Guidehouse Insights and Bidgely Paper Reveals AI and Personalization Drives Energy Management Market Evolution

New paper outlines how AI-powered energy management enables greater resiliency and flexibility for global utilities and energy customers

Guidehouse Insights, formerly known as Navigant Research, today released the whitepaper, “The Power of AI for Energy Management, Q2’20,” which analyzed how leading utilities leverage artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to provide more valuable customer insights, produce greater energy savings and deepen their customer engagements in an evolving energy management landscape. Sponsored by UtilityAI™ leader Bidgely, the paper explains the evolution of converting smart meter data into holistic approaches to home energy management (HEM), and how utilities are using AI to address utility objectives like decarbonization, electrification, OpEx cost reduction, load shifting, demand response and more.

“The analysis of large data sets is helping to identify usage patterns that can alter market perceptions of what is possible for HEM”

“The analysis of large data sets is helping to identify usage patterns that can alter market perceptions of what is possible for HEM,” said Neil Strother, principal research analyst for Guidehouse Insights. “Utilities have invested significantly in updated smart meter infrastructure. To maximize their investments, they should embrace AI technology in its many forms and create a data-centric and customer-centric culture. Utility managers and staff need to become familiar and comfortable with AI tools to exploit the increasing volumes of systemwide data that is there to be utilized.”

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According to Guidehouse Insights, overall HEM revenue is projected to grow from nearly $4.4 billion in 2019 to more than $12 billion in 2028. A primary driver of this growth is adoption of smart meters, which has been on the rise across all utilities and is expected to reach a penetration of 67 percent by the end of 2020. Altered market dynamics contributing to the demand for advanced HEM solutions include several factors, such as environmental sustainability, availability of sophisticated household technologies (i.e. smart thermostats) and digital personalization, which have led consumers to seek greater control over their energy consumption and raised expectations for personalized engagement from their utility.

“The traditional approach at utilities of data silos is giving way to an overarching new approach that places the customer at the center of data gathering and analysis,” said Gautam Aggarwal, chief marketing officer for Bidgely. “This opens the door for enterprise-level analytics and personalized energy management approaches that enable a utility to better serve their customers across all segments, whether it is high consumption users or low-medium income customers. This new mindset is especially important for providing greater insights and recommendations to customers in times of financial challenges and economic uncertainty.”

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Successful deployments of Bidgely UtilityAI across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, with customers like Rocky Mountain Power, VSE, TEPCO and Duke Energy, reflect the achievements of applying AI-driven solutions to large customer datasets. These utilities and others that invested in AI-driven HEM saw significant improvements and measured results in:

• Customer Experience: mid-cycle and monthly alerts reduce high bill calls by 50 percent and increase energy savings by 2X.
• Home Energy Reports (HER): digital-centric HER programs drive 80 percent increase in savings, as experienced by Rocky Mountain Power customers.
• Demand Side Management: behavioral energy efficiency programs contribute to higher customer savings, while non-behavioral DSM enables more effective product targeting, recommendations and rebates.
• Call Center Operations: reduction in high bill calls and call handling time for greater service center value.
• Online Audits: higher flexibility and reach to drive field audits through online audit tools.
• New Revenue Generation: diversification of utility offerings to non-commodity products and advisory services, as implemented by Slovakia’s leading utility, VSE.

To learn more about the advantages of AI-powered home energy management solutions and to access the full Guidehouse Insights paper, “The Power of AI for Energy Management, Q2’20,”

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