Transparency is Key: Utility Customers Want To Know

In January, EY released its Outlook 2025: Four Themes Empowering Utilities report. As the name implies, the report looks at themes challenging electric utilities, namely balancing the increased demand driven by rapid AI and data center developments, supply chain and tariff challenges, and increased extreme volatile weather events, with utility customer satisfaction. Notably, the report noted that 2/3 of U.S. consumers are concerned about rising energy bills and feel unable to absorb even a 10% increase in costs.

The bad news? Rising demand has risen 13% between 2022-25, and that figure promises to increase. The good news? Demand flexibility programs like virtual power plants, demand response, and EV charging programs have proven successful. For example, the State of Demand Flexibility Programs and Rates from the Energy Markets & Policy Berkley Lab found an average savings of approximately $39 per KW across 15 Wi-Fi thermostat programs.

These demand flexibility programs require one incredibly important resource: customer enrollment and participation. Utility customers want affordable, reliable service, and they want to know their options. Earning a customer’s trust is crucial to securing the customer engagement needed to develop your demand flexibility programs, while defraying high market costs, mitigating costly infrastructure upgrades, and enhancing grid resiliency.

Types of Demand Flexibility Programs

There are several types of demand flexibility programs, and multiple ways to manage them. A Grid DERMS manages utility-held DER assets like solar or battery installations, while Grid-Edge DERMS aggregates behind-the-meter DER assets found in places like residential, commercial, and industrial properties. Currently, challenges with supply chains and tariffs are confounding efforts to deploy grid-scale renewable energy assets, a process further upset by a lengthy grid interconnection queue. By contrast, Grid-Edge DERMS leverage DER assets already found in communities.

Demand flexibility initiatives like demand response or EV charging programs work to conserve energy by shifting temperature set points to decrease usage or to shift charging times to off-peak periods of usage. Likewise, through programs like V2G charging, battery programs, or by accessing solar inverters, utilities can access excess ambient renewable energy, redistributing that energy to help repower the grid. In both cases, utilities benefit by decreasing energy consumption during peak periods of usage, lowering energy market costs, and strengthening energy security.

The Importance of Utility Customer Engagement

According to Utility Dive, smart thermostat adoption has doubled in eight years to about 16% of all households with internet access. Unfortunately, of that 16% only a reported 20% participate in demand response programs. A poll of several southern states—including Virtual Peaker’s home state of Kentucky—showed that a combined 59% of all customers polled stated that they didn’t know a demand response program existed, or that if they did, they lacked access.

That number shifts to 44% along the West Coast, where communications and opportunity are higher. To a lesser degree, 29% of polled customers reported concerns over someone else controlling their devices, 34% stated that they were more worried about comfort, and some reported that they either didn’t have the proper device or that program incentives were insufficient. By contrast, a 2021 report from the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University found that of all polled customers, 63% of customers are willing to enroll and participate in demand response programs, irrespective of incentives.

For a more real-world example, during a 2022 heatwave, Colorado residents found that they were locked out of their devices due to a demand event initiated by the utility provider without customer consent. These customers were understandably angry, which led to public backlash. Around the same time, California, also experiencing a heatwave, sent out widespread messaging and communications to explain the necessity of a demand event, which resulted in savings of thousands of megawatts within the span of an hour. The message here: customers are more likely to participate than you might think, as long as they are aware of their opportunities.

Building Loyalty

One big takeaway from the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study is that 39% of study participants are financially worse off now than in the past. As such, customer communications have become increasingly paramount, as the study found that customers want communication from their utilities educating them on the energy saving opportunities or the billing relief offered by demand flexibility programs, from the incentives, to the aggregate energy market savings that impact long-term rates.

Developing your utility customer demand flexibility programs hinges on customer participation and enrollment. To do that, utilities need to find their voice in their messaging. Establishing the right thing to say and the right audience is the first step in any marketing program. Next, utilize an array of communications vectors, including:

• email marketing
• social media marketing
• SMS Texting
• billing inserts
• education from utility customer service reps
• mailers
• billboards
• television or radio ads

These actions were recently made easier by the FCC, which ruled that utilities can send automated calls and text messages regarding demand flexibility programs, without the need for customer consent, although please note that opt-outs from customer communications should be allowed to foster trust and transparency. And remember to keep your messaging simple and succinct, as 54% of American adults have a sub-6th-grade level of reading.

Transparency is Key: Utility Customers Want To Know Conclusion

The 2025 State of the Consumer report from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) found that 70% of all polled customers had received some kind of energy messaging from utility providers, which in this case can mean education on demand flexibility programs or energy efficiency opportunities. Customers want to know, and are eager to participate when possible. Lowering barriers to utility customer participation and enrollment is crucial to developing the demand flexibility initiatives needed to minimize peak energy consumption, lower expensive peak energy market costs, and defray costly infrastructure upgrades, all while enhancing grid resiliency. Your customers will thank you.

About The Author

With almost two decades of leadership, growth marketing, and communication experience, Amber Mullaney drives the strategy behind Virtual Peaker's marketing initiatives. A proud Texan native, she graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Public Relations and Interpersonal Communication. She is passionate and experienced in managing brands, product lines, marketing programs, and driving cross-functional teams.

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