The McDonnell Group

ATLANTA - January 23, 2010 –  Thursday’s session at the IEEE PES Smart Grid conference at NIST entitled “The Smart Grid & the Consumer: What have we learned about how consumers want to be involved?” proved to be an entertaining highlight after three days of thoughtfully prepared and carefully delivered sessions.  The non-commercial environment that the IEEE PES brings to bear is refreshing, particularly given the deafening hype and commercialism around Smart Grid events these days.

Everyone in the utility industry, and particularly fellow IEEE PES members, should be grateful for the efforts of volunteers on the organizing committee and those who have volunteered their time to support not only IEEE PES, but also the critical work of the SGIP.

The closing day sessions proved to be the most interesting for me. Eric Lightner of the US Department of Energy moderated the consumer engagement session.  He did well to refrain from both outright laughter and overt revocation of microphone speaking rights from some provocateurs at the audience microphones.  Lightner patiently moderated a panel of folks with what I'll just say politely represented a wide range of perspectives -- everything from scorn for the effort of scientists and immaturely labeling a major utility as a “piggy.”

One panelist thought-provokingly suggested a way to educate consumers and get them to actually care about electric power -- let alone the smart grid effort --  was to begin with younger generations and conduct marketing and other educational programs like those pioneered by Coca-Cola. I agree that creative marketing must accompany creative technology innovation and we will see more of the positive changes possible with Smart Grid including embracing the simple concept of being good stewards of resources as an industry by working to eliminate waste and streamline overall system level efficiency.

Clearly consumer segmentation/targeting, brand marketing, social and educational outreach are all needed for the Smart Grid to reach its full potential. Some of the audience questions were just plan comical.  People lining up to make “speeches” in their questions added to the sense of entertainment. While the YouTubed videotape of the panel would hardly command top ratings against American Idol’s fabled “Pants on the Ground” singer, among the characteristically buttoned-down, and understated manner of electric industry engineers and PhD scientist, this session’s audience questions carried a twinge of populist opponent undertones that seemed out of character for the crowd.

Dissenting perspectives are vital - in fact helpful - to the critical advancement of new ideas and industry innovation, but this one bordered on theatre art.  I half expected someone to approach the mike and declare: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix!” I found the TURN guy particularly humorous -- they have at least one budding comedian on staff there. I’m sure he isn’t alone. You had to love his thanking the audience for being invited to “smart grid love fest.” He’s right about one thing:  The scientists and industry member engineers working in these fields do love their work and their enthusiasm is contagious and fulfillment of their civic obligations to their country, the world, and to the global utility industry is inspiring to me. We can all laugh at TURN’s joke about the smart grid love fest meeting which was delivered in good form and well timed…while respecting and admiring the hard work of the many industry and civic volunteers who pulled together a meeting in less than 10 weeks that ended up a big success.   
Don’t forget to check out the new smart grid web site at IEEE:  http://smartgrid.ieee.org.