Opower, Inc. v. Efficiency 2.0, LLC

Filing 5

APPENDIX/EXHIBIT by Opower, Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Appendix 1, # 2 Appendix 2, # 3 Appendix 3, # 4 Appendix 4, # 5 Appendix 5, # 6 Appendix 6, # 7 Appendix 7, # 8 Appendix 8, # 9 Appendix 9, # 10 Appendix 10, # 11 Appendix 11, # 12 Appendix 12, # 13 Appendix 13, # 14 Appendix 14, # 15 Appendix 15, # 16 Appendix 16, # 17 Appendix 17, # 18 Appendix 18, # 19 Appendix 19, # 20 Appendix 20, # 21 Appendix 21, # 22 Appendix 22)(Karol, Peter)

APPENDIX EXHIBIT 10

Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy - NYTimes.com

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Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy

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A desire to keep up with neighbors is spurring conservation.
By LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: January 30, 2009
TWITTER

A frowny face is not what most electric customers expect to see on
their utility statements, but Greg Dyer got one.
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Laura Rauch for The New York Times

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He earned it, the utility said, by using
a lot more energy than his neighbors.

Patty Nolan and David Rabkin and
their children, Alexis and Joshua,
prize energy efficiency.

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“I have four daughters; none of my
neighbors has that many children,”
said Mr. Dyer, 49, a lawyer who lives
in Sacramento. He wrote back to the
utility and gave it his own rating: four frowny faces.

Two other Sacramento residents, however, Paul Geisert
and his wife, Mynga Futrell, were feeling good. They got one smiley face on their
statement for energy efficiency and saw the promise of getting another.
“Our report card will quickly get better,” Mr. Geisert wrote in an e-mail message to the
Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/science/earth/31compete.html?scp=12&sq=%22sacramento+municipal+utility%22&st=nyt[11/7/2011 9:21:37 AM]

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Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy - NYTimes.com

The district had been trying for years to prod customers into using less energy with
tactics like rebates for energy-saving appliances. But the traditional approaches were not
meeting the energy reduction goals set by the nonprofit utility’s board.
So, in a move that has proved surprisingly effective, the district decided to tap into a
time-honored American passion: keeping up with the neighbors.
Last April, it began sending out statements to 35,000 randomly selected customers,
rating them on their energy use compared with that of neighbors in 100 homes of similar
size that used the same heating fuel. The customers were also compared with the 20
neighbors who were especially efficient in saving energy.
Customers who scored high earned two smiley faces on their statements. “Good”
conservation got a single smiley face. Customers like Mr. Dyer, whose energy use put
him in the “below average” category, got frowns, but the utility stopped using them after
a few customers got upset.

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When the Sacramento utility conducted its first assessment of the program after six
months, it found that customers who received the personalized report reduced energy
use by 2 percent more than those who got standard statements — an improvement that
Alexandra Crawford, a spokeswoman for the utility, said was very encouraging.
The approach has now been picked up by utilities in 10 major metropolitan areas eager
to reap rewards through increased efficiencies, including Chicago and Seattle, according
to Positive Energy, the software company that conceived of the reports and contracts to
produce them. Following Sacramento’s lead, they award smiley faces only.
“This is the next wave,” said Todd Starnes, a residential energy efficiency manager with
Puget Sound Energy, which started a pilot program in suburban Seattle with 40,000
customers in September.
The utility thinks behavior modification could be as effective in promoting conservation
as trying to get customers to install new appliances is, Mr. Starnes said, and maybe
more so.
Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist at Arizona State University, studies how to get
Americans — even those who did not care about the environment — to lower energy
consumption. And while there are many ways, Dr. Cialdini said, few are as effective as
comparing people with their peers.
In a 2004 experiment, he and a colleague left different messages on doorknobs in a
middle-class neighborhood north of San Diego. One type urged the residents to conserve
energy to save the earth for future generations; another emphasized financial savings.
But the only kind of message to have any significant effect, Dr. Cialdini said, was one
that said neighbors had already taken steps to curb their energy use.
“It is fundamental and primitive,” said Dr. Cialdini, who owns a stake in Positive Energy.
“The mere perception of the normal behavior of those around us is very powerful.”
Ms. Crawford, of the Sacramento district, said that many customers expressed gratitude
for the feedback. For example, Tamara Kaestner, 36, who lives with her husband in
nearby Folsom, Calif., said that since receiving her first personalized statement, she had
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/science/earth/31compete.html?scp=12&sq=%22sacramento+municipal+utility%22&st=nyt[11/7/2011 9:21:37 AM]

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Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy - NYTimes.com

bought a new energy-efficient washer and dryer, put her lights on timers and unplugged
her kegerator — a cooler for draft beer. Her monthly electricity consumption is now on a
par with that of her neighbors, Ms. Kaestner said.
Colleges have been using rivalry between themselves and even between dormitories to
reduce energy use for over a decade, and they are refining their techniques.
At Central College in Pella, Iowa, students in a new green dorm can go to the school’s
Web site to find out how much power their suite is using and compare it with that of
other suites.
“It gets pretty intense,” said Michael Lubberden, director of facilities planning and
management for the college. “The students even go off campus to charge their
cellphones.”
Competition among homeowners is still rare, but is becoming more widespread. In
Massachusetts, the BrainShift Foundation, a nonprofit that uses games to raise
environmental awareness, recruited towns to compete in a reality series, called “Energy
Smackdown,” which is shown on a local cable station.
At the start of this year’s season, 10 families from Cambridge, Medford and Arlington
formed teams and competed against one another in conservation categories that
included waste, heating fuel, electricity and food. Patty Nolan, 51, who lives in
Cambridge with her husband and two children, agreed to participate because, she said,
although family members thought of themselves as “environmentally conscious,” they
knew they could be doing more.
But her motives shifted after eight months of trash weigh-ins and comparative meter
readings.
“At the beginning, the competition wasn’t what interested me,” Ms. Nolan said, “but
then when we lost a challenge to Arlington by one pound of carbon, I realized I really
wanted to win.”
Though keeping two cars, Ms. Nolan said, the family is now much more conscious about
everyday choices. They use bicycles more often, they have cut down on eating beef
(raising cows requires more energy than raising vegetables), and they argue about
whether airplane travel is really necessary.
“It really blows your monthly carbon budget,” Ms. Nolan explained.
Donald Kelley, executive director of the BrainShift Foundation, said the conservation
outcomes of the competition had been far greater than he had predicted, with
households reducing consumption up to 66 percent.
“As Americans, we are good at entertainment and competition,” Mr. Kelley said. “It’s
why on ‘American Idol’ they get 40 million voters. It’s the part of this culture that people
really understand, and we should be harnessing it.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 31, 2009, on
page A1 of the New York edition.

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Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy - NYTimes.com

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