Customer
DTE Energy
DTE Energy (DTE) is a Detroit-based diversified energy utility serving 2.2 million electric customers in Southeast Michigan and 1.2 million natural gas customers throughout the state.
Background
The DTE portfolio includes non-utility energy businesses focused on power and industrial projects, natural gas pipelines, gathering and storage, and energy marketing and trading. DTE Energy actively promotes energy efficiency through rebates, discounts, incentives and other programs for residential and commercial customers.
Service
DTE asked DNV to use its Rapid Assessment Management Program (RAMP) offering to help them gain a better understanding of measures that commonly bundle together and to help them assess their Business Energy Consultations (BEC) program.
As DTE’s Efficiency for Business program matures, multiple measure projects are key drivers of deeper savings by encouraging projects to go beyond simple retrofit installations. DNV analyzed DTE’s project tracking data that covered 2009 - 2016, plus data from several other utilities for which DNV implements over the same time period. This study took a look at whether or not the bonus really encouraged customers to complete the multiple measure projects and when they did, which measures were commonly bundled together.
DTE also wanted to find out how effectively their BEC program drove customers into their main Commercial and Industrial (C&I) incentive Program. BEC consists of a short energy assessment for small businesses along with direct-installs on the spot where possible. DNV assessed the effectiveness of the BEC program as a lead-generating tool for the C&I incentive program.
Benefits
As a result of these studies, DTE Energy will be conducting Rapid Experiments in 2017 to prove the results and conclusions of the RAMP studies. After the findings were presented, the DTE team conducted focus group meetings with key contractors to validate the findings and solicit ideas from the field. Going forward the approach will be changed to identifying and securing multi-measure projects. Using the measures that have been identified as most common to bundle together, the team will work directly with the key customer groups to assure they are taking advantage of the special offer, and achieving deeper savings. These studies provided the critical data and evidence to re-focus and improve the program design and implementation for 2017.