6 Marketing Tactics to Boost Demand Flexibility Enrollment in LMI (Low-Income) Communities

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), as of February 2026, average electric prices have risen 9% year-over-year. Costs have risen so exponentially that soaring electric rates have become a political hot potato ahead of the pending U.S. mid-term elections. Rising costs are especially challenging for low and moderate-income (LMI) customers, who may struggle economically to make up the difference.

Reports from early-April 2026 forecast the behind-the-meter distributed energy resource (DER) market as poised to grow from $8.82 billion to $36.02 billion by 2034, a nearly 308.4% increase in less than a decade. This market confidence indicates that more and more BTM DER assets are finding their way to the grid’s edge, in places like residential, commercial, and industrial properties, all representing a growing opportunity for use in demand flexibility initiatives.

More than 50 million Americans live in low-income households, making for a substantial number of potential customers, especially as access to BTM DERs continues to decrease. For utilities, LMI communities represent an opportunity through demand flexibility initiatives like virtual power plants, demand response, or EV charging to reach a growing customer base, while enhancing grid resiliency and lowering operational costs.

Customer Concern Number One: Rising Costs

The current increase in electric demand is driven by many factors, including AI and data center developments, the challenges from supply chain and tariffs that hamper infrastructure upgrades, and the increasingly erratic weather patterns and temperature extremes caused by climate change. Rising rates hurt overall customer satisfaction scores, which can, in turn, directly impact the bottom line for any utility.

Unfortunately, these bills appear to be an existential reality in the short term, especially given global turmoil curtailing supply chains and slowing progress. In January, Utility Dive reported that high energy costs are here to stay—at least for the short term—as utilities manage an increasingly volatile energy market, power purchasing agreements, and the demand forecasting uncertainties that challenge planning efforts. According to the EIA, the average cost per kilowatt hour is 18¢ on average, up roughly 37% from 2020.

For customers and coop members, rising rates have fostered everything from political debate to robust community regulatory discourse. For utilities, these costs represent everything from fewer resources to update critical infrastructure to more economic uncertainty as LMI communities struggle to pay bills.

What LMI Communities Represent For Utilities

First and foremost, LMI communities represent uncertainty for electric utilities, as more than half of low-income customers are struggling to pay their bills. According to the Meeting the Needs of Low-Income Households report from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), 88% of these low-income customers believe that they are already doing everything possible to lower their bills.

Ultimately, LMI communities present a sizable and growing opportunity for utilities to leverage the proliferation of BTM DERs increasingly available.

– Syd Bishop, Sr. Content Specialist, Virtual Peaker

With BTM DER market penetration high and rising, these very same customers can provide an opportunity for electric utilities to scale internal demand flexibility programs. Programs like virtual power plants or demand response aggregate otherwise disparate BTM DER assets like solar, battery energy storage systems (BESS), electric vehicles, EVSE chargers, and smart home devices like thermostats or water heaters to both redistribute energy to where and when it’s needed or shift load to off-peak periods of usage.

Ultimately, LMI communities present a sizable and growing opportunity for utilities to leverage the proliferation of BTM DERs increasingly available. According to the Consumer Understanding of Demand Response SECC report, 66% of consumers are open to participating in demand flexibility initiatives. Customers are willing to participate in demand flexibility initiatives and are increasingly likely to have the necessary BTM DER. So how can utilities market these programs to LMI communities? We have some ideas.

Marketing Outreach is Critical to Demand Flexibility Program Scalability

A study shared by Utility Dive found that a combined 59% of survey respondents in Virtual Peaker’s home state of Kentucky, as well as Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, report that they were unaware of demand flexibility programs like demand response in their area. This demonstrates a common, anecdotal thread repeated equally in the industry news cycle and at virtually every energy conference: more customer engagement and education is needed to foster demand flexibility program scalability. Let’s take a look at the most effective ways to reach LMI communities.

1. What’s In It For Me? The Power of Incentives

Research overwhelmingly supports that financial incentives motivate customers. In one study, 57.3% of survey respondents stated an interest in enrolling in direct control demand flexibility programs with a small incentive. In another, 63% of respondents acknowledged that they would participate with or without an incentive. Both cases demonstrate that there is an inherent willingness to participate in demand flexibility programs, with or without financial incentives, although more likely to enroll and participate in them.

For utilities, this means determining an effective financial incentive to properly encourage participation in demand flexibility programs. Typical financial incentives may appear as:

Device rebates
Billing credits
Prepaid cards

There are many use cases for financial incentives, which may be used as part of a retention plan or deployed based on customer meeting participation standards. No matter what, utilities must market these incentives to encourage both enrollment and participation in demand flexibility programs.

2. Keep Messaging Simple

In a 2019 study, 84% of survey respondents reported that clear, simplistic language was integral in marketing messaging. Now, more than half of all American adults have a literacy level below 6th-grade. While that’s alarming, for poor communities, that challenge may be even more acute, as 3 out of 4 people on welfare are entirely illiterate. As such, reaching the broadest possible audience—including LMI communities—requires simple, consistent messaging that explains the value of demand flexibility programs for the customer, as well as the community.

3. Meet People Where They Are

There is no single marketing channel guaranteed to reach every audience. Rather, program management marketing requires an omni-channel approach to marketing that leverages contact points like:

Billing inserts
Television/radio ads
Customer service scripts
Emails
Social media posts

Furthermore, literally meeting people where they are is useful. For example, program managers and marketers can leverage customer outreach by visiting local community events like farmers’ markets or even regulatory meetings to help inform customers on the demand flexibility opportunities available in their communities.

4. Partner With Local Community Support Organizations

Comparable to the above, partnering with local community support organizations is useful in establishing connections and building rapport with LMI communities. As both serve LMI communities, consider partnering with community support organizations like state Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) or local home-weatherization organizations.

5. Build & Nurture Contractor Relationships

Demand flexibility programs leverage any one of numerous possible devices and device types to aggregate and shift load to off-peak periods of usage. Unfortunately, not every type of device is supported by every type of demand flexibility program, and vice versa, raising barriers to participation for potential customers. While a robust library of OEM partnerships and API integrations can minimize these concerns, this remains a bottleneck for participation and enrollment that is largely dependent upon expensive and often emergency purchases.

By fostering relationships with contractor networks, utility program managers can educate device installers to pass on critical and often timely information to customers who may be interested in joining available demand flexibility programs.

– Syd Bishop, Sr. Content Specialist, Virtual Peaker

This is where contractor relationships come in. Electric utility program managers can develop relationships with contractors who can then educate customers at the point of installation on their potential demand flexibility opportunities. For example, when the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) leveraged a contractor network to help bolster participation in their Powerminder program, which required specific smart-water heaters that were often purchased by customers rushing to replace a critical piece of home technology.

6. Talk to Landlords & Property Managers

Not all of the customers in LMI communities may be available to join demand flexibility initiatives. In some cases, they may not personally own the requisite devices, which may be owned or managed by the landlord or property manager. As with contractor relationships, developing rapport with landlords and property managers offers yet another path to educating customers in LMI communities on their potential opportunities to participate in demand flexibility programs.

6 Marketing Tactics to Boost Demand Flexibility Enrollment Conclusion

Although communities are pushing back against the challenges of energy-hungry data centers, electric demand has continued to increase. As inflation outpaces annual incomes, these challenges will continue to persist, confounding load planning initiatives, adding operational costs, and more. Fortunately, the increased proliferation of BTM DERs provides utilities with an excellent opportunity to leverage Grid-Edge DERMS to meet rising demand through the aggregate load shift and redistribution capabilities of demand flexibility programs.

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About The Author

Syd is a senior content specialist and all-around word nerd for Virtual Peaker. Syd believes in the inevitability of renewable energies and in implementing a diverse energy portfolio and is excited to use his skills to help spread that message far and wide. In his scant free time, Syd is a father of two, husband of an awesome wife, a musician, and a lover of comic books, and all things sci-fi.

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