Join UtiliPoint prior to the CS Week conference for our SmartGridPoint Workshop on May 1st where we’ll focus on Utility  Innovation and Data Analytics. Here we will share some of our proprietary research findings, dialog on industry trends, and  participate in interactive discussions focused on the importance of innovation in the utilities space. Below is a tentative agenda. You must register for the CS Week conference in order to attend. 

SmartGridPoint Workshop Agenda:

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric once said, “When the speed of change outside the organization exceeds the speed of change within … The end is in sight!”  As I sit here looking at my smart phone and a new tech toy that I recently purchased, a “digital” pen, that will record every pen stroke I make and even capture sound recordings, I can’t help but think how the speed of change in technology is greatly outpacing the rate of change occurring in most customer service functions in utilities.  Using Jack Welch’s logic, the end is in sight for our industry’s traditional customer service approach.  To get a glimpse of where the road ahead may take us, this article examines some smart phone apps industry leaders have rolled out to customers.  The type of apps I have seen generally fit into one of two categories: operational and new customer service offerings.

Operational Applications

The most obvious customer application that the industry is beginning to embrace is outage management.  In an outage, without power to drive personal computers and home networks, the most logical mode of communication is mobile phone.   Recently, several utilities including CenterPoint Energy, DTE Energy, LG&E/KU, Minnesota Power,  PEPCO and Platte-Clay Electric Cooperative have started offering customers information on issues like outages throughout the utility system, summary of outages by county/zip code, estimated restoration times, and even allowing customers to  report outages and nonfunctioning street lights.   Most of the outage apps are getting mixed reviews by customers which is not unexpected for a first release version.  For example, you can find DTE Energy’s app feedback available on the Android Market site (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dteenergy.mydte&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5kdGVlbmVyZ3kubXlkdGUiXQ).  The main complaint appears to be how the “report an outage” function is working (or not working) but  I also noted the large number of downloads in the past 30 days, numbering in the thousands based on the graph on the right side bar.  

Figure 1: DTE Energy's Outage App.

Figure 3: PG&E Mobile Pay App

New Customer Service Offerings

Smart phones serve as a well suited medium for interacting with customers in new services offerings such as prepaid metering and real-time pricing.  In South Africa, where prepaying for electric service is more widely adopted when compared to North America, customers can “recharge” their prepay meter via their smart phone.  Customers are also provided a “virtual meter” that shows the remaining kilowatt-hours available to use (see figure 4).

Figure 4: Pre-Pay App in South Africa

Price City, Utah has rolled out an interested customer app for managing energy efficiency efforts.  It appears the app allows you to set goals and measure performance against those goals.  Price City also provides information to help you understand you overall performance by benchmarking your results against an average neighbor and your most efficient neighbor (see figure 5). 

Figure 5: Price City’s Energy Efficiency App

The development of new customer service applications in the utility industry is just beginning to emerge.  There are dozens more applications that could have been highlighted in this article, but this article serves as an introduction to apps.  The apps chosen are pioneering applications to give us a glimpse into the future customer service model that will take hold in the industry in the coming years.  The change is being driven in large part through the rapid adoption by consumers of technologies such as smart phones and tablet computers that keep us wired up and accessible 24 hours a day.  Utilities finally have cost effective ways to tap into the residential market potential by leveraging this bigger technology play that is going on throughout society.   If your utility is not having serious strategic sessions about how to create new customer service models it is time to get those initiatives launched as the end is in sight for our traditional ways for interacting with customers.

 

 

UtiliPoint is pleased to announce the release of version 1.1 of the CIS SourceBook, the definitive guide to utility customer service systems with comprehensive information about vendors and systems in the utility customer services space. The SourceBook, distributed free of charge, is available for download at the UtiliPoint International Web site. To date, UtiliPoint received enquiries for its CIS Sourcebook from around the world – 10 Countries from all continents except Africa. Over 400 downloads have been recorded from all types of utilities and IT consultants.

This IssueAlert summarizes the new SourceBook’s findings and the impact of the marketplace on CIS products and services.

Impact

The SourceBook profiles 15 current CIS systems from 14 North American vendors and was created by querying CIS vendors on 150 CIS functions.

For each function, the vendor rated their offering on three dimensions: (Figure 1):

▲ “Status” – The stage of development for each function, ranging from “mature and in base” to “not offered.”
▲ “How Offered” –The method through which each function is offered, ranging  from service-oriented architecture (SOA) or Web service, batch process, client server, integration with a partner, etc.
▲ “Available As” – Whether or not the functionality is part of the base package, an optional module, or a combination of both.

Figure 1: CIS Functionality Key

Vendors reported over 1,300 installations in countries or regions including the US, Canada, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Singapore, Japan, the UK, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Analysis of Functionality

Years ago, most CIS systems were installed and managed at the utility.  Now utilities have a wider range of choices. For example, 80 percent of the vendors now offer hosted solutions.  Perhaps the greatest diversity among vendors is the method used to offer functionality. While a few offer functionality in a variety of ways, most have chosen to focus on one offering method.  These methods include SOA or Web service, batch process, client server, integration with a partner, or other vendor product.

Figure 2: Sample of functionality results from an actual vendor listing.

The following is a summary of the vendor provided key functionality features.  Each section summarizes the findings of a different functional category.

Back Office
Only three CIS systems do not offer mature back office functionality. We define back office functionality as including several interfaces to other systems such as work management, outage management, and general ledger as well as archiving of data, escheatment and capital credit tracking. There is a variety of ways vendors provide this functionality. For example, three systems have back office offered only as a base functionality (i.e., unavailable as separate or modular functionality) and seven of the vendors offer outage and work management interfaces as optional add-on modules.

Billing and Pricing
While billing and pricing functionality is commonly part of the base package, interestingly, ten packages do not currently offer complex pricing options such as real time/dynamic or hedged pricing.  Also in development or not yet offered by eight of the vendors is integration with prepaid metering.

Credit Management
Credit management is the process of tracking customer arrears, delinquencies, write-offs, etc. Most vendors include credit management as part of their base offerings, however about 20 percent also offer this in a modular manner.

Customer Management
As the reader might expect, full customer management functionality (e.g., customer account information, contact information, billing/usage history, etc.) is included in almost all packages. It’s interesting to note that a small number (3-5) of the packages have limited or no outbound calling or marketing functionality. Customer management also includes customer rebates, customer data warehousing and analytics functionality. Several vendors each offer customer functionality through a variety of delivery methods (“How Offered”). These methods include a client server or SOA/web service offering. Almost all packages perform customer data management as a batch process.

Meter Data
Meter data warehousing within a CIS system has grown in importance over the past five years. Eight packages offer meter data warehousing, while the others are in development or utilize integration with partners. It should be noted that this SourceBook does not treat meter data management (MDM) as a CIS function. Rather, MDM is considered to be the process whereby data from meter reads is stored, validated, estimated and edited and then communicated via interfaces to other systems such as the CIS. CIS meter data is almost all batch processed and the “how it is offered” to the user is diverse among the vendors.

Payments
Full payment processing functionality includes, for example, accounts receivable & bad debt tracking, credit card transaction processing, bank lockbox functionality and more. It’s interesting to note that 10 of 15 vendors now offer prepayment functionality and the other five have this functionality in development. Those offering prepayment processing offer it as a batch process.

Relationship Management
Relationship management covers a variety of functions, such as customer loyalty, online customer interfaces, demand side management rebates and customer rate assessments. More so than other functional categories, each vendor offers a unique blend of functionality, delivery methods and availability.

Service
The service functionality category covers miscellaneous services such as bilingual options, outbound collections, etc. Eight vendors offer full functionality, while the rest offer a few of the functions in this category.

Self Service
This category will likely see changes as more utilities offer customer service through the Web, social media and smart phone apps. For example, outage announcements, truck rolls and so forth as well as customer self-reporting of outages and other issues can now be communicated via these new channels. Only three vendors offer full functionality. The only self-service functionality common to all packages is service tracking/completion and usage/billing history.

Web (Customer)
None of the vendors offer full functionality for customer service via the World Wide Web. The most common functionalities offered by most are online payment, service tracking and completion, and billing/usage history.

Conclusions

While many would consider the CIS marketplace mature, the answers provided in the SourceBook indicate that changes are imminent due to:

▲New customer communication methods such as smart phone apps, the Web, and social media. 
▲New pricing such as dynamic or hedged pricing and prepaid pricing.
▲ New billing methods such as prepaid and online bill presentment.
▲ Vast and growing amounts of customer data due to Smart Grid implementations.
▲ Analytical needs due to Smart Grid deployments (e.g., customer segmentation and corresponding marketing).

The CIS SourceBook version 1.1 presents 150 technical and functional details for each of the 15 CIS packages.  Given the complexity of the CIS space, the material is presented based on the assumption that it is indicative of the broad capabilities of CIS vendor products. The CIS SourceBook is designed to be a useful and usable resource for those seeking CIS software. It is intended to be a starting point in that process by providing the buyer a guide, allowing the user to review and compare CIS products and services from a comprehensive list of North American vendors.

In my last IssueAlert (Utilities at the Dawn of a New Era), I offered three predictions for 2012. First, dual-track Smart Grid will see Smart Grid discussion and concepts divided into two diverging paths. Current utility-centric Smart Grid includes grid modernization, AMI, distribution automation, peak power reduction, and new technology integration. An emerging consumer-centric perspective focuses on voluntary interruption of service (what utilities call demand response) and distributed energy resources (DER), a term that includes four technology areas: smart buildings (energy efficiency, etc.), smart transportation (electric vehicles, charging stations, etc.), distributed generation (solar PV, CHP, etc.), and energy storage. Second, distributed energy services (DES) and solutions will emerge to leverage and improve on stand-alone DER technology product offers. Micro grids represent the most comprehensive DES solution and when operated interdependently with utilities constitute one version of a virtual power plant (VPP). Third, data analytics-driven products and services will reflect the growing utility resource of interval data flowing from smart meters, but also advances in technology that enable new data analytics solutions.

As we transition to a new year, we see Smart Grid players leveraging these trends for competitive advantage. GE, for instance, has been in the news this month with a new offer in place with two customers – Grid IQ: Solutions as a Service – that combines the traditional set of Smart Grid offers (Track One above) with new cloud service and data analytics capabilities. Imagine similar solutions for Track Two, the consumer-perspective: Distributed-Energy-as-a-Service (DEaaS) solutions, based on recent technology advances that enable a new wave of distributed energy solutions provided by new waves of energy competitors. Third parties representing specific DER technologies (armed with the competitive advantage of new perspectives) are likely to develop offers, combining technologies with data analytics to enable more compelling consumer value propositions, similar to what GE is providing for utilities. Knowledgeable consultants and entrepreneurs are capable of developing compelling DES solutions, even offering new applications on a distributed platform. Quadruple Bypass describes this potential new trend, where third parties offer compelling value from the four DER categories and bypass the traditional utility channel, taking their DES solutions directly to building owners and home owners, local governments, school districts, chambers of commerce, neighborhood groups, etc.

Utility transformation to a digital platform and data driven processes will take decades – technologies will inevitably progress faster than utilities, which will produce altogether new challenges for the electric utility industry and for society going forward. As utilities study technologies at their own pace, evaluating impacts on reliability, security and integration issues, consumers will grow impatient for access to solutions to current problems associated with grid power (e.g., outages, rate increases, etc.). And over the decades it will take to transform our fundamental electric infrastructure, utilities will endure inescapable long-term stress, given the growing complexity and increasing pace of change. For those most advanced utilities, already adapting and accepting new roles for themselves, new problems like data management, organizational realignment, security strategy and consumer engagement will become their reward. Other utilities are more likely to optimize their grid than develop DER, pursuing the First Track of utility-centric Smart Grid and providing limited attention to consumer-centric solutions. And for the many others who continue to hold back and resist change, they are likely to find no refuge in sticking to tradition, as the burden to add new skill sets and upgrade infrastructure will remain and grow as time moves along. Delaying competitive adaptation – staying still – in a highly dynamic environment will only mean falling still further behind.

As we evaluate these emerging trends, a key question to ask is “Will utilities adapt to provide energy services even if they dilute their grid-delivered kWh revenue?” Clayton Christenson’s Innovator’s Dilemma, a well-recognized theory on the impacts of disruptive technology, offers insights on what many readers may find familiar. An established company struggles to innovate; status quo business is good and embracing challenging disruptive innovations is counter-intuitive, maybe even involving cannibalization of existing revenues. Moving slowly and delaying innovation, the established company leaves a gap in the product or services market that smaller more flexible companies step in to fill with lower quality or incomplete solutions. Established companies may initially dismiss these small fry as inconsequential, but as these small companies build on their beachhead, growing and improving their offer and service quality, they grow their market share until they become significant competitors to the established company.

The degree to which utilities see new DER and DES revenue as a viable alternative will help determine whether DEaaS becomes a disruptor or whether it grows into an alternative utility revenue stream. Utilities have a range of alternatives for dealing with disruptive technologies, from avoidance, to tolerance, to becoming a distributor of third party services, to providing designer energy services in-house. Quadruple Bypass enables today’s energy consumers to make their buildings more efficient and lower their bills and to adopt natural gas-fueled combined heat and power and on-site solar PV. As technology matures, new electric vehicle technologies and energy storage alternatives will join the mix. Consumers may repeat this Energy by Design approach in iterative cycles as technology proliferates and as prices continue to fall. Increasingly more energy consumers can logically be expected to pursue savings and greater reliability, enjoying a virtuous cycle of lower cost and risk. But as they do so, they reduce their grid power purchases – the potential dilutive impacts of DEaaS are real. The question remains to what extent DEaaS is taken seriously today by utilities, and how they view their alternatives. 

John Cooper, co-author of The Advanced Smart Grid, has recently joined the team at UtiliPoint and its sister company, Consonus, to further the goals and realize the vision he developed over the last 15 years as a Smart Grid pioneer and innovator, captured in this compelling and highly useful new book. John may be reached directly by email at jcooper@utilipoint.com.

The CIS SourceBook v1.1 contains detailed vendor information about specific customer service products or services. Easy to understand charts and text provide information about client demographics, hosted infrastructure (if available), company summary, contact information and installed base, functional topics by development status , offering, and availability.

Download the UtiliPoint CIS Sourcebook January 2012 v1.1

This is a free download available to logged in members only.
Register here!.

Members, please log in at right.

May 29 – 30 | London, England
July 11 – 12 | Houston, Texas USA

The CTRM Conference Series for 2012 builds on the success of 2011, where events in Prague and Houston received favorable reviews and attracted more than 250 industry professionals.

This year, the CTRM Conference will be hosted in London, England and Houston, Texas. The two-day event focuses on the technical aspects of E/CTRM and related software, bringing together users of these technologies to share ideas and emerging requirements with developers and providers. For detailed information, please visit the conference site at: www.CTRMconference.com.

Who should attend?

• Commodity/energy trading staff involved in  software selection
• IT staff using CTRM software
• Senior business management at commodity trading firms involved in software selection and/or use
• Consultants and vendors in the space

What others are saying…

Gavin Lavelle, CEO of Brady
“The conference had a clear focus from the clients on ligquidity, market counterparty, and operational risks. The consensus was that there isn’t a ‘one size fitsl all’ across commodity and energy markets — traders want best of breed with open architecture for ease of integration and interoperability.”

Sasha Cvetkovic, syseca Ltd.
“We truly appreciate CommodityPoint for being an unbiased source of comprehensive and accurate information in the area of Commodity Trading and Risk Management. The presentations were interesting, useful, and future oriented.”

UtiliPoint Managing Director Rand Warsaw will be presenting at CS Week 2012. His presentation “Architecting a Stakeholder-Embraced Smart Consumer Program”  is scheduled for Wednesday, May 2, 2012 as a part of the Smart Infrastructure tract. This workshop track Smart Infrastructure will cover various aspects of the Smart Grid/Infrastructure including: AMI; Demand response/demand management; Dynamic/real-time/critical peak pricing options; Grid optimization; Integration of renewables; storage and distributed generation; PHEVs; and Home Area Networks/energy management systems/Consumer Displays and Control. For more information, visit the CS Week 2012 Web site.

The University of Houston’s Bauer School of Business launched their ETRM Systems course in the spring of 2010 with 18 students. Since that time, the program, founded and still lead by industry veteran Ed Bell, has grown steady and has attracted considerable attention both on and off campus. According to Mr. Bell, “We’ve been pleased and gratified with the success of the program. We’ve seen significant and consistent growth in enrollment each semester, growing from 18 students in our inaugural semester, to 50 the next, then 70, and now more than 100 in this just concluded class.” He further noted that the spring 2012 semester currently stands at 10 MBAs and 121 undergrads, with a couple of weeks left for enrollment.

“Of course it’s gratifying to see the excitement within the school for our program; however, I believe the truest measure of our success is the increasing value of the course in helping our students find careers in their chosen fields.” In this area, he points to success in developing relationships with many of the CTRM/ETRM product vendors, consulting companies and major energy firms. “We’ve been very happy that we’ve been able to develop terrific relations with industry as a result of this course offering. These relationships have given our students the opportunity to interact with leading technology firms and energy companies during their time in this class, interactions that have resulted in job offers and new careers for many of our students.”

This senior/grad level course, MIS 4397/7397 in the university catalog, provides students a fundamental understanding of the functionality and complexities of the systems used for managing physical energy trading in the North American markets and, by extension, a good understanding of the industry those systems reflect. The students get hands on experience in using ETRM software, the GasPro system which has been donated and supported by Data Management Solutions and their president, Frank Pena. Using that system, they get exposed to critical processes such as contract management, deal capture, natural gas nominations and scheduling, and accounting. Additionally, they gain insight into the methodologies and issues related to selecting and implementing complex supply chain and trade management solutions (in fact the course utilizes one of CommodityPoint’s books, “Selecting and Implementing Energy Trading, Transaction and Risk Management Software“ as part of their course materials).

Building on Success

As the program has grown and has continuously pushed the school and faculty to meet demand, Mr. Bell has continuously worked to build capacity, both in technology and teaching staff. The school is recruiting more teaching resources with appropriate/relevant experience, and has hired two additional adjunct faculty with energy IT experience, specifically in the area of configuring and installing ETRM systems. These new resources will provide additional teaching depth under Mr. Bell’s guidance and will help in establishing classes beyond the current course, which is a general introduction to the industry.

Additionally, Mr. Bell is in the early stages of planning a series of courses of interest to technologists— including topics such as pipeline and utility systems for gas management, reporting and compliance issues in energy—especially in light of Dodd-Frank; and the technical side of finance and accounting as it applies to energy operations. “Presently, we are looking at the success we’ve had with a straightforward introductory course and thinking ‘what should be next in a sequence of courses that will further build a credible and respected course of the study that prepares students go to work in the industry?’”

“If I were to summarize our goals for the future of this program, they would be fourfold: 1) continuously improve our ability to deliver a world class educational experience in the area of energy trading technologies, 2) continue to grow and deepen our relationships with industry, including both the leading providers and consumers of these critical technologies, 3) continue to place students in good paying, stable and solid careers, and 4) establish capacity for true energy related research,” said Mr. Bell. In the area of research, he notes the following areas for potential focus: infrastructure planning, critical infrastructure maintenance and security, high-performance computing in energy, cloud based computing and transitional issues, and market data and other related ancillary systems requirements.

Another area of interest for Mr. Bell is to move the course outside of the classroom. “One thing I definitely want to work on is packaging our capabilities to deliver our courses online. I believe we can reach a much larger audience and leverage our time and presence in Houston if we do so. The University of Houston already offers a number of online courses and I think it’s inevitable that we move that direction.”

This course is providing a win-win for both the students and industry— energy trading and marketing firms, along with vendors and service providers, are able to bring on board new employees that have significant exposure to, and understanding of, the critical IT architectures of the industry; and new graduates of the program find intellectually rewarding and well paying careers.

We at CommodityPoint are committed to supporting this valuable program and we encourage other industry participants to do the same.

The CommodityPoint CTRM Software Sourcebook is designed to be a useful and usable resource to help those seeking to select CTRM software. It is a starting point in that process providing a high-level guide to allow you to select a long list of vendors that may or may not prove to be capable and competent to supply your solution after you have conducted an RFI and/or RFP process. IT is NOT designed to be a replacement for your selection process. CTRM software is simply too complex to be selected properly without a reliable and complete selection process. We hope the CommodityPoint CTRM Sourcebook will allow you to compile a list of vendors that may include some you might otherwise not have considered or may even not previously been aware of. In that way, we believe it can make your selection process more complete.

As I write my last IssueAlert article of 2011, I reflect on my previous work this year (see IssueAlert Archive), as well as Smart Grid articles I’ve read lately that anticipate trends for 2012. In IssueAlert articles this year, I’ve laid out the elements of change that are besetting electric utilities around the world, as Smart Grid moves from a concept to reality in a variety of venues. In looking at the year ahead, some articles highlight such potential developmental areas as renewable integration, data analytics, energy service business models, demand response, smart buildings, electric vehicles, energy storage, solar PV and combined heat and power (CHP) generators, and more. Clearly, we are on the cusp of significant change. But other articles question whether Smart Grid still has legs in North America (and around the world), where some combination of outdated or misguided regulatory guidance, low natural gas prices, the lack of leadership from Congress, cyber security risks, immature interoperability standards, conservative utility culture, consumer resistance, and lack of available capital will slow things down. So, pick your future from this menu—surely, the actual prospects for 2012 must be based on the dynamic tension between optimistic change potential from progressive technologies and business advances that pull us into the future, and the pessimistic outcomes described by those who cite the litany of challenges ahead, which will hold us back in a variety of ways.

So here I offer my own predictions for 2012—I’ll keep the list short, providing three favorite trends that I see blossoming in the next 12 months.

Dual-Track Smart Grid. Smart Grid discussion and concepts will divide into two camps in the coming year: the first will be utility-centric, much as it is today, focused on AMI, grid modernization, distribution automation, peak power reduction, and integration of new technologies into grid operations. This track is “inside baseball,” where industry insiders compare notes and guide change to support the utility industry. But there will be an increasingly prominent second track for Smart Grid, populated by new faces—non-utility players discussing issues from a more consumer-centric perspective, focused both on nascent markets associated with curtailment (“demand response” from the utility perspective) and distributed energy resources (DER), a term that includes smart buildings (energy efficiency, etc.), smart transportation (electric vehicles, charging stations, etc.), distributed generation (solar PV, CHP, etc.), and energy storage. This more expansive discussion may be pursued with or without utilities and will be promoted by hungry technology companies in search of early adopter markets.

Distributed Energy Services (DES) and Solutions. Companies will begin to offer services that leverage and improve on stand-alone DER technology product offers. A power purchase agreement (PPA) is a good example of a value-added service associated with solar PV panel sales; the addition of financing, installation services and long-term service contracts has added considerable value and opened the PV market up to many new participants since PPAs emerged. In time, combinations of DER technologies with services will provide even more value to emerging markets—a simple example is adding a small amount of energy storage to PV.
The fullest expression of a DES solution would be a micro grid, which can operate either as a collection of technologies and services independent of the grid (“islanding”) or as an interdependent node on the grid that can take or provide power in cooperation with the utility.

Data Analytics-Driven Products and Services. In 2012, more and more utilities will mature into a new state, as they begin to receive a dramatic amount of data from their sensor devices—principally, AMI systems—that they will input into digital billing systems that will support more dynamic rates (time-of-use, etc.). But the advent of meter data analytics (MDA), beyond simple meter-to-cash, promises a variety of data-driven products and services, any one of which could dramatically alter the utility value proposition, as well as the markets that utilities serve. Since most utilities are relatively immature when it comes to marketing—for example, compare the industrial, commercial, residential and governmental rate classes of the regulated utility with micro segments in the retail consumer marketplace—for marketing impact alone, the advent of Big Data holds great promise to direct utility planning, as well as product and service development.

Just scratching the surface, these three trends suggest that the utility world has both the capacity for change and a compelling need to change, in order to adapt as technology provides energy consumers with an alternative to grid power. Electricity will only become more foundational in our daily lives going forward, but for most, it won’t remain a service with a narrow set of options like we all currently have today—plugging into the grid and paying a monthly bill. Given that societies and economies are driven to improve as they become more complex over time, they are bound to adopt new technologies as they become more available and more affordable. We have only to look at other disruptive periods in the past to understand the potential for change (e.g., moving from railroads to automobiles or from the telephone on the kitchen wall to the iPhone in my pocket). Change will neither be as fast as eager proponents hope, nor as slow as utility traditionalists imagine. Given the inherent uncertainty associated with change, utilities may reflect on what actually lies within their control—namely, the management of their organizations—and begin to acquire skill sets oriented for the future, to reorganize to gain flexibility and efficiency, to pilot new technologies and to experiment with new business models to gain first-hand experience.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what the New Year holds.

John Cooper, co-author of The Advanced Smart Grid, has recently joined the team at UtiliPoint and its sister company, Consonus, to further the goals and realize the vision he developed over the last 15 years as a Smart Grid pioneer and innovator, captured in this compelling and highly useful new book. John may be reached directly by e-mail at jcooper@utilipoint.com.