Case Study
Electricity providers in the U.S. and Canada are making strides in educating and engaging consumers on how to better control how much energy they use, the resulting costs they incur and the benefits of shifting their usage.
These case studies collected by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative spotlight how smart energy technologies have engaged consumers to enable them to match the energy they use with their needs and lifestyles.
London Hydro is a Local Distribution Company (LDC) that services the City of London, Ontario, Canada. With a peak load of 694 MW, they deliver a safe and reliable supply of electricity to approximately 163,000 customers from the residential, institutional, commercial and industrial sectors. Customers are connected through over 3,000 kilometers of overhead and underground cables, spanning 420 square kilometers of service territory.
In April 2020, the Ontario Energy Board announced that, as of November 1 of that year, they would require LDCs to provide their residential and small business customers with a choice between two regulated price plans. Over the next seven months, London Hydro opted to develop a personalized calculator tool that takes actual customer data and delivers personalized cost comparisons to aid in decision-making.
Since the Price Plan Calculator launched, it has been viewed over 33,000 times. Over 10 percent of eligible customers have made the switch – two-to-three times higher than other LDCs. At its peak, the Calculator became the fourth-most viewed MyAccount page, and 79 percent of customers who requested to switch plans did so using this self-serve feature.
