KEMA Executive Forum Panel on Smart Energy

June 30, 2010

Tendril Founder and Executive Vice President, Tim Enwall, recently participated in the KEMA Executive Forum, a leading event in the U.S. retail energy industry that, according to the organization’s website, “gathers senior executives, regulators, energy buyers, investors and other stakeholders from across North America to discuss the key business and policy issues facing retail energy markets.” Tim participated in a panel discussion, moderated by Katie Fehrenbacher, Editor of Earth2Tech.com, titled “Smart Energy: Products, Adoption & Impacts in the Mass Market. Joining Tim were Paul Hudson, Chairman, Center for the Commercialization of Electric Technologies; Tom Leverton, COO, TXU Energy; and Jay McLellan, Founder and CEO of Home Automation, Inc.

It was clear that there was greater understanding around the need to understand deeply the customer experience and what is required to gain their active, long-term participation. Tim noted, “Customers are interested in savings, comfort and convenience, rather than your energy provider controlling your thermostat,” and added that “Real-time information, as it becomes available on a larger scale, will be a powerful driver of behavioral change.” While, as business leaders in this space we are anxious to see our dreams quickly become reality, Tim reminded the audience that there is a socialization curve to keep in mind; that behavioral change won’t happen overnight.

The discussion underscored how critical it is to continually seek deeper information about consumer behavior and needs, and explore ways to align our products and services to ensure customers’ enthusiastic, long-term, active participation. That said, Tendril is excited to continue to build upon our knowledge and wealth of real-time customer data – how customers actually interact with the technology over a longer period of time and what features and attributes result in the most active participation in energy savings. I look forward to sharing such information with you soon.