1. Web-Enabled Thermostats
Dennis Rominger
Market Manager, Customer Solutions
2012

2. Agenda What are Web-Enabled Thermostats? What is PSE doing with them?
Let’s Talk Savings
Target Market
Timeline and Milestones
Let’s Talk Instant Rebates
Objectives and Partners
Questions?

3. What are Web-Enabled Thermostats?
Optimize customers’ space heating system by combing the latest thermostat technology with behavioral tools
Fully installed pre-programmed system that will engage customers with a user interface
These thermostats will require to be programmed upon installation to initiate the thermostat.

4. What is PSE doing with them?
Key Objectives
Verify statistically significant cost-effective annual energy savings.
Track customer interactions with thermostat
Assess overall customer engagement and customer satisfaction levels

5. Lets talk Savings……
PSE will plan to provisionally deem thermostat savings, up to 54 therms.  
The energy usage of a test group will be compared to a control group and savings will be trued up following an evaluation. 
Total savings for are anticipated to be roughly 54,000 therms for 1,000 homes.  
For deeming future electric kWh space heating savings, PSE will use the accepted RTF therm to kWh Conversion calculator.
Potential partnership with other electric utilities to partner on a separate program to deem electric savings.

6. Target Market
PSE will deploy 1,000 web-enabled thermostats to single-family residential homes throughout PSE’s combined gas and electric service territory.
Another 1,000 customers will be part of the control group and will not receive the thermostat.
The target single-family residential home will be homes with natural gas as their primary heating source without other auxiliary fuels.

7. Target Market
Target customers are those with forced-air or hydronic whole home systems.  According to PSE’s Residential Characteristic Study (RCS),
68% of PSE single-family customers’ heat with forced-air/boiler natural gas
10% of PSE single-family customers heat with electric forced air (heat pump and electric resistance).   
22% are zonal electric, fireplace NG, or have wood/propane heating. 
Other relevant statistics that show the wide potential for this program:  
78% of Americans have Internet Access
Of those 80% have high speed Internet access
44% of Americans have smart phones
Specific PSE Customers from a 2012 communication study:
49% of PSE customers have smart phones

8. Timeline and Milestones
Quarter 3, 2012: Execute Honeywell/Opower contract
Quarter 4, 2012: Begin the PSE customer participant selection for test and control group
March 31, 2014: Collection of sufficient customer data
Quarter 2 & 3, 2014: Analysis of test and control group data
Quarter 4, 2014: Evaluation Report

9. Let’s talk Instant Rebates
Like lighting and showerhead measures, PSE residential electric customers will receive an instant rebate on qualified Energy Star Freezers and CEE Tier 2 & 3 refrigerators purchased at select Sears & Home Depot stores.
The select stores are the ones over 97% PSE customers based upon WashWise Experience.
So for the customers it means no filling out of rebate forms, which is an improvement on the customer experience.

10. Objectives and Partnerships
Improve the Customer Experience – Making the process to participate in PSE’s energy-efficient rebates and programs more streamline. We know from studies from Definitive Insights that customers are more likely to make energy-efficiency purchases when rebates are available instantly. We also learned, based upon a clothes washer instant rebate pilot, roughly 30% of PSE customers don’t submit for their mail-in rebate.
Improve Program Cost-Effective – Appliance savings are diminishing and mail-in rebate administration costs are an expensive method to deliver rebates. We need alternative deliver methods on appliance rebates if we want to continue to have saving opportunities for customers.
Our partners in this project are:

11. Partnerships

12. Questions?