They [Customers] Just Don't Understand . . .
Complaints that customers don't understand the industry in general and, in particular, the costs of renewable energy and new technology were numerous. For example, consider these three comments:
The main thing we commiserate about is the lack of public knowledge with regard to energy. I don’t know how we get to that, but we base that on the lack of understanding on the part of residential customers, which is just astounding. The large industrial customers are very sophisticated, they get it…. They are right there at our side at the PUC. But we find that as you go down the chain, that the normal customer is pretty ill-informed and pretty opinioned and apt to go off on tangents.
We need to educate customers better, particularly about cost, educate them about what is the true cost of wind, what is the cost of carbon, how that impacts us. We haven’t been that verbal and vocal to educate customers on that.
Most of our opportunity to inform and educate comes when we are asking for something.
Like highways and firefighters, customers need and depend on electricity but don't think about it every day—nor should they have to. After all, utility customers have their own jobs that others don't fully understand or appreciate daily—whether they are trash collectors, surgeons, teachers, or soldiers.
As for educating politicians and regulators, as one respondent put it so well: "We have to have a very credible position at the table, and sometimes say very unpopular things. But we need to [avoid] being perceived as naysayers. So I always say our role is to give public policy makers what they want in [a way] that’s affordable. Sometimes that means convincing them of what they really want. They are public policy makers. They are not expected to be experts at our business, we are. …We have to have that leadership."
Another noted: "We are probably one of the last big industries where people use your product and really don’t know what it costs until they get the bill in the mail a month later. Really I think the key to unlocking conservation and energy efficiency is to show customers what it costs at the time they are using the product." To do so, you need a smarter grid. Smart grid technologies can enable ongoing customer education both directly—through real-time monitoring of home energy usage, where that is provided—and indirectly, through training in the use of such technologies.
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