Electricity consumer symposium brings multiple stakeholders to the table
Transforming the energy ecosystem, one cross-cultural conversation at a time
Back in early April, I received an intriguing e-mail from Judith Schwartz, president of To The Point, inviting me to participate as a panelist in one of a series of discussions making up a day-long Consumer Symposium at the beginning of ConnectivityWeek.
Intriguing, because the symposium's aimed intent was "to focus on three of the hot-button issues and assemble cross-stakeholder groups of audience members, facilitated by our experts, to begin to identify solutions rather than re-state well-documented positions."
Even more intriguing, because this symposium aimed to "involve journalists as full participants as we believe the press is playing a central role." (Normally, we may be asked to moderate, but otherwise, our role is to quietly sit in the background and cover the discussions and presentations going on around us.)
What could I say but 'yes'?
Co-hosted by the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, the consumer symposium focused its efforts yesterday on changing to a culture of listening and collaboration by discussing the following issues: addressing public health concerns with the smart grid; privacy and data access; and low-income communities and dynamic pricing.
As panelists and participants signed in yesterday morning, a colored sticker was affixed to their conference badges identifying them as part of one of the following industry segments: utility/ISO/RTO, consumer or environmental advocate, regulator or government official, consultant or service provider; press/media; technology company; or "other" (national laboratories, etc.).
Each 30- to 45-minute panel discussion throughout the day was followed by a breakout session, with tables throughout the room populated by a "sticker rainbow" of participants, guaranteeing a balanced discussion of questions and answers from a variety of industry stakeholders.
The goal: To create an environment of creative collaboration among all the above-noted stakeholders, allowing the cultural shift that is occurring within the electricity industry to occur.
Did it happen?
Without a doubt. There was an immense outpouring of cross-culture discussion from table to table, with concerns, thoughts and ideas being exchanged between participants not usually having these kinds of discussions together. While I will cover the discussions more cohesively in an upcoming column, I wanted to share a few snippets of what I heard yesterday here, in an effort to keep these discussions flowing, much like throwing pebbles into a still pond.
Jamie Wimberly, founder and current chief executive officer of the Distributed Energy Financial Group LLC (and author of the "Consumer Cents for the Smart Grid" report released yesterday and covered by my colleague Phil Carson here): "Most consumers look at smart grid as an empty vessel - something that has yet to be filled with value."
Erfan Ibrahim, a technical executive in the Intelligrid program area for EPRI: "We are almost schizophrenic in the way that we do our jobs and then we are consumers. We need to blend these two personalities." Ibrahim told the group that we need to be asking ourselves as an industry how we generate wealth for this country in a smart grid future, and then communicating that with consumers, rather than simply talking about the importance of "clipping the peak".
Chris Thomas, policy director, Illinois Citizens Utility Board: "When you give someone a smart meter, give them an immediate opportunity to tie that information to their pocketbook. It starts to wrap their minds around the way they consumer energy and the cost of that energy."
Patty Durand, executive director of the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, who echoed the sentiments of many of the day`s participants when she said, at the end of the day, that one of her big takeaways was a reprioritization of the Collaborative`s Web site redesign in order to "get the success stories out there."
I'll give the final word to symposium moderator Judith Schwartz, who remarked, quite near the end of the day: "One of the things I found most surprising about today was that the heat points were in places I hadn't expected them to be within conversations." It seems we all may be learning from these discussions already.
Kate Rowland
Editor-in-chief, Intelligent Utility magazine
krowland@energycentral.com
Twitter: @katerowland2
