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Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy
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Issue
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jan 31, 2009 08:54am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Friday, January 30, 2009 02:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: January 30, 2009
A frowny face is not what most electric customers expect to see on their utility statements, but Greg Dyer got one.
He earned it, the utility said, by using a lot more energy than his neighbors.
“I have four daughters; none of my neighbors has that many children,” said Mr. Dyer, 49, a lawyer who lives in Sacramento. He wrote back to the utility and gave it his own rating: four frowny faces.
Two other Sacramento residents, however, Paul Geisert and his wife, Mynga Futrell, were feeling good. They got one smiley face on their statement for energy efficiency and saw the promise of getting another.
“Our report card will quickly get better,” Mr. Geisert wrote in an e-mail message to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
The district had been trying for years to prod customers into using less energy with tactics like rebates for energy-saving appliances. But the traditional approaches were not meeting the energy reduction goals set by the nonprofit utility’s board.
So, in a move that has proved surprisingly effective, the district decided to tap into a time-honored American passion: keeping up with the neighbors.
Last April, it began sending out statements to 35,000 randomly selected customers, rating them on their energy use compared with that of neighbors in 100 homes of similar size that used the same heating fuel. The customers were also compared with the 20 neighbors who were especially efficient in saving energy.
Customers who scored high earned two smiley faces on their statements. “Good” conservation got a single smiley face. Customers like Mr. Dyer, whose energy use put him in the “below average” category, got frowns, but the utility stopped using them after a few customers got upset. |
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