Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center

2009-10 Seminars

The New Energy Market: How Innovation Drives Customer Behavior

Stephane Kirkland
Direct Energy

Abstract
Electricity end-users are embracing technology and innovation in ways that influence their day-to-day business operations. As an energy retailer, we see that customers have responded to the ability to make decisions about their electricity supply and have adopted innovative products, allowing them to have more control over their energy spend and giving them more transparency into the market. For example, by coupling market-based products on the supply side with load management programs on the demand side, customers recieve real-time price signals that they can manage their business around. This type of active participation in the energy market is driven by the availability of information and the flexibility to alter consumption patterns. How is innovation changing the way that sophisticated customers buy and use electricity?