emission mitigation; identifies and captures financial
energy incentives to reduce project costs; and ensures compliance with environmental
policies and regulation (C3 Energy, 2012). C3 Energy has a database of over 40,000
incentives that come from governments, utilities, and product manufacturers to offset
the capital and operating costs of energy efficiency measures (C3 Energy, 2012). These
incentives must be searched through manually however and saved on a list per project
by the user; matching projects to appropriate incentives is not done automatically by the
software (C3 Energy, 2012). C3 has also forged partnerships with companies like
Facebook for their social media branch and GE for access energy efficient appliances and
upgrades (C3 Energy, 2012).
GE Nucleus
General Electric Company has forged partnerships with various companies, such as C3,
and has also benefitted from their presence in the energy efficient market. GE has
produced wind turbines and created a line of energy efficient products and software,
that only works in conjunction with AMI Zigbee Smart Meters (General Electric, 2012).
AMI stands for Advanced Metering Infrastructure and Zigbee’s particular product is one
of the leading brands of Smart Meters currently being deployed across the United States
(Zigbee Alliance, 2012). Their product line includes appliances and hardware with
imbedded “Brillion technology”, which is comprised of a thermostat sized piece of
29
hardware that acts as a data storage device communicating with the Smart meter and
Smart or “Brillion” appliances to provide near real-time consumption information when
plugged directly into an electricity consumer’s outlet (GE, 2012). Real-time feedback is
accomplished by creating a wireless network between a home’s Smart meter, Smart
appliances, thermostat and any other compatible devices (GE, 2012).
Of the companies being analyzed in this report, GE is one of the most comprehensive in
terms of integrating hardware and software to optimize monetary and energy
efficiency. GE also developed a software package that works in tandem with their
hardware, appliances, and Brillion technology (GE, 2012). Their software is essentially a
dashboard for a computer or mobile phone, as can be seen in Appendix C, that outputs
a personal energy profile displaying the consumer’s real-time consumption every 15
seconds that can be monitored by the customer to see what effects their behaviour has
on consumption, the weather is displayed as well as current rates, cost of electricity and
a history of usage (GE, 2012). While this system is comprehensive, it is expensive, and
relies on installation of a Smart meter in the consumer’s home. GE is not offering
software, but simply provides energy efficient hardware and software for customers to
use with existing Smart meters.
SAP AG
SAP, the largest application software developer on the market, has entered into the
DSM market niche with a software product for utilities to pair with their existing billing
systems (SAP AG, 2011). Utilities benefit from the software’s enablement of a smooth
transition from the pre-existing. This software does not include a layer of software that
deals with the CRM side and is solely for supplier use. The software increases supplier
control of TOU rate structures and Smart meter data to balance grid loads and shift peak
demand as seen in Figure 3 (SAP AG, 2011). SAP notes that their software fills a “critical
gap” in Smart-grid infrastructure where the interval meters, in order to function
effectively, require a complementary layer added to the existing software that
translates data into a meaningful message for utilities and customers (SAP AG, 2011).
However, SAP’s software lacks a facet (the CRM piece) to involve customers in engaging
30
with the Smart meter data to alter their behaviour. According to studies, “the success
of the smart grid, advanced metering, and energy management and home automation
technologies depends heavily on consumer acceptance and participation” (EhrhardtMartinez et al, 2010). SAP has included measures with their software to ensure thirdparty CRM providers can integrate with their software and offer incentives for energy
saving behaviour (SAP AG, 2011).
Xfinity Home
Comcast, the largest cable company and Internet service provider in the United States,
teamed with Ecofactor to use Comcast’s existing Xfinity Home home-security platform,
to create a home-based energy management system (Strother, 2012). Unlike all other
companies exampled in this section, Comcast does not operate in partnership with a
utility (Strother, 2012). Comcast can now offer its customers a value-added service
through helping to save them money and electricity without suffering the loss of
revenue associated by utilities with lowered electricity consumption. Comcast entering
the utility space may provide threatening competition in the industry. This renders this
move by Comcast risky for both them and Ecofactor, as utilities threatened by
competition and revenue loss may not cooperate with either company nor allow their
data and meters to be used in conjunction with Comcast’s platform. Ecofactor risks the
greatest damage as their main source of revenue, until the deal with Comcast was
struck, has been selling to utilities (Strother, 2012).
Despite this great risk, Xfinity Home offers a thorough home energy management
system, integrating both hardware and software. The hardware developed by Ecofactor
uses a “programmable communicating thermostat” to establish heating and cooling
patterns for each individual user that accounts for current weather, homeowner’s
thermal preferences, and the home’s thermal characteristics (Strother, 2012). Xfinity
Home’s goal is to provide fully automated thermostats that learn customer preference
and enable comfort and convenience through hundreds of incremental changes per day,
reaching maximum home energy efficiency (Strother, 2012). Paired with the hardware
is a software package including web and mobile-based applications as well as paper
31
reporting or statement capabilities (Ecofactor, 2012). The reports provide the following
information: monthly savings tallied, comparative run-times of the Ecofactor thermostat
versus traditional thermostats and how many hours saved, and the number of
adjustments made over the month; details on the weather’s impact on the price in the
electricity bill versus historical temperatures and the price difference; and a comparison
of neighbour thermostat temperature averages over four time periods throughout the
day (See Appendix D). The report tabulates data stored by the Ecofactor hardware, and
not the Smart meter, enabling Comcast to circumvent utilities and bypass meters. The
hardware itself allows for remote control through a web or mobile-based application
and can be programmed for space heating and cooling preferences. In addition to this,
it can also display customized, personal home energy reports.
HP Exstream
In 2009, Hewlett Packard Research acquired Exstream, a DSM software company, to
customize utility billing formats (Perdue, 2009). Their research conveys increased
customer satisfaction with their service provider and increased financial savings (an
average of 5% savings) while maximizing electrical supplier’s revenues (even during the
recent economic downturn) (Perdue, 2009). The following cities have since adopted
and benefited from the Exstream software: Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power, City of Medford, Denver Water, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and Delmarva
Utilities (Delaware, Maryland & Virginia) (Perdue, 2009). Many utilities have been
looking for third-party systems to outsource billing, as the traditional bill format has
remained stagnant for 20 years.
Research draws attention to other areas with potential for utility revenue maximization
and cost reduction. Utilipoint research displays over 15% of calls received are from
customers who do not understand the content and what they are being charged for on
their traditional bills (Perdue, 2009), suggesting a more comprehensive bill format will
decrease customer frustration along with a number of explanatory phone calls (Perdue,
2009).
32
Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.’s Senior Information Analyst Don Cohen conveys that due
to bill customization and eradication of the need for billing stuffers, the company’s “cost
savings have been dramatic, we’ve reduced our paper output by seven million sheets
per year and are saving thousands annually in printing and mailing costs alone” (Perdue,
2009). However, this software still requires a third-party provider to integrate a CRM
layer on top of this software.
Microsoft Hohm & Google Powermeter
Google’s Powermeter and Microsoft’s Hohm were both software applications that they
released to the public for free, but never gained enough traction to carry on operations
and both terminated operations within a week apart in the summer of 2011
(Fehrenbacher, 2011). Low customer uptake was to blame for both of these programs,
in Google’s case; Powermeter is rumored to have garnered only 11,000 customers in
total throughout its 5 years of operations (Fehrenbacher, 2011). Speculation suggests
the opt-in nature was the wrong approach and research backs up this assumption up as
participation rates in jurisdictions rose from 5%-10% with opt-in systems (systems you
must seek out and sign up for voluntarily) to 75%-85% with opt-out systems (systems
you must ask to be removed from, for example if O-Power sends bills to your home,
asking this to stop would be opting out of the system) (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010).
Microsoft Hohm had taken the same approach but also had to kill this branch of their
business due to low uptake of the system.
Other factors at play seemed to contribute and ensure the demise of both of these
organizations’ attempts in this market. One such fact was that they entered into the
energy billing software space very early and for opt-in systems that do not have the
momentum of automatically showing up in your mailbox, this is a risky move. The
Customer Electronics Association found that as of 2011, 64% of customers were
unaware of any electricity management programs and that a further 66% were
unfamiliar with what a Smart grid is (Fehrenbacher, 2011). This makes programs like
Google’s and Microsoft’s a tough sell since they need to be attracting individuals who
know what these are so that they will understand why they should sign-up for their
33
service. Finally, many utilities saw big players like these two organizations as threats to
the electricity marketplace. Ever since Google entered into the cell-phone market with
Android, their strategy has been seen as to cause disruption to markets and so utilities
were nervous to partner with these companies in the event that the sheer scale of these
organizations could be enough to take over parts of this market (Fehrenbacher, 2011).
ecobee & Energate
Much smaller companies that operate out of Canada are called ecobee and Energate.
ecobee is an Ontario company that bases its technology off of a proprietary touchscreen
thermostat that connects to the home much in the same way that GE’s Nucleus would
(ecobee, 2012). This thermostat, when paired with their software systems, is said to
save customers an average of 26% off of their electricity bills annually (ecobee, 2012).
The software and thermostat together can display real-time usage data, daily usage on
an hourly and weekly basis, including TOU rates and cost per kWh, monthly usage &
projected usage based on trends and how this measures up to set targets, and email
alerts to customers if they wish to warn them of when they are approaching the limits of
targets they have set as can be seen in Appendix E (ecobee, 2012). Their software also
includes tools for contractors like HVAC reports on their customers, equipment details,
service reminders, specials, map views of their customer’s homes and active alerts
(ecobee, 2012). This software supports Zigbee SE, Wi-Fi, HAN SRS v2.0 and ClimateTalk.
They also have their entire media package available with logos and anything distributors
could need right on the website to facilitate getting their product out to their
customers, reducing barriers to entry for distributors (ecobee, 2012).
Energate is based in Ottawa, Ontario and offers Demand Response (DR) solutions, or
communications technology that allows utilities the option of connecting remotely to
devices located at their customer’s premises (Energate, 2012). Their technology is
Zigbee compatible and Energate has solutions for consumers no matter what type of
metering system they have (see Appendix F). They cover both the DR side and customer
interface side unlike ecobee who only focuses on the CRM layer. This gives Energate an
advantage in this area since their product line is more diverse and utilities would be able
34
to use them as a one-stop shop, whereas ecobee’s customers would need to add DR or
DSM software to manage Smart meter output. ecobee would therefore need to target
utilities that used providers like SAP who are already providing them with DSM software
and they are simply looking to add a CRM layer of software on top of this.
2.4
Potential changes to the jurisdiction’s future energy security
The following is an analysis of the impacts on the energy security of the jurisdiction from
the perspective of each of the stakeholders involved within the electricity chain if the
proposed changes to the jurisdiction’s monthly electricity billing statements are
implemented:
2.4.1 Utilities/Suppliers
The electricity supplier or utility is the first of four important stakeholders within the
energy system that serves to meet the electricity demands of the jurisdiction’s endusers. Electricity suppliers have been built over the years on reliability and low-cost of
service, which, for the most part, they have done well at (Accenture, 2011). However,
fast changes in technology have decreased the cost of home automation equipment and
have improved access to data and feedback driven technology (i.e. Information or data
regarding electricity usage presented in a meaningful, personalized way as a reference
point for improvement) that gives customers the ability to have greater control over
their electricity usage (SAP AG, 2008). By doing this, suppliers can create and improve
the relations with their customers if their customers see value added from their utility.
“Many consumers have traditionally perceived a relationship with their utility as lowvalue, with many of their reasons for interaction negatively predisposed—often related
to customer service or bill inquiries” (Accenture, 2011). The legacy software systems
that are currently in place for billing, or software that is still performing a crucial
invoicing role but is technologically outdated, have been clearly unable to keep up with
advances in Smart technology, ultimately having a negative impact on the customers of
the organizations that continue to use this software (SAP AG, 2008).
35
“Accenture analysis and experience suggests that 40 to 60% of core meter-to-cash (or
billing) processes will need to be changed or redesigned with the introduction of a full
suite of in-home smart technology and supporting consumer programs and services”
(Accenture, 2011). What this translates into is 90 million electricity-customers in the
U.S. alone who will need to have their supplier’s billing-systems and current
infrastructure completely overhauled by 2015 in order to be able to handle the
integration of this new technology (Accenture, 2011). This is a very large gap in the
market to fill and in an extremely short amount of time. This task seems especially
daunting after the analysis of current installations of alternative billing solutions, which
showed that most of the companies and systems needed are only in the pilot phase of
their projects.
Despite the difficult nature of the task of overhauling utility software systems, it is still in
the utility’s best interest for several reasons other than to simply keep up with new
technology. Research from SAP notes that some of the key functions of new systems
will enable utilities to minimize monthly billing-error rates, minimize time spent on
billing discrepancies, dramatically reduce training time on new software, renewables
can be integrated into the utility’s mix and less reliable renewables like wind and solar
can be better managed to maximize their efficiency and return on investment (SAP AG,
2008). They also found that there was increased customer satisfaction due to improved
customer service, expanded reporting and analytical capabilities and increased security
for customer data (SAP AG, 2008).
These changes are important because they have the ability to improve the three A’s of
energy security. Having the capability to monitor and manage consumption improves
reliability for the supplier and can ultimately reduce outages (SAP AG, 2008), which
improves the availability of electricity for consumers. Allowing the integration of
renewables into the supplier’s grid also improves acceptability in terms of where the
jurisdiction is sourcing their electricity. As for the last ‘A’, affordability, having the ability
to customize bills and offer off-peak rates and financial incentives to customers greatly
helps them to afford their electricity. For suppliers, this improves their overall
36
affordability as well since they reduce their infrastructure costs, improve their return on
infrastructure investments, and improves operational efficiency reducing training and
implementation costs (SAP AG, 2008).
2.4.2 Electricity consumers
Energy security, in terms of affordability, is arguably one of the electricity consumer’s
biggest challenges facing residents in many jurisdictions today. As previously
mentioned, here in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Power customers were forced to accept a
10% rate hike this year (Alberstat, 2011) amidst already having high levels of energy
poverty where the lowest earning 20% of Nova Scotians already spend approximately
6.4% - 11.2% of their earnings on fuel and electricity (Hughes & Ron, 2009). Customers
are therefore looking for ways to save money on their monthly bills so that they can
continue to meet their fuel and electricity needs. Coupled with this fact, studies show
that the public, once apathetic to environmental issues, or the acceptability side of
energy security, are now prepared to tackle these daunting problems. A recent Yale
University study shows that 91% of Americans believe that developing sources of clean
energy should be one of the government’s top priorities (Leiserowitz, Maibach, RoserRenouf & Smith, 2011). Furthermore, 65% believe that corporations need to take more
action on environmental issues while 63% assert that it is individuals themselves who
need to engage more towards mitigating global warming (Leiserowitz et al, 2011).
The Yale study explains that apathy is not the common factor holding consumers back
from making energy-conscious decisions. What studies do point to, as the source of
collective inaction, is a general lack of both energy education and incentives to
encourage behavioural changes once knowledge about energy is obtained (Accenture,
2011). While many might think that the consumer’s only concern in terms of energy
security would be affordability, the Yale study shows that these stakeholders have an
interest in the acceptability of sourcing electricity as well. In fact, the Accenture study
shows that customer’s decisions to adopt electricity management programs were only
based on the impact on the electricity bill 38% of the time (Accenture, 2011). The other
62% relates to non-monetary benefits the customer’s perceived such as the ability for
37
the customer’s utility to remotely control their appliances to maximize efficiency, the
environmental benefits their actions produced, and the ability to take self-action when
the utility alerts the consumer throughout the day of actions that could impact their
consumption (Accenture, 2011).
By using the redesigned billing system to utilize the public’s need to decrease their bills
as an incentive, coupled with their want to improve on their environmental impact, the
reformatting could have a positive influence on the affordability metric of energy
security. This could inevitably reduce blackouts for the jurisdiction’s residents as well
improving upon availability since incentives would include on peak to off-peak shifting,
which could free up enough electricity on the grid to stave off any shortages.
Reductions in usage would lead to less carbon emissions into the atmosphere also,
ameliorating the acceptability metric that the public has shown to grow concerned
about as of late.
2.4.3 The environment and environmental policies
The fact that the public is ready and willing to tackle environmental issues is good news
for the environment, especially for the acceptability side of energy security and with the
looming threat of climate change. In recognition of global warming trends, a handful of
governments worldwide have been working on developing legislation that works
towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the environment. In Nova
Scotia, the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act (EGSPA) was created
with the goal of making Nova Scotia one of the most sustainable environments in the
world by 2020 (Government of NS, 2012). This Act includes 21 goals, one of them being
that 18.5% of electricity must be sourced from renewables by 2013 and another being
that they are attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emission levels to 10% below 1990
levels by 2020 (Government of NS, 2012). Despite some jurisdictions adopting measures
such as these however, according to the IEA, the worldwide effort has not been
substantial enough and “the transition to a low-carbon energy sector is affordable and
represents tremendous business opportunities, but investor confidence remains low
due to policy frameworks that do not provide certainty and address key barriers to
38
technology deployment” (International Energy Agency, 2012). Policies like EGSPA in
Nova Scotia are uncommon, and have unfortunately not been able to prove their value
as of yet, but governments that avoid taking similar action on climate change with
appropriate policy decisions send the wrong message to the public and the environment
will be the one to suffer the brunt of the consequences in the end.
Corporations are the other large institutions aside from governments, which humans
have at their disposal to affect large-scale change in the world. The list in Section 1.2.3
of current installations shows that despite a lack of governmental support on climate
issues, businesses still have the power to improve the environment through their
actions. By using a DSM system in conjunction with energy efficient upgrades, the
energy security of jurisdictions could be improved in several ways, regardless of policy
framework support. Companies have seen small to large reductions in consumption
with the implementation of their systems therefore improving the acceptability of the
electrical services provided if they are able to direct consumers on how to use and
waste less, all while educating them about environmental issues. Hardware can also
help to reduce waste, for example, smart appliances like dishwashers and clothes dryers
can be programmed to operate during off-peak hours. By helping customers to shift
their usage from on-peak hours, costly infrastructure upgrades can be avoided if peak
generation can be lowered. This means that large, often environmentally destructive
projects, are diverted, greatly improving the acceptability of energy security as well.
Reformatting bills has the potential to make positive impacts on the acceptability of
electricity services making these proposed changes beneficial ones for the environment.
2.5
Summary
The beginning of this chapter begins by explaining the energy security framework and
how to go about using the 3 A’s to give a snapshot of the jurisdiction’s energy security.
This leads the researcher to determine that the jurisdiction must therefore first be
studied and have an analysis of their current situation taken so that a re-evaluation can
be done later showing the overall difference in the 3 A’s. Secondary research then
39
shows that issues with current bill designs stem from the continued use of traditional
induction meters that lack Time of Use (TOU) billing. This means that suppliers are
currently able to offer no more than a very limited set of incentives aimed at electricity
consumption behaviour modification. In fact, some suppliers are currently only giving
incentives in the form of block rates that reward those who consume more with lower
rates.
This can be changed however with the introduction of Smart Meters, or meters that are
equipped with the ability to record consumption information more frequently and to
report it wirelessly. When new meters are used in combination with new billing
regimes, the systems become attractive for suppliers since they are able to use
incentives like peak shifting, which in turn lowers their costs. This can be seen already in
numerous installations and countries throughout the world. Through secondary
research, it is observed in these installations that all 3 A’s of energy security have the
potential to be measurably improved upon, at a minimum with the implementation of a
new billing regime, and ideally with both this regime and new TOU meters. Not only will
the 3 A’s have the potential for advancement, but the metrics could be improved for
each of the jurisdiction’s stakeholders simultaneously, creating the balance in the
system that it has been hypothesized is required for the successful integration of any
changes to an energy system.
40
3
Methods
In order to address the issues described in the previous chapter regarding the utilitybilling landscape, it is important to understand that each electricity jurisdiction is unique
and therefore has its own unique needs and circumstances. It is for this reason that a
survey is conducted in each jurisdiction, using the survey method outlined below, to
help the researcher gain an understanding of what motivates each group of consumers.
This way, a tailored system can be developed to make use of these motivators as an
incentive for behavioural change.
3.1
Survey
3.1.1 Reasons for using a surveying method
As seen in the secondary research from Chapter 2, the data shows that redesigning bills
clearly makes an impact on consumer choices and behaviour; however, some of the
literature appears contradictory and depends on where it was conducted. This may also
account for why so many studies on this topic used surveying methods despite it having
been done repeatedly throughout the literature; because different customers in
different areas are looking for different kinds of feedback. For example, one study
found that normative feedback, or being compared to a standard-sized household,
caused reason for concern and distrust in consumers tested in the United Kingdom who
were concerned about where their utility was sourcing this information from (Darby,
2006). Alternatively, other areas of the world, like research from O-Power in North
America, found neighbourly comparisons to be healthy competition and had the largest
amount of savings generated from this redesigned section of the bills (EhrhardtMartinez et al, 2010). In the end, these two papers did come to the same conclusion—
that historical comparisons, or comparing this year’s consumption to that of last year’s
as a reference point, were determined by customers to be “the best” methods for
making informed decisions (Darby, 2006).
These findings speak to the need for indirect feedback, or feedback that occurs after
consumption occurs like on monthly statements for example, to be personalized for each
41
individual customer in order to make the feedback meaningful and applicable (EhrhardtMartinez et al, 2010). Indirect feedback helps people to see large overall patterns in
their consumption and it seems as though, without this information, the target market’s
main drivers for change could be overlooked and the efficacy of the changes enacted
could be compromised as a result (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010). One of the major
findings from the meta-analysis is that having relevant, personalized feedback is indeed
one of the most important factors for the successful implementation and uptake of
these bills (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010). It is for these reasons that surveying each
jurisdiction, that either has the need or want to introduce billing format changes, is an
important first step in this method because this will determine the chief motivators
influencing behavioural change in each jurisdiction’s residents and the appropriate
implementation plan based on those results.
3.1.2 Methods used for creating the survey
The original survey used for testing Summerside’s jurisdiction as the example for this
thesis, which can be found attached in Appendix G, was constructed using suggestions
based on what other companies and jurisdictions are currently using for their
redesigned bills and from the measures that have been producing the highest rates of
reduced consumption for consumers while producing balanced loads for suppliers.
Analyzing the feedback, provided by those surveyed in the research, helps form the
types of questions and avenues to be included on the survey as an initial guideline. The
newer the research, the more up-to-date the trends and information will be regarding
the effectiveness of different bill measures and which ones are best suited to help
consumers modify their behavior. From there, a meeting with the supplier was
established to assess their needs and the environment they operate in. This is an
important part of the survey process because it can help gauge what the supplier’s
customers have indicated as their areas for concern and as their main motivators for
changing their consumption patterns. This is inevitably what helped form the Objectives
for Summerside, which can be found in Chapter 1.
42
It’s equally important to know what changes the supplier expects to achieve with their
customers and how to communicate this on the bills. This will attempt to find a
common ground between the needs and wants of both the supplier and consumer so
that a tailored system can be created that attempts to simultaneously meet as many
stakeholder needs as possible. Using the supplier’s mandate to help in the construction
of the survey questions, secondary research can then be used to match the supplier’s
needs with the most effective mechanisms found for their situation to test on the
survey. This step in the process helps to filter out any questions that may not relate to
the residents in the jurisdiction or questions that do not help to fulfill the supplier’s
mandate.
The questions themselves will be divided into different categories that will aim to collect
different types of data to be used to find correlations. The first section will be
demographic data, collecting things like age, the number of residents in the household,
and where the approximate location of the residence is. This will help to unveil any
trends or patterns that are present in regards to different demographic groups and their
responses to the other questions in the survey. Doing this lets the researcher know
things like what demographic to target for when implementation of the new DSM and
CRM software occurs and how many residents in each household effect the overall
electricity consumption of the home, for example.
The next set of questions has to do with collecting information on the dwelling’s
characteristics. This set of data is crucial to have for the implementation stage as well
so that the researcher knows things like the type of heating system currently in use in
the home, and the square footage so that the researcher knows how much space there
is to heat, for example. Following this section is a set of questions, residents are then
asked to gauge their current attitudes towards their monthly billing statements so that
the researcher can get a general understanding of the current billing environment from
the consumer’s perspective. The final section in the questionnaire that gathers the
largest data set asks questions related to measures that could potentially be included on
the resident’s future bills and their opinions towards these measures and how effective
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they assume they might be. Using the information gained from these sections together,
the researcher can then determine what the jurisdiction’s needs are based on
demographic, dwelling and current billing practices. Using this information in
combination with measures residents would like to see on their future bills, the
researcher could then formulate a strategic implementation plan for any new bill
redesigning software the supplier may choose.
3.1.3 How the survey is conducted
After the construction of the survey, it should be electronically coded and made
available online. The reasoning for this is because survey builders are now free and
ubiquitous online, allowing the researcher the capability to compile their results much
easier, quicker and cheaper than traditionally. Since the survey is to be electronically
coded and placed online, the preferable method of distributing the survey to each
electricity jurisdiction is by using the supplier’s existing email database to disseminate
the survey. The email would have instructions on how to access the survey including a
link to the survey itself. The participant would then use the hyperlink included in the
email to find the survey, which would be located on a survey building website that has
data collection and analyzing capabilities as discussed. Providing some type of phone
number or email address the survey participants can contact for assistance is important
to include with the email or survey instructions as well due to the range of technical
difficulties or questions that could be encountered while filling out the survey. During
the surveying process for Summerside for instance, the researcher was contacted over a
dozen times with issues ranging from survey links not working, to clarification of certain
questions being asked on the survey.
In the event that the jurisdiction’s supplier does not have access to their client’s email
addresses, a paper survey invitation can alternatively be included and mailed as a billing
stuffer with the regular paper bills that are mailed out. An example of one of these
paper survey invitations can be seen attached in Appendix H that was created for the
case study in this thesis as their jurisdiction’s supplier did not have access to their
customer’s emails. The surveys themselves could be mailed out to be filled in by hand;
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however this would be a more costly option than using a free survey-builder, not to
mention the time required to enter the results by hand, which could also be costly
depending on whether the person entering the results is paid or not. This invitation
would have to be much more detailed than an email with a hyperlink since the
participants would not be able to simply click to be redirected to the survey. Included
on a paper survey invitation would be who is offering this survey and why, when the
survey will be made available online for them to access using the link provided, the
closing date and time, how to access the survey online, any other buttons or links that
need to be clicked in order to begin the survey, and, as previously stated, contact
information for assistance in the event of questions or technical difficulties. Mailing the
survey invitation could also result in less error in the data, allowing for all households to
be included in the population to sample from. That is because it could be the case that
not everyone has provided their supplier with an email address, so this will allow anyone
who receives a bill the opportunity to complete the survey, eliminating any convenience
or bias in the sampling. It has been shown that first sending out a mail invitation, or
reminder to complete an online survey, can help to increase overall response rates
(Kaplowitz, Hadlock & Levine, 2004). Therefore, using this method, which is known as
simple random sampling, should be the most efficient and appropriate, producing the
best results (Kaplowitz, Hadlock & Levine, 2004).
3.2
Questions
The questions found on the survey attached in Appendix H may change over time
depending on the needs and wants of the jurisdiction and depending on how quickly
technology in this field progresses. It is important to note that the questions in this
section were appropriate for the technology and state of the jurisdiction at the time
they were posed based off of primary and secondary research conducted in the area.
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3.2.1 Demographics
Question 1: Postal Code
The first question in the survey asks participants to enter their postal code. This
question is placed in the leading position to establish the location of the participant’s
household as a means for gathering demographic information. Asking for the
participant’s postal code serves two different purposes. The first purpose is so that the
surveyor can ensure that the participant lives in the jurisdiction being sampled. Any
postal codes found outside of this region should be grounds for discarding the related
survey. The second is so that the surveyor can make assumptions about each
household’s demographics based on the area they live in. For example, assumptions
can be made regarding mean property costs in the area or regarding the average age of
the residents residing there. By asking only for the resident’s postal code, privacy can
still be maintained in not knowing where their specific dwelling is, but this still gives the
surveyor enough information to establish some demographics of the participants.
Privacy issues are of the utmost importance when dealing with home electricity
consumption information, as “smart meter data could be used to decipher the activities
of a home’s occupants” (Congressional Research Service, 2012). Even though this survey
is not directly related to Smart Meter data or the collection of it, privacy issues must still
be addressed due to the sensitive nature of this information. It is for this reason that
names, logins and addresses are not gathered with the survey information. In order to
facilitate convenience for the participant’s however, participants can be allowed the
chance to save their survey so it may be finished later. This is accomplished using usergenerated passwords that expire after a short period of time. By allowing surveys to be
saved for a short time, the participant can change their mind about participating and
their personal information would be discarded after this time frame expires. For
example, the following case study’s expiration period for these passwords was set at 48
hours. This will ensure that if a participant forgets about a survey they have started, all
unfinished surveys will be destroyed and no information submitted would be duplicate
data or data the resident decided not to provide after all.
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Question 2: Total number of residents in the household
The second question looks to gather more demographic data from the participant and
asks for the number of people living in their household. This information is gathered to
determine how many electricity users there are in the home as each person’s behaviour
ultimately contributes to the monthly billing total. Knowing their demographics is
important as well so that age ranges can be determined to tailor systems to the different
demographics present in the home. This might be especially important if there are
seniors living in the home who may not be well versed with technology and software
applications. These demographics will become evident from the responses in the next
question.
Question 3: Age ranges for the household’s residents
As the previous question suggests, Question 3 asks the survey participants to categorize
the residents in their household into the following age ranges: 0 – 19, 20 – 29, 30 – 39,
40 – 49, 50 – 59, 60 – 69, and 70+. Again, these demographics are important to collect
in order to determine what age group to target the bill redesigning software to. For
example, depending on the demographics of the household’s population, different
incentives for promoting behavioural change can be offered; a 19-year-old resident may
not respond to the same incentives that a 60 year-old bill-payer does. Knowing if the
makeup of the house is a family or closely aged roommates, for example, therefore
makes a difference for the eventual implementation phase of new monthly billing
statement software.
Question 4: Gender of the bill payer
After determining the ages of the home’s residents, Question 4 asks: “What is the
gender of the person in your household who pays the electricity bill?” These
demographics can again be used to customize the billing software to the specific bill
payer and to find out if the bill paying is done by only one, or, by more than one person
in the household. This question provides the following options to choose as responses:
Male, Female, and Indeterminate. This last option has instructions attached to it that
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coaches participants to choose “Indeterminate” in the event that multiple people pay or
review the electricity bill. If the results show that mainly one person in the family pays
and reviews the monthly electricity statement, this could mean that the bills need to
emphasize engaging more of the family in the billing process, which could be done
through incentives. The reasoning for this is due to the potential savings that could
come from having an entire household working towards the goals and incentives
outlined on the bills versus only the bill payer themselves.
Questions 5 and 6: Number of residents in each home who are male and female
Questions 5 and 6 from the questionnaire aim to gather information regarding the
number of residents in the household who are female and male. A Research in Motion
white paper found that collecting male and female demographic information in primary
research surveys was more important than previously thought (Research in Motion,
2008). Upon collecting male and female data on one of their surveys, the analytics team
realized that they had found some correlations that they did not intend on finding when
they asked for this information (RIM, 2008). They had not been testing for it, but results
revealed that women heavily favoured flip phones over men (RIM, 2008). It is for this
reason that they attest to the importance of collecting this type of demographic
information. Since the data is aggregated, meaning that the data is pooled and no
personal privacy is lost from the collection of it, this type of information should be
collected since it could reveal unexpected correlations in the data without compromising
the participant’s privacy.
3.2.2 Dwelling Characteristics
Question 7: Dwelling style
Question 6 ends the demographics section and begins the next round of questioning
that has to do with the resident’s dwelling. This survey question asks the participant to
indicate the style of their dwelling. There is a long list of options to choose from which
includes choices like two-story house, apartment, bungalow, etc., along with an “Other”
option in the event that their home’s style is not on the list. This question is included on
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the survey mainly for this specific case study’s jurisdiction. This jurisdiction’s mandate
focuses on the adoption of electric space heating units, so this question helps to
determine the feasibility of integrating these systems into their home depending on the
size and style of the residence. For example, a four-level split home may require more
heating units to serve each level of the home compared to a one-bedroom apartment.
Knowing the style of the home can also help to determine the most energy efficient
practices depending on the layout and size of the home, which is asked in the next
question.
Question 8: Approximate square footage
As stated, this question asks residents to provide an approximate square footage of their
home. In addition to determining the most energy efficient practices with this
information, it can also be used as an electricity saving measure on the reformatted bills.
O-Power does this by comparing homes with similar square footage and by placing each
specific home on a scale. This scale ranges from the “Most Efficient Neighbours” to the
least efficient (O-Power, 2012). Comparing similarly sized homes induces friendly
competition and gives the homeowner a goal or a reference point that indicates how
they compare to comparable dwellings. Since O-Power’s business model mainly targets
utilities that have not upgraded to Smart Meters, kilowatt-hours and square footage are
some of their only useable data points, yet their clients have still seen their consumption
rates reduced by an average of 2.5% to 5% (O-Power, 2012).
Question 9: Number of rooms throughout the household
This question asks participants to fill in their dwelling’s characteristics, meaning that the
survey asks to quantify how many different types of rooms exist in the household
including: bathrooms, floors/levels including basements, bedrooms and garages. This
question helps to determine the capabilities of the space heater based off of this
information as the last questions did. Again, knowing how many rooms and living areas
there are is key to being able to use metrics to compare similarly sized homes as a cost
saving measure on the bills. This survey question could also potentially expose any
49
confusion the homeowner might have in regards to Question 7, if the levels and rooms
do not match up with the description previously given.
Question 10: Heating methods used in the dwelling
Question 10 is part of the survey to determine what type of heating system the dwelling
uses. Another long list of options are given, along with the “Other” option at the
bottom where the participant can fill in a different type of heating system if need be.
Along with the option to fill out the “Other” portion, spaces have also been left to fill in
a description of the heating system if the user wants. This has been done in order to get
a better understanding of how much the participant knows about their heating system,
as well as to leave room for any innovate systems or measures people have taken to go
about heating their homes.
For the specific case study that accompanies this thesis, part of the supplier’s goal is to
help facilitate the switch for residents from oil based furnaces to electric heating units.
In this case, it is therefore important to know how many residents currently subscribe to
oil based heating versus those who already use electric based heating. This will give the
surveyor an idea of which residents, and how many, need incentives for switching over
to the new electric heating systems.
3.2.3 Current Electricity Billing Statements
Question 11: Current electricity bill knowledge
Question 11 begins a new section, which moves on from asking about dwellings to
asking about what knowledge the residents have regarding their current electricity bill.
This question asks survey participants to use a ratings scale for each statement they are
presented with that ranges from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. In between
there are also choices on the scale for “Disagree”, “Neutral” and “Agree”. In order to
find the areas that need to be addressed on the current electricity bill, the participants
are offered a range of intensity to choose from on this scale that defines their opinion on
the subject.
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The first statement that participants are asked to gauge to what level they agree with is:
“I understand my current electricity bill.” Utilipoint research shows over 15% of calls
received are from customers who do not understand their bills (Perdue, 2009). This
means that consumers may not know what it is they are paying for and how their
charges are derived. This first statement essentially determines if this is an issue in the
jurisdiction in question. The second statement participants are asked to give their
opinion on is: “I know what all of the line item charges refer to on my bill.” Much in the
same way the previous statement works, this question aims to determine if confusion
over current billing statements is afflicting residents in the jurisdiction and if this has
been a deterrent to attempting any type of consumption reducing behaviour. These
assumptions are then confirmed with the following statement: “I understand how to
change my electricity usage based on my current bill.” This question also gets residents
thinking about the fact that there may indeed be no current measures on their bills to
help them reduce their usage, which will be useful for upcoming questions in the survey.
The last statement in this question asks residents to rate their feelings on their ability to
access their current electricity bill online. This question is asked in this set and not as a
stand-alone question with a yes or no answer for several reasons. Residents may be
aware of the fact that they can access their bill online, but may not know how to
meaning that they could answer with “Somewhat Agree” that their bill is available
online. Another possibility is that, upon confirming with the supplier, the surveyor
learns that online bills are indeed available but the resident is unaware of this fact and
answers with “Disagree”. Testing this question using a rating scale provides the surveyor
with a more complete picture regarding the participant’s awareness and comprehension
of online billing.
Question 12: Propensity to read monthly billing statement
Question 12 attempts to establish some of the habits of the main bill payer in the home.
This question asks: “Do you read your monthly billing statement or just pay it?” This
question is important because if residents do not currently review their billing
statements, then there will have to be extra incentives in order to get residents
51
interested and paying attention to their bills. Also, this question acts as a good litmus
test against other survey questions regarding feelings towards current billing statements.
For instance, if residents indicate in prior questions that they are unhappy with, or
display confusion over their bills this could be a reason why they do not review it and
simply pay it instead. For this reason, specific multiple-choice answers were provided
for the participant to choose from. Their options included: “I read my bill and fully
understand it”; “I read my bill but don’t really know what it means”; “I look at how much
I owe and pay it”; “It is direct debited from my account each month”, “I only see the
total amount”; and “It shows up on my credit card and that is as much as I know”.
Having a better understanding of how the bill payer currently handles paying the bills
enables the surveyor to plan for this and to work around current bill paying routines as
studies show that maximizing convenience and minimizing behavioural change is key to
customers adopting new routines (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al, 2010).
Question 13: Current knowledge of electricity behaviours and environmental issues
Question 13 has the same layout as Question 11 with statements that the participants
are asked to rate on a scale again ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”.
This question however, is geared towards asking about their current knowledge of
electricity behaviours and the state of the environment versus their knowledge of bill
charges that were being asked in Question 11. These questions will help the researcher
to determine how much educational material will need to be on the bills depending on
how the respondent replies. All of these questions relate to some type of measure that
can be taken on the newly redesigned bills. This is key for questions like this because
there is no reason to ask the participant for information that the bills can either not help
them with or that does not match the mandate of the supplier and the jurisdiction’s
environmental policies. The following statements are included on the survey for the
participants to answer: “I know how much electricity I consume per month”; “I
understand what a kWh is”; “I know where my electricity comes from”; “I know which
areas of my household the majority of my electricity usage comes from”; “I know how to
change my electricity consumption behaviour to save money”; and “I understand the
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impact my electricity usage has on the environment”. This question could also provide
the researcher with correlations with respect to the difference in environmental
knowledge between indicators such as gender and age ranges. Relating these to other
questions in the survey as well can help to eliminate some bias in responses retesting
the residents to see if their knowledge is indeed at the level they have indicated. For
example, answers from this question asking what a kWh is, could be cross-referenced
with responses from Question 18, the kWh equivalency graph. By comparing those who
thought their knowledge was sufficient of a kWh to the responses given by them on the
usefulness of a kWh equivalency graph as an incentive, it can be worked out whose
knowledge may not be as extensive as they had thought.
Question 14: Desired knowledge of electricity behaviours and environmental issues
Question 14 reposes Questions 11 – 13 in a way that asks residents if they would like to
further their knowledge on the issues raised in these questions. This question really
aims to find out the resident’s motivations and what their goals are regarding their
electricity consumption. Knowing this can help the researcher to construct a better
software program tailored to these motivations. For example, if people indicate that
their number one priority is for environmental concerns, the tips on the bills could be
geared towards how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, if the residents
indicate that they are most concerned about the amount of money they are spending
each month and want to reduce it, then the tips could be geared towards measures that
can be taken to save money on monthly billing statements. The statements mirror those
from Question 13, however they are rewritten in a way that asks if the participant would
like to know more about those statements, for example, “I want to know what a kWh is”.
Again, a scale based on the level to which the participant agrees is employed for these
answers in order to maintain consistency for comparability with Question 13. This scale
will help the researcher gauge the participant’s interest in environmental and electricity
saving measures in comparison to their current knowledge in this area.
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3.2.4 Future Electricity Billing Statements
Question 15: Preferred suggestions for new billing measures
This question marks the start of the next section, which deals with the jurisdiction’s
potential or future electricity bills. This section aims to gather information regarding the
types of measures the residents in that jurisdiction would see as adding value to their
current electricity bill by helping them to accomplish their goals from Question 14.
Without the help of visual aids, this question asks participants to rank on the same scale
used in the last questions how they feel about suggestions for their new bills. The
statements begin with: “I would benefit from an easier to read, detailed bill.” This first
statement introduces the main reason for the survey, getting residents to consider a
different type of electricity bill and to indicate their feelings towards it. “I feel I would be
able to be more energy efficient if I had more detailed billing” is the second statement of
this set. This statement aims to combine some of the respondent’s environmental
knowledge with their attitude towards the bill. Since the residents have not yet seen
sample bills, this line expands on and tests the previous statement by seeing if there is a
difference in the respondent’s mind between benefiting from the bill and being more
energy efficient from it. These two terms may be synonymous for some participants,
however for others, this may not be considered a benefit.
The second last statement in this question asks: “If I had the ability to know how much is
used by each appliance in real-time, and its cost, I feel that I would be able to better
economize.” This statement refers to the disaggregated graph that can be displayed
with Smart Meter and Smart Appliance information showing the breakdown of
electricity usage throughout the home. Without showing participants visually what this
measure looks like, it alerts them to the potential of the idea to gauge their opinion
before they are shown the visual representation to go by. This premise is the same that
is used for the last statement in this question: “If I was given personalized tips on how to
save money based on my usage, I would use this and find it helpful.” Algorithms can be
built into the bill reformatting software that analyzes each home’s usage patterns
individually to output personalized tips showing the resident how they can reduce their
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consumption. By comparing these last two statements with data from Questions 16 –
19, these ideas can be compared to how the residents feel about the images
representing the same ideas for measuring the respondent’s consistency.
Question 16: Historical comparison graph
This question begins a set that uses a scale of 1 – 5 (where 1 = Best, and 5 = Not Helpful)
to indicate how the participant feels about new billing software screenshots they are
being presented with. Some people are more visually inclined so this portion is to show
the capabilities of the new software for those who could not conceptualize it from the
descriptions in Question 15. The visualize screenshots are also a good way to judge
people’s first reaction to the prototype software and to see if it has been built intuitively
enough that the participants understand the image without description.
The first image on the survey is of the Historical Comparison Graph. This graph was
often referred to as “the best” graph when it was tested on surveys in other jurisdictions
due to resident’s ability to use it to compare how they are doing to the same period
from previous years (Darby, 2006). It is for this reason that it was included and tested on
this survey in the first place. Historical comparison is important because it could serve
as a transitional graph as well if the bills are first used with traditional meters before the
adoption of Smart Meters. It requires information that is already currently available
without Smart Meter data, so it could be important to use in the interim to teach
residents how to use new bills. O-Power has been doing just this in the U.S. while the
software is then scaled up to make use of this new data once it is available.
Question 17: Peak-shifting graph
The next question asks participants to indicate how helpful a Peak Shifting Graph would
be on their bills. This graph takes the Time of Use (TOU) data provided by Smart Meters
and transmits it into a bar chart to show the “peak” usage times throughout the day.
Using the new billing statement software that is to be implemented in the future,
algorithms take user data and output it onto their new billing statements in the form of
this graph to indicate to residents which hours to shift their usage to in order to save
55
money. This is only available with Smart Meter data however and if the jurisdiction’s
supplier offers off-peak rates. Off-peak rates are offered by some suppliers in order to
encourage usage away from regular hours so that the supplier can stave off blackouts or
the need for costly infrastructure upgrades.
This graph is extremely important because it is one of the main ways that suppliers can
mitigate these infrastructure costs, which could be in the billions of dollars if the options
for adding more electricity to the grid are from large projects like a coal-fired plant,
nuclear plant or hydroelectric dam. This graph can make the difference between a
supplier agreeing to a new billing system or not. Electricity customers continually
reducing their consumption ultimately impacts supplier revenues, but including a peak
shifting graph to be used with new metering and billing rates can help mitigate these
effects and in turn, save the supplier a large amount of money avoiding new generating
facilities. In fact, this graph enables the jurisdiction’s energy security to improve,
benefiting the main parties in the equation: the supplier, the consumer, and the
environment and environmental policies.
Question 18: Kilowatt-hour equivalency graph
Question 18 relates to the motivation of the customer that was tested in a different way
in Question 14, where participants are asked if they would like to be able to better
understand what a kilowatt-hour (kWh) is. If participants indicated that they were
interested in finding out more about the environment or about what exactly a kWh is,
they should then answer this question in a way that indicates that they found this image
helpful. This image could also alert users to the fact that they may indeed care more for
the environment than they previously attested to. Including measures like kWh
equivalencies on the bills can alert people to the fact that electricity usage does have an
impact on the environment, something that may have never even crossed their mind
before. Due to the simple nature of this image, residents can be offered this graph with
or without a Smart Meter. The only metric needed for this graph is kWh and from there,
equations can then be applied to this data to convert it into its various equivalents.
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Number 19: General electricity saving tips
This question regarding personalized tips that the bills can generate is being asked in the
survey because this is where a large portion of customer savings can be derived from.
Personalized tips are generated from algorithms that track patterns in usage over time to
determine what tips to give consumers that would result in high-energy efficiency and
savings depending on their own personal usage. These tips will change over time as the
behaviours of the customers change. The tips could also change over time depending on
the integration of Smart Metering technology. Generic tips can be placed on bills that
work with traditional meters as O-Power has done in the United States (O-Power, 2012).
These tips would be the same no matter who received the bill, and then once the new
technology is introduced, these tips could transition to personalized tips generated from
algorithms analyzing the new data sets.
Question 20: Most important behavioural change motivators
This question asks participants to rank a range of statements in the order of importance
to them on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the most important and 5 being the least. Like
Question 14, this question directly asks respondents to qualify their motives when it
comes to why they would want to change their electricity consumption behaviour.
Asking in such a direct way, and by getting participants to rank in order of importance
why they would change their habits, helps confirm responses from Question 14
regarding the participant’s goals. Posing this question will also help to confirm the
measures that would work best on the bills from the screenshots depending on what
motives they are relating to. For example, the Peak Shifting Graph would help residents
whose motives are to save money while the Kilowatt-hour Equivalency Graph would be
best suited for residents whose motives are environmentally based. The following
statements are available to rank as motivators in this question: “To keep the cost of my
electricity bills down”; “To help protect the environment by acting in a more
environmentally sustainable way”; “To avoid future energy shortages and blackouts”; “To
help conserve resources and protect endangered species for future generations”;
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“Reward systems like energy efficient upgrades to help further reduce consumption and
save money”.
Question 21: Pooling electricity savings to use for energy efficient hardware
This question in the survey asks participants: “If you had the opportunity to pool your
savings generated from reducing your electricity consumption into an Energy Savings
Account to use for eco-efficient products for your home, would you be inclined to do
this?” The responses that can be chosen from include: “Yes”, “No”, and “Not sure,
additional details needed”. This last response was added in the event that the survey
participant could not conceptualize, did not understand, or simply needed more
information on the concept of pooling their savings to use for energy efficient hardware.
The question intentionally leaves out a further description of the Energy Savings Account
at this point as a way to get participants thinking about the account first and to gauge
their opinions on the idea of a savings account. This opinion will then be retested in a
later question once the concept is explained in more depth. This could potentially reveal
that participants originally like the concept, but did not agree with the subsequent
description of it. Alternatively, the surveyor could also uncover the opposite: the
original comprehension of the savings account stopped participants from being
interested until they knew exactly what it entailed.
Question 22: Willingness to use electricity savings to change heating sources
Question 22 is specific to the jurisdiction being tested in the case study found in this
thesis. Electric space heating systems are being introduced into this jurisdiction, so it is
useful to know if participants would be willing to use their savings to upgrade to these
new heating units. Again, the responses are the same as in Question 21 leaving room for
a “more information needed” answer alongside “yes” and “no” for the same reasons as
outlined in the discussion for Question 21.
Question 23: The type of reward system preferred for reducing consumption
In this section the customer is asked to rate different incentive and rewards programs.
Each reward offered on the survey must be confirmed by the supplier in advance to
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ensure it follows their mandate and that it is technically feasible so that residents are
not mislead by the survey questions into thinking a reward system is possible if it is not
in reality. This question includes the description of the Energy Savings Account as
mentioned in Question 21, explaining in full how it works which can be found on the
survey in Appendix H. The statements in this question are all related to this savings
account that are designed to test the account’s feasibility as well as possible motivators
for either wanting to subscribe or not. This is done by first asking the respondent if they
would be interested in the account to purchase certain upgrades at all, followed
immediately by a similar statement that differs by asking if they would be interested in
the same upgrade, only if they were promised a certain monetary gain from it. Not only
does this test the willingness to adopt the Energy Savings Account on its own without
the promise of savings, but it also tests if motivators like savings can be applied as an
incentive to the Energy Savings Account to make it more attractive for uptake.
Question 24: Frequency of bill viewing preferred
Question 24 asks respondents the question: “How frequently would you like to be able
to view you electricity usage over and above your normal monthly bill?” The options
that are given as responses are: “Bi-monthly”, “Weekly”, “Daily”, and “Hourly”. The
respondents were not allowed to openly answer this question and were instead given
options for ranking these responses in order of importance from 1 to 5, with 5 being the
least important. This has been done because the software application technology has
the capability to easily produce reports as often as every 15 minutes with real-time data.
By asking the participants to rank in order how often they would like to be updated, the
surveyor can determine how often is too much for updates, and if the once a month is
not enough, which would be indicated by the once a month option not being the
participant’s number one choice.
Question 25: Preferred format of receiving billing statement
The last question on the survey asks the survey participants to rank, again in order of
importance, the mode they would like to receive their electricity bill in. The responses
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that they are able to rank are: “Web App”, “Mobile App”, “Paper Statement”, “Paper
and Web App”, “Paper and Mobile App”, and finally “Paper, Web and Mobile App”.
Splitting the choices into categories in this way enables the surveyor to find out if the
customer’s value having their monthly bills delivered in an array of modes or if they
prefer one to the other. Knowing the best mode of delivery for each participant will
help in the adoption of the system if they are able to maximize their own personal
convenience.
3.3
Summary
This chapter is to describe the method to be used in each jurisdiction in order to
determine the specific needs of each supplier’s customers. It was determined from
secondary research that a surveying method would be best since previous studies from
varying jurisdictions had shown contradictory information regarding measures the
residents found to be useful motivators in terms of changing their electricity
consumption behaviour. Once a survey method was chosen, it was then explained how
to go about disseminating the survey to the jurisdiction and what the secondary
research suggested to increase response rates, which could include incentives to
complete the survey and an email or mailed reminder about completing it. The
questions are then described in detail in regards to why they were asked, why they were
posed in any certain fashion, and the information that the researcher expects to collect
from each. Chapter 4 will now outline the results obtained from the above survey that
was completed by the sample population in the jurisdiction.
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4
Results
This chapter aims to determine if the results obtained from the primary research survey,
which was distributed to the jurisdiction’s residents in the previous chapter, fulfills the
objectives as they were laid out in the introduction under Section 1.1 for the
jurisdiction. Following this analysis, the results will then be used to determine if the
needs of the jurisdiction’s stakeholders are satisfied and improve upon the area’s
energy security. These results will further be used to craft recommendations for
continuing the work this thesis presents and limitations of the results will be discussed
in the following chapter.
4.1
Most significant findings
The findings from the submitted surveys are only significant if they can help the
researcher answer the main objectives and hypothesis that were discussed in the
objectives at the beginning of this thesis. The findings will now be organized under
these objectives to help determine if the results are compelling enough to create
recommendations that are aimed at continuing to pursue this project, which would be
advancing onto the software development and testing phase.
One important note to take into consideration before viewing these findings is that they
are representative of the sample that was tested from the jurisdiction’s overall
population who received a survey invitation in their monthly bill. However, 4 surveys, or
5%, have been deemed as “No Answer” responses and their data has been eliminated
from the sampling pool. For more information on these responses, please refer to
Chapter 5 as “No Answers” will only be referred to minimally in Chapter 4.
4.1.1 Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour
In order to create a new, successful billing program, the residents must in some way be
compelled to change their electricity consumption behaviour; whether it is in the form
of switching their usage to off-peak hours or by using less electricity overall. Certain
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questions posed to the residents on the questionnaire are for the purpose of
determining what their main motivation would be that entices them to react. The most
direct of these questions was posed in Question 20 and asks residents to rank
statements in order of importance based on what they felt their main motivator would
be in terms of acting in an electricity-conserving manner. Figure 4 below displays the
findings for the residents’ #1 choice, indicating the most important measure to them.
Figure 4: Question 20 survey results
It is easy to observe from Figure 4 that lowering costs is the main motivator outweighing
all of the other options put together. The raw data from this question is as follows
(excluding 5% for No Answers):

69% - to keep the costs of the bills down

15% - wanted reward systems like energy efficient upgrades

11% - combined statements related to the environment
Question 14 also asks about motivators for wanting to change electricity consumption
usage, however, they were asked in a less direct way than in Question 20. By testing the
participant’s opinion on the efficacy of certain energy security improving measures that
can be employed with the new billing format, the researcher can gain insight into the
proper incentives to use for that jurisdiction. By targeting the appropriate incentives,
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the probability of uptake by the jurisdiction’s inhabitants increases as shown below in
Figure 5.
Figure 5: Question 14 survey results
Figure 5 shows that the residents agree for the most part that more detailed electricity
billing would be a benefit for them overall: 33% Strongly Agreed and 38% Agreed that
they would benefit from more detailed, easy to read bills, while 30% Strongly Agreed
and 30% Agreed that they could be more energy efficient with more detailed billing.
Even more positive were the results that were targeted to the proper energy security
metric, which again is Affordability, proven by the rise in those who Strongly Agreed to
46% and Agreed to 33% that knowing how much each appliance cost in real time would
help them to better economize. Nearly mirroring these results are those for any
guidance that personalized tips could provide in terms of electricity reduction, which
43% Strongly Agreed and 35% Agreed upon. The next objective will now explore how to
target the Affordability metric on the bills in order to improve upon the percentage of
residents who agree to participate in the program that helps them switch heating
sources.
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4.1.2 Decide on the best method to both communicate heating source replacement
programs to the jurisdiction’s customers and how to encourage uptake of
these types of programs
As the results from the previous objective shows, cost is going to have to be emphasized
and savings generated in order to make any type of program worthwhile for the
residents of this jurisdiction. Ensuring that the proper energy security metric is targeted
for the appropriate objective, as previously stated, is therefore of utmost importance to
electricity suppliers attempting to implement new billing regimes. This is for the
purpose of earning the highest rate of participation in the billing program as possible.
Using cost as a motivator, the concept of an Energy Savings Account (ESA) is introduced
in Question 21, which is a mechanism to be used to pool resident’s savings to pay off
financed energy efficient hardware upgrades from their supplier. No explanation of the
account is given at this time, yet tests show that 34% would still be willing to participate
for energy efficient products despite the lack of details while 52% said that they were
not sure, or needed more information. Only 14% decided that an Energy Savings
Account, at this stage in the questioning, was not for them.
In Question 22, slightly more details are given in regards to the ESA (as seen in the
questionnaire in Appendix K), including the savings that the studies have seen for
switching from fuel oil heating to electric heating, and the time period that it would take
the owner to pay this system back with this type of account. From there, the findings
increased to 48% of participants saying that they would be willing to upgrade to a new
heating source through the ESA, while 38% said that more information was still needed.
The full explanation of the Energy Savings Account now occurs, in Question 23, and
customer opinions on using the ESA for specific purchases are re-tested now that they
know what it is about. Figure 6 below shows the effects of asking about participation in
the rewards system in different ways:
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Figure 6: Question 23 survey results
The results show that the willingness to upgrade to ETS units or electric furnaces is
strong on its own with 11% Strongly Agreeing that they would switch and 29% in
Agreement. When the same statement is then re-tested but about the willingness to
upgrade to ETS or electric furnaces, if the resident could save $900 annually, 15%
Strongly Agreed, and 37% Agreed that they would be willing to make the switch. This
goes to prove what a strong motivator cost is since switching heating sources are big
purchase decisions. Especially when compared to the control group, which tested
power bars and showed that the savings generated from a power bar do not compel
people to act as the savings generated from a new heating source could. This is further
proven by the final statement in the set that directly asks respondent’s opinion on the
statement that “A reward system would not encourage me to change my consumption
behaviour at all” to which only 17% Strongly Agreed or Agreed, while 29% were Neutral,
32% Disagreed, and 17% Strongly Disagreed. It is clear that the majority of residents
feel that incentives like monetary savings would in fact motivate them to change their
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electricity consumption patterns. The next objective will now determine if changes to
the delivery of the bill can also provide motivation or incentive on the customer’s end.
4.1.3 Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new frequency
and/or format
The results show that residents currently do not have access to any online billing
capabilities, which relates to Question 25 that asks residents what format they would
like to be able to view their bill in. The results are shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Question 25 survey results
In terms of the participant’s first choices, the results show that a web based application
is the most desired new billing format that the respondents wish to see implemented in
their jurisdiction. Web App was the clear winner with 39% of respondents choosing it as
their number one choice, with both Paper and Web App at a close second with 37% of
the votes. Mobile App was the obvious last choice for the participants, with 63% of
them clearly indicating that they would choose this as their last option out of the group,
with paper billing remaining as more desirable than mobile billing.
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The last question in this group is Question 24 on the survey that aims to gather
information about how frequently the residents would like to be able to view their
electricity usage over and above their monthly electricity bill. The results, seen above
in Figure 8, show that the residents favour receiving their bills more than the traditional
once per month, and that as often as weekly is the preferential amount of time between
bill viewings. Since nearly 25% of the residents indicated that they would like to see
their bills even more frequently than once per week, presumably allowing for better
monitoring of their consumption, the customizable nature of the software can allow for
these different groups to have their needs satisfied, since the Smart Meters produce
data as often as every 15 minutes. All of the aforementioned incentives to get
customers to reduce their usage helps the environment at the same time by reducing
emissions from reduced consumption and through the ability to integrate these types of
systems that can make use of renewables. Ways to further help the environment are
now explored in the results in the next objective.
Figure 8: Question 24 survey results
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4.1.4 How to measurably improve the environmental impact of the energy system
with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement
Question 13 tests the resident’s current knowledge of environmental topics that are
directly related to electricity billing. These same statements are then re-tested in
Question 14, but participants are instead asked to give their opinion based on them
wanting to know more about that topic. The results from the two questions are
compared side-by-side below in Figure 9.
Figure 9: Questions 13 & 14 survey results
It is evident from Figure 9 that the survey participants want to know more about
electricity billing issues related to the environment than they are currently aware of.
Every single statement that was re-tested from Question 13 to 14 saw a rise in the
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numbers of those who Strongly Agreed or Agreed to want to know more about each
topic. The largest increases were seen in those who wanted to know more about the
areas in their home that are using the most electricity and how to save money off of
their monthly bill. Of those who said they knew the areas where the majority of their
electricity usage comes from, 12% Strongly Agreed, 30% Agreed, 18% were Neutral, 24%
Disagreed, and 11% Strongly Disagreed. When testing to see if the participant’s would
like to know more about where the majority of their usage is coming from, a 36%
increase to nearly half, or 48% of participants, who Strongly Agreed, 34% who Agreed,
12% remained Neutral while only 1% Disagreed, and 1% Strongly Disagreed. Even
though these questions are related to testing for the environment, it is still interesting
to note how important any questions that have to do with potential cost savings rank
amongst the participants. The same thing is seen in the large rise from those who
indicated that they know how to change their electricity consumption to save money,
versus those who wish to know. The results show that from knowing, to wanting to
know respectively, there was an increase from 9% to 45% in those who Strongly Agreed,
a rise from 30% to 40% of those who agreed and a drop from 16% of those Disagreeing
to 1% and from 11% to 1% of those who Strongly Disagreed.
As for the statements from Questions 13 and 14 that did not relate to any type of cost
savings, and only to personal knowledge gain, while they did not rise as much for those
who were wanting to know more information about this statements, it is interesting to
note that there were still substantial knowledge gaps for those wanting to know more.
For example, there was a jump from 15% of those who Strongly Agreed to knowing
what a kWh is to 24% wanting to better understand what a kWh is. There was also a
jump from 12% to 27% of those who Strongly Agreed to knowing where their electricity
comes from to wanting to know. Furthermore, only 2% said that they either Disagreed
or Strongly Disagreed that they wanted to know where their electricity came from. This
was the same reaction to those either Disagreeing or Strongly Disagreeing to wanting to
understand the environmental impact caused by their electricity usage, which together
made up 3%. There was also an increase from 11% of those Strongly Agreeing that they
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knew what their environmental impact was to 29% of participants Strongly Agreeing
that they wanted to understand their impact. Despite the environmental improvements
that this type of a system already makes by default, it is encouraging to see these
numbers and that the residents are interested in learning more about the
environmental side of electricity billing.
4.2
Summary
Chapter 4 is about finding the most significant results from the survey as they apply to
the questionnaire from Chapter 3 that was administered to the jurisdiction of
Summerside. The results are taken from the fully completed, returned surveys and are
organized under the objectives that were laid out for the jurisdiction in the Introduction.
For the first objective, which aims to deduce the main motivator for changing electricity
consumption behaviour, cost, or the Affordability metric, emerged as the clear
motivator with nearly 70% indicating this as their number one choice. For the second
objective of integrating a heating replacement program successfully, the results showed
cost as a strong motivator yet again, which was observed when more customers agreed
to participate if they knew how much money they could save. As for the feasibility of
implementation, again, 34% were willing to switch heating sources with little to no
information given until the potential savings were announced to which 48% responded
that they would be interested in participating. Determining the frequency and format
the bills should arrive in was the third objective which showed a Web Application as the
resident’s number one choice for format while Mobile Application was sixth choice as
63% of participants ranked it as their last option. Customers have also indicated that
they wish to have access to their statements more frequently with almost 40% of them
wanting weekly access. The final objective is to determine if a measurable improvement
could be made to the environment from a new billing system. The nature of this system
already improves upon the Acceptability metric by helping residents to reduce
consumption and by eliminating the need for new electricity generating infrastructure.
Despite this fact, the results show that nearly all residents would like to know more
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about environmental issues than they currently do, even though this is not their focus
when it comes to motivating them to change their consumption patterns.
These results conclude the end of Chapter 4, which will now be analyzed in the following
chapter, Discussion. Chapter 5 will attempt to determine the reasoning behind the
findings from Chapter 4 and what this could mean for the future of the jurisdiction in
question. Using these findings, it will be determined if this system is feasible for the
jurisdiction and if it could fulfill all stakeholders’ defined needs, present in the energy
system, energy security needs.
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5
Discussion
The results from Chapter 4 are now broken down by objective to be analyzed to determine
what may be the cause for the results that the survey has captured. This explanation will
include estimations of the impact on the region’s energy security metrics if a new billing
regime is implemented as the survey results dictate. Limitations of the survey will then be
discussed followed by recommendations for future work relating to this project.
5.1
Explanation for findings
To begin with, the main thesis question is reviewed, which is: What changes must
stakeholder of the electricity chain institute in order to improve the jurisdiction’s energy
security? The results will now be applied to this question in an attempt to provide an
answer to it by measuring the changes in the 3 A’s of energy security. The findings will
also be compared to the original hypothesis for this question that tests a new electricitybilling regime as a mechanism to improve the area’s energy security. This is to be done
by using incentives that target overconsumption and alternatives to space heating. The
results from Chapter 4 will be used throughout Chapter 5 to generate discussion around
if these findings satisfy both the hypothesis and objective statements. An explanation of
how the results were tallied, excluding the “No Answer” group, is given first however to
provide an understanding of how the overall results are depicted.
5.1.1 Method for tallying results
As mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 4, is important to note that oftentimes,
especially when dealing with percentages, the data is not representative of the entire
sample of the population as some participants left questions unanswered, and at the
researcher’s discretion, due to the unknown circumstances as to why the survey was not
completed, the data from these surveys have been discarded. After analyzing the data,
it was also found that the respondents who left several responses blank were all either
in the 59-69 or 70+ age group with no dependents living with them meaning that this
group of individuals may have had issues with the technology. Adding to this notion is
the fact that there were several typing errors in these participant’s answers, for
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instance, one participant indicated that they had 201 people living in their dwelling.
With fairness in mind, discarding their information in the event that the responses they
provided were not the ones they intended on due to technological issues is important.
This is why percentage totals will often not add up completely to 100%, because the
remainder, or 5% of the sample population, will be made up of empty answers, referred
to as the “No Answer” group. The complete data sets that include the “No Answer”
group can be found attached in Appendix J with the rest of the results.
The rest of the results will in fact be counted and are now represented in the next four
sections under each reiterated objective.
5.1.2 Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour
It was shown throughout the findings, from both primary and secondary research, that
Affordability is the strongest motivator in terms of energy security metrics. Given the
constant rises in energy prices as of late, it is not surprising that cost savings provide the
strongest incentive for residents to change their electricity consumption behaviour. This
is echoed throughout the findings, for example, in Figure 6 where resident’s feelings
towards making large purchase decisions, in buying or financing an ETS unit or electric
furnace, are swayed towards agreeing to upgrade to these units once the idea of
measurable savings are introduced into the equation. In Figure 5, it is difficult to tell if
the results show a high percentage of preference in respondents for kWh per appliance
or for real-time costing the way the statement “…would be able to better economize
knowing how much each appliance was costing in real-time” is worded. Despite this
fact, either way relates to the improving affordability for the jurisdiction’s residents
meaning that the evidence still points towards cost as being the strongest motivator.
Though it may seem like no surprise to find Affordability as the metric that needs
targeting in our jurisdiction, it could be for underlying reasons that residents have
indicated cost as their motivator. For instance, this metric could have been
unintentionally pinpointed by the respondents due to the direct impact felt from the
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changes, whether they are increases or decreases, and the less tangible nature of the
Availability and Acceptability metrics. However, since these are all mutually inclusive, or
dependent variables, improving upon the Affordability metric inadvertently improves
upon the Availability and Acceptability metric in this case too since reduction in cost and
use mean less emissions into the atmosphere, and more electricity freed up for the grid.
5.1.3 Decide on the best method to both communicate heating source replacement
programs to the jurisdiction’s customers and how to encourage uptake of
these types of programs
The positive response to the resident’s willingness to respond to incentives to switch
their heating sources is encouraging for Summerside Electric since 63% (52 responses)
of respondents indicated that they use an oil heated central furnace and 18% (15
responses) use an oil forced-air furnace in Question 10. This depicts just how many
people there are that need to make the switch to an electric heating source in
Summerside. The results from this question add up to over 100%, the reasoning for
indicating the number of responses here as well, meaning that several residents
specified that they used more than one heating source. This is an interesting finding as
this may in fact make their personal energy security better since they do not rely solely
on one source. There was one participant who indicated that they had an ETS unit, or
1% of the sample population, showing that the units are slowly starting to catch on in
the area already since the researcher was able to capture one of these residents in the
sample pool. It is interesting to note as well that there were not more respondents who
indicated that they had more ETS units showing that there is likely no sampling bias
towards those who are already implicated directly in the outcome of this study.
Residents also indicated that with or without the promise of cost savings that there is an
interest in switching to the new heating source. When the residents were tested
without the promise of cost, 11% Strongly Agreed and 29% Agreed that they would be
willing to purchase an ETS unit or electric furnace using an Energy Savings Account to do
so. These figures increased to 15% and 37% respectively when it was asked if
participants would be more willing if the system saved them upwards of $900 annually.
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This was an even higher number than those willing to purchase electricity saving power
bars, which is surprising considering the large amount of money attached to a purchase
decision like switching to a new heating source. This again proves the power of cost
savings to motivate this jurisdiction’s residents.
5.1.4 Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new frequency
and/or format
Finding out if customers would like their bills in a new format at all is a fundamental
question that must be addressed but is often lost amongst the intriguing nature of
features based questions, like those recently discussed that hint at the potential for cost
savings. Secondary research had suggested that confusing bill layouts, with minimal
explanations of the line items detailed, or that lack a description of what the customer is
paying for, is one of the main factors contributing to customer’s inability to understand
how to reduce their consumption. Surprisingly, when trying to gauge if customers were
able to understand their current electricity bill to determine if comprehension was a
factor in residents wanting a new billing structure in Question 11, the findings showed
that nearly everyone in the jurisdiction could make sense of their bills in their present
state. Over 70% of participants indicated that they either Agreed or Strongly Agreed
that they understand their current electricity bill, while just under 70% said that they
knew what all of the line item charges referred to on their bill. It becomes evident with
asking residents if they understand how to change their electricity usage based on their
current bill that, despite their fluency with the current bill formats, there is still
something lacking from the statements, which can be seen in Appendix X. This is
evident because over 40% Disagreed and Strongly Disagreed that they understand their
bills, with 27% admitting in a later question re-testing bill comprehension, that they
read their monthly bills but don’t really know what they mean.
It was a surprising result however, compared to the secondary research, that most of
the residents understand their monthly billing statements. When looking at the
jurisdiction’s sample statement in Appendix X however, the simplicity of the bill makes it
clear as to why these participants feel as though there is nothing confusing at all about
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their billing formats. There is simply a price to pay, with no details other than the
number of kilowatt-hours consumed and how to go about paying. This could be why a
web based billing application was chosen as the number one choice amongst the
residents. The results indicated that there was currently no online way to view or pay
the monthly electricity statement. This could account for why mobile was clearly
chosen as the last choice for the residents, it may be the case that they did not want any
other option to overshadow a web application which they had been eagerly
anticipating, as this is considered standard now with most utilities.
5.1.5 Determine how to measurably improve the environmental impact of the
energy system with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement
When asked if a reward based system would encourage residents to change their
behaviour at all, only 17% of them Strongly Agreed and Agreed that it would not
motivate them to change their behaviour. These findings confirm secondary research
that shows participation rates of opt-out programs average up to 85% (EhrhardtMartinez et al, 2010). This is positive for the jurisdiction’s Acceptability metric of energy
security since the new billing formats encourage reduced consumption, ultimately
leading to reduced carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Furthermore, when asked
about certain environmental measures as depicted in Figure 9, residents were eager to
know more about how their electricity usage impacted the environment, and what a
kilowatt-hour (kWh) means.
Even though residents are interested in learning more about the environment and
concerned about the impacts from fossil fuels and their contribution to greenhouse gas
emissions, Affordability still outweighs Acceptability to target as a motivator. This is
proven when residents are directly asked about their motivation for changing their
behaviour where cost ranks first at 70%, and then all of the statements relating to the
environment as a motivator combined were only 10%. Since the environment is
important to residents but costs outweigh this as a motivator, environmental education
can still be targeted on the bills, especially the environmental benefits that come from
targeting cost reductions. That way, the consumers can feel as though the Acceptability
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metric, once intangible, is now something dynamic that can be improved upon by the
consumers themselves.
5.2
Limitations of the survey
Even though the survey design was able to provide the researcher with a lot of
interesting data and even surprising results, there is still room for improvement in
question structure. After the responses were returned, it became evident that certain
questions should have been included to get a more complete set of data. For example,
there should have been one question in the demographics section asking for the specific
age of the respondent and about their access to computers and smartphones and
working knowledge these devices. This way, we could have had a better picture of why
some of the surveys were returned and deemed “No Answer” surveys. Knowing about
the participant’s access and knowledge of smartphones would also be useful to know.
That way, if none of the participants are familiar with this technology, then it becomes
clearer as to why the results were returned showing that mobile application technology
was chosen as the last pick for a billing format amongst residents.
As stated previously, in Figure 5, it is difficult to tell if the results show a high percentage
of preference in respondents for kWh per appliance or for real-time pricing the way the
statement second from the right is worded. Questions like this one should have been
asked in two separate parts so that the researcher was able to know what part of the
equation the subjects in the survey favoured. Another limitation is that the researcher
has assumed that these questions and this method could be adopted and used in any
jurisdiction, which may not be the case. The framework also only gives a snapshot of
what is happening at that moment in the region and may not be dynamic enough to
keep up with the fast pace of the technology that may be required for adoption by the
jurisdiction either. This may restrict to what magnitude the findings can be generalized
overall, potentially hampering the method.
The final limitations to be discussed are the different types of error that may be present
in the data. The first is coverage error, which is basically people who are excluded from
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the sample frame; however typical sampling stats assume no coverage error. The bias
of this is that there’s a proportion excluded who could have different data to give than
those who chose to provide it (Harvard, 2009). Second are nonresponse errors, which
are sample members who did not respond, also known as the “No Answer” group,
reasons for which is that they could have been unable, unavailable or unwilling
(Harvard, 2009). A Unit Nonresponse is when there is a missing respondent and an Item
Nonresponse is where there are missing answers as seen in 4 of the surveys that were
returned (Harvard, 2009). Now the response rate and nonresponse rate can be
reported on which gives a percentage of valid sample records that are included in the
statistic (Harvard, 2009), which is 82 returned out of an estimated 5000 distributed
giving a return rate of 1.64%, and a nonresponse rate of 1.56%.
Now that the limitations of the study are known, recommendations can be built to help
eliminate the issues brought to light in this section and to further the progress of this
research.
5.3
Summary
Chapter 5 discusses the results of the survey that were presented in Chapter 4. The
results are applied to both the original hypothesis and the objectives that were created
for the jurisdiction to discuss if these were met by the findings or not. Before discussing
the most significant results however, methods for tallying the results are explained and
exceptions are identified like the “No Answer” group, for example, so that the reader is
aware of how the data was treated and considered overall. Once these special
circumstances are explained, the detailed analysis of what the results mean begins and
attempts to determine the new state of the 3 A’s of energy security for each stakeholder
in the energy system if the findings were applied.
The findings show that above all, the Affordability metric is the most important
motivator to target in the jurisdiction and that the implementation of a new billing
regime could improve upon this metric for both the supplier and end-user; suppliers in
terms of reducing their infrastructure costs, and end-users in terms of reducing their
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monthly costs. This means that when creating any incentive program, as the supplier in
this case wants to do by introducing a heating replacement program, the Affordability
metric should be targeted and used as the most effective means to introduce new
programs. This would be the most effective way to go about implementation as the
residents have already indicated an interest in switching to a new heating unit,
especially in the event that it saves them money. By creating a balanced situation
between the needs of the supplier and end-user, both parties can have their
Affordability issues met.
At the same time as having the supplier and end-user relationship balanced, the
government and their policies effectively have their needs met at the same time. By
helping users switch their usage to off-peak times, costly infrastructure that the
government may have had to help pay for is reduced. Any environmental acts the
government may have put into place will also benefit due to the reduced amount of
electricity used, which customers have indicated would occur in the findings, if it helped
them to reduce their costs. Adding balance to the rest of the energy system’s equation
can allow each individual part to function independently as intended, however the
individual parts work in tandem improving upon the system as a whole, rather than
working against one another.
The results will now be applied to a case study on The City of Summerside to determine
the outcome of their city’s energy security if the aforementioned system is
implemented in their jurisdiction.
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6
Case Study: The City of Summerside
This case study uses the methods developed in this thesis to determine the feasibility of
designing a new electricity billing system for Summerside Electric located in The City of
Summerside, P.E.I. The City of Summerside currently has funding through the Canadian
Federation of Municipalities Green Municipal Fund, which is providing the capital for a
landmark space-heating project in Summerside (Gaudet, 2011). The project began with
the installation of wind turbines on the Island enabling Summerside to generate its own
electricity. While Affordability has been shown to be the major energy security issue
from the findings in Summerside, the wind turbines are still important since the
majority of Summerside’s electricity is imported from New Brunswick and if there are
any problems with its transmission, the availability of electricity in P.E.I. is in jeopardy
(Hughes, 2011). The City of Summerside began working with Dr. Larry Hughes at
Dalhousie University to use Electric Thermal Storage units (ETS units) to charge with
wind-generated electricity at intermittent times [when the wind is blowing] to help
improve Summerside’s energy security. As Dr. Hughes points out in his paper, there is a
“potentially compelling argument to go with wind heating in a time of volatile energy
prices” and that is because “locally generated electricity from wind can be considered a
secure source of energy” (Hughes, 2009).
Dr. Hughes’ findings are compelling and show that with the implementation of his
system, all three energy security metrics can be substantially improved in The City of
Summerside. In order to help do this and to maximize the ETS unit’s efficiency, Smart
Meters are being installed throughout Summerside to make use of the data these
systems output. The Smart Meters do this by reading the data transmitted by the ETS
unit and allowing for TOU billing rates to be applied to this data. With the Tantalus
Smart Meters that are being installed in Summerside, the supplier will be able to
capture this data as often as every 15 minutes (Gaudet, 2011). With so many data
points being output by the Smart Meters, Summerside needed a way to represent this
data to include personal, meaningful feedback to encourage behavioural change in
Summerside Electric’s customers, ultimately aiding them in reducing their residential
80
energy consumption (Gaudet, 2011). They faced the problem of how to use feedback to
promote wind power generation on the Island, specifically for residential heating.
Summerside also had the need to help facilitate the switch to electric heating in order to
optimize wind power usage and maximize revenue from their investment in the two
wind farms on the Island; one 9MW and one 12MW wind farm (Hughes, 2011).
This case study then uses the previously outlined methods to test a new electricity bill
design as a mechanism to help consumers better understand their energy purchases.
This would in turn educate Summerside Electric’s customers to make energy conscious
decisions that can help them increase their savings, while simultaneously advancing the
goals of their supplier, Summerside Electric, as well. This can be done because
Summerside Electric’s main contact point with their customers is their monthly billing
statement; however, in its current form, consumers are only provided with a lump sum
total at the end of each month leaving them oblivious to the true cost of their energy
purchases (See Appendix I for sample billing statement). The main goal of this case
study for Summerside is to determine if it is possible to create systemic change
throughout an energy system using billing mechanisms that will benefit all stakeholders
and result in measurable improvements to all three metrics in an environmental security
analysis on the jurisdiction. This is accomplished through the qualitative analysis of
primary research conducted in Summerside and by applying the findings, for testing, to
various energy security-improving measures that were crafted to satisfy each
stakeholder’s need.
The energy security framework is used as a method to measure the effects of the
changes on the energy system and if they have improved the areas as described by the
three A’s: availability, affordability, and acceptability. First however, an analysis of
Summerside’s jurisdiction and the current state of the three A’s will be detailed so that
the researcher can determine both the needs of the system and how to tell if these
metrics have improved or not once the changes have been introduced.
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Affordability
Affordability is the first energy security metric that will be explored in order to elaborate
further on The City of Summerside’s current state of electricity affordability. Up until
now, Summerside had been using traditional meters along with a declining block rate
structure that gives discounts to end-users with higher consumption. This is done by
charging the first 2,000 kWh each residence consumes at $0.1205/kWh, and by charging
any excess consumption at $0.0920/kWh (Hughes, 2011). Not only does this system
discourage consumers from reducing their usage, it also leaves no room for Summerside
Electric to implement incentives like on and off peak rates. Summerside Electric has
however begun the installation of Smart Meters across their jurisdiction and the last
update put their total installation count at 250 at the end of 2011 (Gaudet, 2011). With
the Smart Meter technology, Summerside Electric can now make use of on and off-peak
rates that can be used as an incentive for behavioural change to manage loads. This
reduces the need for drawing costly electricity from NB Power during the peak-hours,
since they use an on and off-peak charging structure themselves to discourage excess
pressure on the system during peak demand hours (Hughes, 2011). The new billing
format suggested in this thesis paired with output from the new meters could arguably
improve affordability in the region since its aim would be to help residents reduce their
monthly costs by maximizing the usage of incentives offered by their supplier.
A key component to these incentives is to ensure that Summerside Electric can facilitate
a restriction policy, which in this case is the restriction of heating to electrically sourced
heaters from traditional oil based heaters, to make use of sources other than oil
(Hughes, 2011). Because oil has risen nearly 40% over the past six years, placing it near
the cost of electric baseboard heat, it has decreased in security, especially in
Summerside’s case where they do not have an abundant supply of crude oil at hand
(Hughes, 2011). Since approximately 75% of P.E.I.’s energy for space heating is derived
from light fuel oil, it is understandable why the city has integrated wind energy into
their energy mix enabling them to generate some of their own electricity, mitigating the
fears associated with the rising cost of fuel oil, improving the affordability metric
82
(Hughes, 2011). Simulations have shown that further improving upon the affordability
metric is the switch from oil-based furnaces to ETS units, which can both make use of
the wind electricity generated on the Island and potentially save people an average of
$901 per year on their heating costs (Hughes, 2011). To promote the usage of ETS units
as a unique part of this jurisdiction’s incentives, the survey tests the potential of using
customer’s previous year’s consumption multiplied by the current electricity price as a
baseline rate, customers pay this fixed amount for their bills and the difference between
this baseline rate and the actual amount used is collected through the novel billing
approach. These savings would then be pooled for residents in an “Energy Savings
Account” which can then be used to purchase upgrades and infrastructure for their
homes that either further reduces consumption or switches their components and
appliances to electrical ones in order to make use of the available wind power.
Availability
Aside from energy security issues that deal with affordability, Summerside Electric is
also able to mitigate availability issues at the same time by the addition of windelectricity to their energy mix. The fact that the crude is imported to P.E.I., a secluded
island, does not bode well in terms of availability, especially in the event of inclement
weather where it may not be possible to transport this main heating source to the
island. The wind power generated from the two farms alleviates the pressure of buying
electricity from abroad and therefore improves the city’s energy security while also
reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Figure 10 below depicts the difference from Figure 1, the generic energy system, and
how Summerside has been able to integrate wind farms onto the Island to improve the
availability metric by 94%, greatly improving the energy security of their jurisdiction
(Hughes, 2011). This can result in the avoidance of supply disruptions since the
jurisdiction can now be somewhat self-sufficient if need be. The diagram shows how
the ETS units are used to complement the existing infrastructure; using oil heating when
necessary and storing excess electricity in the ETS unit to distribute during off-peak
times making this source of heating both available and affordable.
83
Figure 10: Summerside Electric's electricity energy chain usage (Hughes, 2011)
Improving marketing and communication directed at Summerside’s customers using
their monthly electricity billing statements could help to spread this message en masse.
These bills also have the power to improve short-term availability by teaching residents
how to shift their peak consumption to off-peak times to alleviate loads during peak
hours, resulting in more evenly distributed usage. It also improves long-term availability
by helping customers switch to the ETS unit and electric furnace easily, allowing them to
use Island generated wind power to heat their homes.
Acceptability
Finally, sourcing electricity from wind turbines ensures that the energy in Summerside is
acceptable. High greenhouse-gas emissions related to climate change are a major issue
and sourcing electricity from wind power instead of traditionally used fossil-fuels like
light fuel oil will greatly improve upon the acceptability of Summerside’s electricity. In
fact, stats from Dr. Hughes paper show that the emissions from light fuel oil was 6,606
kg CO2e, while the emissions from electric heating without wind was 11,887 kg CO2e,
with wind heating significantly reducing emissions at only 893 kg CO2e. Replacing the
large number of light fuel oil based furnaces that make up roughly 75% of Summerside’s
heating systems use this high carbon-emitting source (Hughes, 2011).
84
Due to the high carbon output of fossil fuels, the use of some type of renewably sourced
electricity has become compulsory on Prince Edward Island since the P.E.I. Renewable
Energy Act was introduced in 2005 (Legislative Counsel Office, 2005). This act requires
that all utilities across the Island acquire at least 15% of the electricity they sell to be
sourced from renewables beginning in 2010 and carrying on indefinitely (LCO, 2005).
Failure to comply with these regulations results in utilities being “found guilty of an
offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of no more than $300,000” (LCO,
2005). This means that not only does Summerside’s sourcing of their heating needs
from wind electricity improve upon their energy security metrics, but it also serves to
abide by provincial legislation.
6.1
Primary Research Survey
Summerside realizes that they are less energy secure without implementing a system
that improves upon the 3 A’s. This is presumably one of the reasons why Summerside
has agreed to take on this project as a part of their pilot program in order to help
promote and aid in the implementation of ETS units and Smart Meters. To test the
efficacy of a new billing system before implementation however, a primary research
survey was created specifically for this jurisdiction that is to be used as a decisional tool
to decide how to roll out this type of a system and to test the effects on the 3 A’s of
Summerside’s energy security. This process began by first meeting with Summerside
Electric to determine their specific needs and to learn about the unique circumstances
in their jurisdiction. From there, a questionnaire was developed that aimed to both
meet Summerside Electric’s energy security needs and to determine the feasibility of
implementing redesigned billing statements. Invitations to complete an online survey
were mailed out with Summerside’s regular billing statements, (found in Appendix H)
that would be used to see if a sample of respondents from Summerside felt that they
would benefit from certain changes to their monthly electricity billing statements. The
measures to test for the jurisdiction’s future bills were carefully chosen by their ability
to satisfy the needs of each of the parties involved in the electricity chain and based off
of recommendations from secondary research on what has been successful in other
85
energy jurisdictions. We can then use our results to compare the effects on the energy
security of the jurisdiction after the new billing structure has been released to see if it
has the potential to make a measurable impact on these metrics.
This comparison will be done by using the list of objectives that were discussed in the
Introduction under Section 1.1 that the survey aims to fulfill for Summerside Electric.
The following is the list of points that the primary research survey tests for Summerside
Electric that is built with the intent of finding out how to engage commitment from the
customers in Summerside to meet their supplier’s mandate of improving energy security
in the region:

Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour.

Decide on the best method to both communicate Summerside Electric’s space
heating program to its customers and to encourage uptake of the program.

Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new format.

Wanted to measurably improve the environmental impact of Summerside’s
energy system with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement.
From here, using the responses provided by the participants, the attitudes in
Summerside are gauged and the objective statements are re-evaluated based on the
findings from the primary research survey. The corresponding results for each objective
will be analyzed to determine the feasibility of pursuing this next phase in the project
based on these findings. Results obtained from the 82 surveys that were returned, out
of roughly 5000 invitations that were distributed (Dunsford, 2012), show that the
objectives created for Summerside demonstrate the following effects after the survey
observations are applied:

Deduce the main motivator behind encouraging customers to change their
electricity consumption behaviour.
The main motivator as determined through primary research testing of the
residents of The City of Summerside shows that they are most likely to respond
86
to monetary incentives aimed at reducing their monthly electricity costs or at
improving the Affordability metric of energy security.

Decide on the best method to both communicate Summerside Electric’s space
heating program to its customers and to encourage uptake of the program.
The most effective way to communicate Summerside Electric’s space heating
program appears to be through emphasizing features related again to improving
upon the resident’s personal affordability or on how much the new system could
save them annually.

Determine if customers would like their bills delivered in a new format.
Preferences show Summerside Electric’s customers wanting new billing formats
in the form of a web application, with the inclusion of the traditional paper bill.
The customers would also like to see billing updates more frequently, which
should arrive at a minimum of one-week intervals and at a maximum of once
daily.

Wanted to measurably improve the environmental impact of Summerside’s
energy system with the implementation of the redesigned billing statement .
If this system is implemented in Summerside whatsoever, it will measurably
improve the impact of Summerside’s energy system through its mandate of
constant reductions and by alleviating the need to large, often destructive
infrastructure.
87
7
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident from the results that using monetary incentives to target
overconsumption and alternative heating methods would be the most effective way to
engage the jurisdiction’s residents in program participation. While the residents of The
City of Summerside may have an appetite for environmental knowledge and a wish to
reduce their overall impact, Affordability is currently such a pressing issue, that matters
of Acceptability are now secondary. Until Availability becomes more of an issue and
shortages begin to strike the residents of Summerside, this metric remains intangible
and taken for granted by those who have not had to deal with supply shocks before. In
order to mitigate any shocks ahead of time however, it is evident, by the measurable
amount that a new monthly billing regime can improve upon Summerside’s energy
security, that it is both worthwhile and feasible for implementation according to the
primary research findings.
What these findings all address are the original set of objectives from the Introduction.
When applying the results to see if they were met, the original problem is revisited
which asks what changes must stakeholders of the electricity chain institute in order to
improve their jurisdiction’s energy security? It was hypothesized that when keeping all
of the stakeholder’s needs in balance that the system could operate optimally and the
test for these changes was the redesigned billing mechanism. By pre-testing the
mechanism using primary research before implementing the system in the jurisdiction,
the results show that these bills have the potential to make a positive impact on the 3
A’s of energy security for each group of stakeholders.
The results also point to the specific measures that the residents feel would help them
to improve their own personal energy security. This could actually pose a problem to
the method as defined for this thesis since one of the limitations of this study is that the
researcher had assumed that these questions and this method could be adopted and
used in any jurisdiction. Due to the fact that some of the findings contradicted the
primary research and what other jurisdictions had found, it turns out that this method
88
may need to be adapted to suit the needs of the specific case. While this is alluded to in
the original objectives where it recommends conducting an analysis on the jurisdiction
first, there were still several surprises like the fact that everyone in Summerside
understood their bill and that mobile applications were so heavily disfavoured. It is for
this reason that a set of recommendations and suggestions for future work will be
presented next, in the hope that this study can be continued on to retest attitudes to
determine the reasoning behind the information collected from Summerside.
7.1
Recommendations
Seeing as though there were positive results regarding the feasibility for a new billing
regime using monetary incentives to encourage behavioural change, the next phase in
the process that is therefore recommended is the implementation of a small pilot
program to test the new prototype billing system versus the legacy software. The fact
that the majority of utilities in North America are now integrating Smart Grids, DSM
systems, and customer billing interfaces, and that these components are required in
order to integrate intermittent renewables like wind power takes a lot of the risk of a
pilot program out of the equation for Summerside Electric since it seems inevitable that
this is the type of system that they will need to switch to eventually anyway. Choosing
100 homes now to connect and test leads the way for the utility market and
demonstrates to other jurisdictions the impact that this type of technology can have to
improve upon all sides of energy security. By running this small Beta test, new research
data on consumption rates, changes in supplier revenue, and consumer savings to
determine the program’s efficacy once it has been implemented in the jurisdiction it can
be studied. Before making any permanent transfers of data, this would work by running
the two systems in parallel at first so that it can be made sure that the system is working
properly, is viable, and that the customers find a benefit from it before switching the
entire system over to the new one.
Part of the implementation plan would include retesting the residents to find out how
their assumptions about what they thought they understood, or knew in relation to say
89
their environmental impact or lion’s share of the usage in their home after they actually
learn or are educated on the matter. It would be interesting for the researcher to note
not only how much the system was able to educate the residents, but also how different
their original perceptions were regarding how much they knew, to how much they
discovered to actually know. Data collection from the supplier in the future would be
interesting as well to gauge the full benefit of the system after implementation. For
example, secondary research states that calls regarding bill confusion dropped an
average of 15% after a new billing regime was implemented (Purdue, 2009), and it
would be interesting to see if the jurisdiction in question saw the same types of
improvement across their processes.
One final, however somewhat trivial, recommendation is to create an email database
for all of the supplier’s customers. There is no email database currently in Summerside,
so the survey invitation was included as a billing stuffer, which forwarded respondents
to an online address. Research showed that almost no one looks at billing stuffers, so
this was not the preferred method to distribute the surveys originally. Having an email
database to work with would facilitate future testing of the residents and could also
create the database to use for tracking friendly competitions between friends and
neighbours.
7.2
Future work
If the recommendations from this thesis are taken into consideration and a pilot project
is undertaken throughout the city, even with minimal participation, every metric of the
area’s energy security can still improve. That is why it is therefore a worthwhile risk for
Summerside Electric to take on this project and to serve as an example and testing
ground that inspires other jurisdictions to act to sustain their region’s future by securing
its energy. The following suggestions are possible future work that the researcher, or
potentially other researchers, could undertake to further this research:

Meet with Summerside Electric to present and review survey results and from
there, determine the direction and next phase, if any, of the research.
90

Advise Summerside Electric on the survey outcomes and opportunities to create
software for billing that will achieve their own as well as their customer’s goals.

Development of new billing software to implement and Beta test in
Summerside’s jurisdiction.

Assist Summerside’s customers with launching their new billing system, which
includes telephone, email, and personal assistance if necessary.

Provide training to Summerside Electric employees that would enable them to
run reports off of the new billing software that will allow them to measure the
effectiveness of their actions.

Provide training for Summerside’s billing department to ensure that they are
able to handle customer inquiries appropriately.

Conduct a follow-up survey with Summerside’s customers after a determined
trial period (for example, 3 or 6 months) to determine the effectiveness of the
program in its entirety. Any questions missed or discussed in the limitations
could be tested here as well to develop a better understanding of the first
questionnaire.
91
8
Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my supervising Professor Dr. Larry Hughes for the
tireless hours he has put into this with me and for his seemingly endless amounts of
patience. The knowledge that I will take away from this thesis and from our time spent
together discussing energy analysis has provided me with everything I need to excel in
my field. I would also like to thank The Next 36 for choosing me as a finalist for their
program as well. It was their program that originally inspired me to pitch my idea as a
mobile application at Start-Up Weekend, who cannot go without gratitude either, which
have both been integral in making this thesis a success as a business on the side. I must
also express large amounts of gratitude to the Norman Newman Centre for
Entrepreneurship, and more specifically, Brian Lowe and First Angel Network for their
mentorship and continued support, and Professor Ed Leach for originally inviting me to
Start-Up Weekend and for the ongoing access to his large pool of resources. I must also
thank Terry Murphy, Greg Gaudet, Malcolm Millar, Kristen Dunsford, and everyone else
at the City of Summerside and Summerside Electric who helped provide me with
information, listen to my presentation, and who approved my project in the first place.
The author would also like to personally thank the customers of Summerside Electric for
their participation in the online survey. It means a great deal that so many of you
responded when you had no incentive to do so. I would also like to thank my family,
Simone Massoud, Nina Nedic, Haley Arnold, Devin Siegfried, Hanna Zatzman, Chris
Carson, Andrew Coe, Nicole LeBlanc, Austin Mah, The Next Phase Workshop, The Energy
Research Group and namely Hari for being an excellent driver getting us back and forth
between Halifax and Summerside safely, Dalhousie University, the members of S.I.F.E.
Dalhousie and any others who contributed to this project along the way.
92
9
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domestic appliances: Environment, behaviour and design. Energy and Buildings,
35(8), 821-841.
Zigbee Alliance. (2012). Home automation. Retrieved from http://www.zigbee.org
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10 Appendices
APPENDIX A: Maritime electric bill sample
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APPENDIX B: O-Power historical billing sample report
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APPENDIX C: GE Brillion software screenshot
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APPENDIX D: Ecofactor software screenshot
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APPENDIX E: ecobee hardware and software screenshot
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APPENDIX F: Energate home automation system
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APPENDIX G: Summerside primary research survey
Summerside Questionnaire.pdf
Your chance to help determine the future of your electricity bill
APPENDIX H: Summerside survey invitation
What this is about:
To what degree does the look and format of your electricity bill affect your electricity
consumption? Some countries have replaced their traditional electricity bill with one that
shows each household’s usage in simple graphs that display comparisons from your past
consumption, goals you may want to reach, and, personalized tips on how to get there.
These remodeled electricity bills have shown that they can help to reduce electricity
consumption.
My name is Megan McCarthy. I am a final year business and environmental sustainability
student at Dalhousie University. With the assistance of the City of Summerside, I am
conducting a study to determine if similar formatting changes could have the same impact
on customers’ electricity savings in Summerside as seen in these other countries. The goal
of this project is to decide what type of formatting changes could be beneficial to use, in
conjunction with Summerside Electric’s new smart meters, in providing customers with
personalized, meaningful feedback they can use to reduce electricity consumption.
Survey invitation:
Summerside Electric has agreed to distribute this survey invitation to their customers. Your
participation in this survey would not only be greatly appreciated but will also help
determine recommendations regarding the most effective billing changes that could be
incorporated if you believe that the measures described in the survey have the potential to
help reduce your consumption and potentially even save you money.
Who can do the survey:
Any resident of Summerside over the age of 18, who either pays, or, has once paid, a
Summerside Electric bill is eligible to participate in this survey.
When can I complete the survey:
The survey is now available online and will be open to submissions until midnight on
Friday, June 8 2012.
How to complete the survey:
Please go to the following link to use this opportunity to help shape your community’s
future electricity bill: http://www.greenwithenergy.ca/summerside
Once there, no sign-in, password, or ID is required. Simply begin filling out the survey using
the instructions provided at the beginning of each question.
* Please note that your personal information will be treated as strictly confidential and
private. Only the results of these surveys will be published, not including the actual surveys
themselves or any information that could be used to identify you or your dwelling.
If you have problems:
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the survey, please feel free to contact me,
Megan McCarthy, toll-free at (888) 501-3493 or by e-mail at megan.mccarthy@dal.ca
Thank you,
Megan McCarthy
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APPENDIX I: Summerside current electricity statement sample
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APPENDIX J: Summerside primary research survey results
Summerside primary research results.pdf
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