Energizing customers for a carbon free America | WIRED Brand Lab

We believe in 20 to 30 years,

that we'll be far down the path

of creating a carbon-free America.

With a nation focused on mitigating climate change,

how can energy companies leverage data

to empower consumers to reduce their energy consumption?

Xcel Energy is the most innovative

and sustainable electric and gas utility in the country.

EY is a global, multidisciplinary consulting firm,

and we really focus on helping our clients

solve their biggest challenges,

and realize their biggest opportunities.

At the end of 2020,

we had already generated 51% of our energy

from carbon free energy sources.

And we're on track to achieve 80%

of all carbon free energy sources by 2030.

We wanted to create an intuitive

and easy solution for our customers to engage with us.

In today's environment, companies can't go at it alone.

That's true. They need to bring

all their stakeholders in, including their customers.

And one of the things that we realized,

was that our customers weren't really

given the opportunity to take full advantage

of all of the information that we had in our systems.

We knew that if we could take that data,

provide it in a way that was usable for our customers,

our customers would then have an opportunity

to choose real time, wind energy, solar energy,

or even just controlling their home

with an electric vehicle,

We're seeing disruption on both sides of the meter.

For the customers, the customers want more control.

They care about the environment.

And for the utility companies,

by connecting with the customer,

they can build a more resilient grid.

We'd like to take a deeper look inside the home,

so that we can show you exactly the possibilities

that we're speaking about.

This may look like a typical meter,

but this is truly a computer

that customers can actually tie

directly in with their home router,

and then incorporate all

of their energy consumption right on an app,

so that they can optimize not only the cost of that energy,

but also optimize the carbon-free energy

sources that are available at that time.

That application will allow the consumer

to also decide maybe when they start on their appliances,

when they start HVAC,

so they have a lot more control now,

and to your point,

they can be much more conscientious about the environment.

We wanna make sure that everyone has an equitable

opportunity to participate

in the electrification of transportation.

We have an accelerated home program.

And that program is designed around

the utilization of an electric vehicle.

We also can operate an electric charger in your home,

so that you're fueling your vehicle at the optimal time,

when all the carbon free energy resources are at its peak.

The other pieces of this,

is that we can also give you a rebate

on a new or used vehicle,

and we can also give you a rebate

on upgrading the electrical panel in your home.

That makes it very easy for our customers

to move to an electric vehicle.

EY was really excited to be a part

of this transformation for three reasons.

First, to help set the strategy.

Secondly, these new meters now read data every 15 minutes,

where the old meter was read once a month.

So the amount of data coming into excel energy exploded.

So we were part of helping build the infrastructure,

and moving to the cloud to be able to handle that data.

And then lastly,

helping them build the capabilities to take that data,

and turn it into information, into insights,

so they can better serve their customers.

As I think about 20 to 30 years from now,

I believe that our three top priorities will still stand.

We'll be enhancing the customer experience,

we'll be making sure that customer bills stay low,

and we'll also still be leading

the clean energy transition.