Fort Collins Utilities gives customers a mobile-optimized web portal to provide more insight and control over energy and water usage.

Jason Meyers, Executive Editor

July 22, 2014

2 Min Read
Colorado Utility Adds Mobile Intelligence

A municipal utility in Ft. Collins, Colo. is hoping a platform that provides mobile access to timely information about electricity, gas, and water consumption will help its customers take more control over their energy usage.

Fort Collins Utilities is the first utility to deploy the Energy Engage Mobile software platform from Siemens Smart Grid. Angel Anderson, project manager at Fort Collins Utilities, tells us the rollout is part of a $36 million project to deploy 55,000 smart electric meters and 65,000 smart water meters in its territory. The utility is deploying smart meters from Elster; the Siemens software collects and distributes data from the meters.

Through an online portal optimized for access from mobile devices, Fort Collins Utilities customers can track usage, view bills, and get alerts. The utility hopes access to that intelligence will help it identify inefficient settings or possible leaks and ultimately help consumers change consumption habits and lower their costs.

"We offer our customers 15 minute electric data and hourly water intervals," Anderson says.

Fort Collins Utilities opted for a mobile-optimized portal, rather than a mobile app, to make data available to a wider range of devices. According to the 2014 Utility Website Evaluation Study from J.D. Power and Associates , 54% of utility customers now regularly visit their utility's website on a smartphone, and 52% visit from a tablet. Those numbers are twice what they were a year ago. Despite those figures, more than 40% of utilities don't have a mobile-optimized channel for customer information.

For more insight on how utilities are applying communications innovation, visit our dedicated utility content channel here on Light Reading.

As more utilities deploy advanced metering infrastructure platforms, many are giving consumers more visibility into and control over their own energy usage. (See (Better) Power to the People.)

"There's a shift in how you think about the customer base and how you interface with them in the utility world," says Lisa Caswell, president of eMeter, a Siemens business. "Utilities operate from such a position of power, delivering such reliable service, but they have lagged a bit on consumer interfaces."

Caswell says she believes solutions like this will provide more consumer intelligence without increasing costs, and they could result in lower customer care costs. "Utilities will have a much greater opportunity to increase touch rate without an increase in call-center costs." Savings could be even greater if utilities extend such services to commercial and industrial customers.

— Jason Meyers, Senior Editor, Utility Communications/IoT, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Jason Meyers

Executive Editor

Jason Meyers joined the editorial staff of Light Reading in 2014 with more than 20 years of experience covering a broad range of business sectors. He is responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in the Internet of Things (IoT), Gigabit Cities and utility communications areas. He previously was Executive Editor of Entrepreneur magazine, overseeing all editorial operations, assignments and editorial staff for the monthly business publication. Prior to that, Meyers spent 15 years on the editorial staff of the former Telephony magazine, including eight years as Editor in Chief.

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