PCCA Journal 3rd Quarter 2014 - page 40

PCCA Journal|3
rd
Quarter 2014
40
Power News
Continued from page 39
from their utility providers. Eighty-two
percent of utility customers in the U.S.
would like their utility to do more to
encourage energy conservation and
share ideas to improve energy efficiency
in their homes. Meanwhile, 81 percent
of utility customers expect their utility
provider to use higher levels of renew-
able energy such as electricity produced
from solar, wind, and geothermal biogas
in the future to meet their energy needs.
Consumers’ grid expectations are not
limited to energy management alone.
More than half of utility customers (52
percent) become frustrated when they’re
without electricity for an hour or less.
If a power outage occurs and consum-
ers’ electronic devices are not charged,
nearly half of U.S. adults (39 percent)
also would be frustrated with the ab-
sence of their smartphones, with laptops
following closely behind (25 percent).
As energy consumers’ expectations
evolve, so does the way they communi-
cate with utilities. In the event of a power
outage, 70 percent of U.S. adults would
prefer to communicate with their utilities
digitally or online, whether calling them
from cell phones and smartphones (60
percent), sending text messages (14 per-
cent), contacting via utility websites (11
percent), or sending an email (9 percent).
Conversely, 36 percent of U.S. adults still
prefer to communicate with their utilities
via a traditional land line.
“As our expectations for up-to-the-
minute data increases, consumers will
demand that utilities leverage digital
communication and social media tools
to keep them informed in real time,”
McDonald said. “To meet this growing
demand, domestic and global utilities
have an opportunity to partner with con-
sumers to better understand how their
digital lifestyles are shaping their energy
consumption habits.”
In looking at the root cause of power
outages, 50 percent of U.S. adults believe
natural disasters and weather-related
events are the greatest threat to the
U.S. power grid. This threat is most
evident for those in the Northeast, with
61 percent of U.S. adults in this region
claiming weather as the greatest threat
to the grid, compared to 48 percent in
the South and Midwest and 43 percent
in the West.
“Natural disasters such as Superstorm
Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and the recent
polar vortices highlighted the challenges
utilities face providing power to meet
high energy demand. They also revealed
the reliability challenges utilities experi-
ence when the U.S. electrical grid is
under extreme stress,” McDonald said.
“With summer season underway and the
potential tornados, droughts, and hur-
ricanes that come with it, utilities should
ask themselves if they are any more
prepared to handle this stress.”
Some power providers already are
anticipating and planning for the grid of
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