Behavioral Efficiency Not Forgone in the Ultimate Energy Cloud Platform

Last month, Oracle’s Opower and EnergyHub announced a strategic partnership that signaled the development of the ultimate Energy Cloud platform. On the heels of that announcement, momentum continues to build as Oracle’s Opower and commercial customer engagement platform Agentis announced another strategic partnership in September.

The EnergyHub and Oracle partnership emphasizes the move toward automated integrations of distributed energy resources (DER) into demand side management programs. The Agentis partnership shows the value that data-informed customer engagement will continue to have on commercial behavioral efficiency.

Driving Commercial Customer Behavior

Behavioral energy efficiency may conjure images of home energy reports (which are still a major component of these programs), but the increase in the number of connected devices and analytics available with building management systems allow interested energy managers and other corporate leaders to understand how energy is used in the office building.

Addressing behavioral efficiency in the workplace is challenging. This is due to the perceived rigid energy needs businesses have to maintain their daily operations and core functionalities. Where a residential customer may have flexibility in shifting the hours during which they use energy-consuming appliances like clothes washers and dryers, a restaurant needs to be at full operating capacity during the dinner rush.

Installing efficient appliances can help reduce energy consumption at all times of operation, but as utilities are required to secure deeper energy savings, behavioral efficiency can help commercial customers save more on their utility bills. Agentis works to engage customers and provide behavioral efficiency programs that meet the diverse needs of the broadly defined commercial sector.

The Ultimate Energy Cloud Platform Must Include Commercial Efficiency

In 2018, commercial and industrial energy loads made up 47% of US energy consumption. This proportion of energy consumption is greater in commodity-based economies. DER management systems, advanced distribution management systems, and load disaggregation technologies do serve commercial and industrial customers due to the larger capacity shed or shift per customer.

Companies like Oracle Utilities Opower also have widely deployed platforms that engage these customer classes. By integrating Agentis’ measurable energy savings and business energy reports into their engagement platforms, these companies will work to drive deeper engagement across the commercial sector. As demonstrated by the recent string of strategic partnerships and the formation of companies like Uplight, no sector will be left behind in the quest to build the ultimate Energy Cloud platform.