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 13
Energy efficiency -- with a digital smile - CNN.com
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Energy efficiency -- with a digital smile
By John D. Sutter, CNN
Recommend
December 3, 2010 10:43 a.m. EST | Filed under: Innovation
You recommend Energy
efficiency -- with a digital
Most popular Tech stories right now
OPOWER aims to get people to use less energy by providing them with interesting reports about their own energy usage.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Dan Yates, CEO of OPOWER,
answers questions about saving
money on energy bills
The company promotes energy
efficiency with "persuasive
technology"
OPOWER provides consumers
with information about how
much neighbors spend
Yates: "The nice thing about
efficiency is that it's bipartisan"
(CNN) -- An electric bill usually isn't much to smile at.
But slapping smiley faces on the bills of people who use less energy
than their neighbors is pretty much OPOWER's business.
The Virginia-based software company crunches data from smart
meters and energy-usage histories to give people power bills that
are packed with information -- including a chart of how their
personal energy usage compares with that of neighbors with similarsized homes.
This injects a little competition into the monthly bill cycle.
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If someone sees their neighbors are able to save money by using
less energy, then they might try to turn the thermostat down or turn
off some lights to compete. OPOWER also gives people advice
based on their living conditions and the reason their bill is so high.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/12/03/opower.energy/index.html[10/24/2011 11:52:02 AM]
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Energy efficiency -- with a digital smile - CNN.com
A renter losing money on heating might get a tip about putting
insulation or tape around windows.
And, of course, the energy-frugal get bills
with a smiley face on them as a reward for
their environmental stewardship.
OPOWER's friendly logo is meant to encourage people to
use less energy -- and save money.
So far, OPOWER, which was founded in
2007, has 45 utilities as customers. It
reaches the homes of 2 million Americans,
many of whom get some level of service
without having a smart meter installed. But
it's expanding fast. This week, OPOWER
announced a $50 million investment from
Silicon Valley.
The energy savings produced by the software could be significant.
Dan Yates, the company's CEO, says the average OPOWER
customer cuts 2% to 3% of his or her energy usage because of this
snappily presented information. If the service expanded to the entire
country, the energy savings would be the equivalent of removing 3
million American homes from the power grid, he said.
CNN spoke with Yates about his company and those cute, monthly
smiley faces in a recent interview. The following is an edited
transcript:
CNN: Give me the elevator pitch for what OPOWER is. How do you
describe it to people?
Yates: OPOWER is a consumer energy efficiency software
company. We work with utilities to give end customers -- everyone
who rents or owns a home -- much better information about their
energy use. And we do it so as to help utilities help their customers
really save energy. That's important because it's a big part of the
utility business now -- achieving energy efficiency goals.
CNN: If I'm a person who's using this software, what do I get out of
it? What do I see?
Yates: For customers that have utilities that use smart meters, we
have a text and e-mail alerting platform that will warn people if
they're on track for a high bill. We send reports home in the mail to
give you analysis and insight into your energy use and how you can
save energy. So across all of these channels, you'll see things like
how your energy use this month or this week or this year is
comparing to similar-sized homes in your neighborhood.
With utilities that have smart meters, we can help you get a more
sophisticated breakdown. If you're using more energy than your
neighbors, is that coming from air conditioning usage? Or your
heating usage? Or your base load, which is things like refrigerators
and freezers? We then give folks very targeted recommendations
based upon that analysis. Instead of 30 generic tips, we're showing
you three recommendations that are specifically targeted to your
situation.
CNN: Do you have evidence that this works -- that people are able
to take this information and reduce their energy usage?
Yates: That's the killer thing about what we do. We drive on
average between a 2 and 3% reduction across, now, millions of
homes. It's conclusive that people, when they get this information,
actually can and do reduce their energy use.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/12/03/opower.energy/index.html[10/24/2011 11:52:02 AM]
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Energy efficiency -- with a digital smile - CNN.com
In fact, a lot of the things people do are no-cost solutions. So when
somebody realizes they have a major spike in air conditioner use,
the easiest thing to do is raise your thermostat 2 degrees, and you'll
save 10% on your air conditioning bill. People also get more
fastidious about turning out the lights and all the other things we
know we should be doing.
CNN: Is the idea to guilt people into changing?
Yates: To be clear, we're showing folks how they compare to an
average of similar-sized homes in their neighborhood. We don't
show anybody an individual neighbor's usage, because we're
always respecting people's privacy. But we're giving you an
accurate benchmark.
The term for this neighbor comparison thing in behavioral
psychology is actually "peer proof." Because it's not actually guilt,
and it's not peer pressure -- where we think our minds go
immediately. It's just showing people their energy usage in a context
that makes the most sense to them.
It's in effect showing you the part of your energy use that's most
addressable for savings. To illustrate this, let's say you get a $180
bill on average in the summer. Is that a high bill? I don't know. How
big is your house? How hot is the area? We weren't born knowing if
$180 a month is a high bill in the summer. But now if you get a bill
that is $180 a month, and you find out that the average of similarsized homes right in your neighborhood -- your street and the
surrounding streets -- is $120 a month, all of a sudden you have
both a strong emotional sense and a legitimate rational reaction that
there's a $60 dollar addressable savings opportunity.
It has nothing to do with guilt or pressure, it just has to do with
putting information in a context that gives you confidence that
there's something you could do that wouldn't compromise your
lifestyle unreasonably and would save you $60 a month.
CNN: What's up with the smiley face?
Yates: The smiley face is part of our brand -- it's in our logo as sort
of a reflection of the fact that it's in our reports and in our websites.
It's another element of the behavioral psychology background that
we come from. It's important that when people are told they're using
less [electricity] than average, that they're rewarded for that and
reminded that that's a good thing. We don't want people to think that
using less is in fact an opportunity to start using more.
We give positive reinforcement whenever we can, and we give it in
the simplest and most universally understandable way because
we're just trying to be clear and unambiguous about it. And at this
point it's become cute -- so we're fond of it.
CNN: Tell me about how you started this company. I read this idea
originated from a trip you took?
Yates: I grew up camping and backpacking and liking the woods,
but I'm not the guy who knows the horned owl from the spotted owl,
etc. And I took this long trip with my girlfriend at the time -- now my
wife -- and we drove the whole Pan-American (Highway) from
Alaska all the way to Patagonia, in about a year.
Coming out on the other side, I just really felt like I had seen
personally how degraded the environment is everywhere. I had a
visceral sense of it in a way that I didn't have prior to the trip. I came
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/12/03/opower.energy/index.html[10/24/2011 11:52:02 AM]
Energy efficiency -- with a digital smile - CNN.com
back really certain that I wanted the next thing I did to be focused
on the environment. That's what the trip gave me. The actual idea of
coming up with this energy efficiency information service idea was a
longer evolution.
We realized there's a billion and a half utility bills going out a year in
the U.S. And we just had this basic naive thought of, "Wouldn't it be
better if they were a lot more informative about energy usage?" It's
just a huge space that's not being utilized.
CNN: It seems like there's a lot of emphasis put on alternative
energy technologies, but do you think the way to save energy is just
to promote using less of it?
Yates: We need all of it. We need to drive efficiency. McKinsey
conducted a very robust study identifying that the U.S. can drive
50% of U.S. energy usage out of efficiency. But that leaves the
other half, which we need to be accomplishing through all types of
renewable energy sources if we're going to get to a very low or
zero-emissions future.
The nice thing about efficiency is that it's bipartisan, because there's
no rational reason not to do it. It is in fact less expensive than not
doing it. That's the big difference.
CNN: What are you plans for the future?
Yates: Lots of plans. There's two major things. One is we feel like
we're still at the very beginning of actually just getting the word out
about what we do and what can be done. There are 118 million
homes in the U.S. that aren't receiving our products and services or,
eventually, there will be other companies like us providing those
services.
Secondly, there's a tremendous amount to be done with the
development of our product. We have a lot of exciting products and
product features that we will be rolling out in 2011 and beyond, and
I can't speak to the details until we announce them, but I can say
that what we look forward to is continuing to provide better and
broader and deeper services to help people go from today, where
there're totally -- pun intended -- in the dark about their home
energy use to a world where ... what's the easiest solution.
We can bring a 21st-century retail experience to the efficiency
space.
CNN: How does this relate to the federal "smart grid" project?
Yates: We work with 45 utilities across the United States now in 20
different states. Ninety plus percent of them do not have smart
meters. So, importantly, our products and services do not require
smart meter installation. But we're thrilled about smart meters
because smart meters give us tremendously more information to
help provide customers new insights, and we excited to see them
continue to expand across the country.
Today it's something like 5 or 7% of homes have smart meters, and
most of them are still in the process of going live -- so we're still at
the very beginning of that.
CNN: Aside from OPOWER, what else exciting is happening in
green tech?
Yates: There are so many clever ways to bring new products to the
market that just do what we already want done but much more
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/12/03/opower.energy/index.html[10/24/2011 11:52:02 AM]
Energy efficiency -- with a digital smile - CNN.com
efficiently. An example is these new air conditioners that take
advantage of the fact that there's all this excess electricity at night.
The fact is that huge coal power plans and nuclear plants -- they
take over a day to turn off and to turn on. So they can't turn off at
night. They just run all the time, even though people aren't using
much electricity at night. Most people don't know this. So there's a
new couple of companies that use the energy at night to create ice
and then they use the ice during the day to air-condition the
building. I think that's super cool.
CNN: Overall, it sounds like you're pretty optimistic about our ability
to rein in energy usage. I wonder what guides your thinking.
Yates: I think the jury is still out on whether we're going to get
enough done in time. It's a matter of political will -- and political will
is a nice way of saying it's a matter of our willingness to sign up to
pay more for electricity. Because the technology is there, it's just
expensive. And it's getting cheaper. The question will be will it get
cheap enough, quickly enough.
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TalkingSense
We've received a couple of these from AEP. I think it is useful to focus people's attention on the issue, but
you really don't know what population they are comparing you with.What I'd really like is a smart meter, but
they aren't available yet in our area.There was news coverage earlier this year ... more
10 months ago | Like (3) | Report abuse
JMcTigue I think this is great!
10 months ago | Like | Report abuse
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/12/03/opower.energy/index.html[10/24/2011 11:52:02 AM]
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