Now is the time for an Integrated Demand Offering (IDO)

Over the last five years, demand-side offerings have seen significant growth and the applicable technologies have advanced. Critical to this advancement is the industry's commitment to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and the Smart Grid. Customer attitudes and regulatory policy are also shifting -- more people support a response to climate change and GHG reduction.

What began as separate energy efficiency (EE), demand response (DR) and distributed energy (DE) program offerings are now poised for integration. Customers want less complexity, lower energy costs, and user-friendly approaches to manage energy usage. Utilities and other providers need to increase the results from EE, DR and DE program investments to meet legislative and regualtory goals.

An Integrated Demand Offering provides the customer with a combination of EE, DR and DE options that best meet their needs and improve the customer experience more efficiently and effectively.

DEFG and the DETech Research Consortium (our utility consortium focused on EE, DR and DE) found that a winning IDO will have the following market characteristics:

Personalized	Personalized to respond to the customer’s and/or community’s specific energy problem and needs. Also flexible to respond to changes in the customer’s or community’s changing preferences
Robust	Robust to provide a total solution that results in the desired customer experience. This includes the commodity, energy services and other services, as well as channels of communication or access, and pricing
Easy	Easy so it is simple for the customer to understand, enroll and use. Rule-based logic to assist customers. Easy includes providing the customer with tools to assist in energy decisions as well as a platform to view changes and results
Valuable	Valuable to customers in that it meets their needs, assists in managing their energy costs and provides them with an enhanced experience. Valuable to the utility in that it assists in reducing the cost to serve and in improving system efficiency

Contact us about how Integrated Demand Offerings can benefit your utility and customers.