The SGCC was pleased to co-sponsor a day-long Consumer Symposium at ConnectivityWeek. Organized by Judith Schwartz and based on her findings from the SGCC’s State of the Consumer Report, the event went beyond panel presentations to include breakout discussions, where diverse stakeholders brainstormed solutions to top-of-mind consumer issues.

A comment often repeated throughout the day was that it is rare for utilities, regulators, consumer advocates, tech vendors, engineers, marketers and policy wonks to all be sitting at the same table solving problems together — and that this kind of meet-up was not only productive, but enjoyable! It was a perfect setup for ConnectivityWeek keynote speaker Geoffrey Moore, whose energizing talk identified Collaboration as one crucial action we can take to “cross the chasm” of Smart Grid disruptive technology.

Participants left inspired to act, sometimes exhorting next steps from the rest of us. The theme was that without a vision, people perish — and it will take all of us putting in our hard work and good thinking to make that vision compelling for people who are not Smart Grid insiders. An excerpt of some of the responses shared:

• Lisa Wood, IEE, stated “I’m going to stop calling these things pilots. Anything over 5000 is a deployment! We’ve been doing pilots for 6 years!”
• Erfan Ibrahim, EPRI, shared that he realized how many different stakeholders there are to whom he needs to explain the imminent crisis we are facing now (because of our energy mix) — and to explain why we all need a smart grid.
• Susan Norris, PG&E, reminded those of us interested in the impact of dynamic pricing on low-income consumers that PG&E’s Load Impacts studies on “income qualified” population are available online now. Included are analyses of rate design, population profiles, delivered load, and bill savings — it can be soporific reading, but if you want to understand the impact of pricing programs on low-income populations, there is no shortage of good data here!
• Patty Durand, SGCC, will make it a top priority for the SGCC website to get the success stories about Smart Grid out there.

ConnectivityWeek News and Reactions:

• Kate Rowland’s reflections capture the feeling of the day. Read her article > >
• San Francisco’s ABC 7 ConnectivityWeek news report, See the video > >