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March 1, 2004
A Million Page Views And Counting, Public Power Magazine, March-April 2004
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Tim Blodgett
Hometown Connections
303-526-4515
tblodgett@hometownconnections.com
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Online Services From Hometown Connections
Muscatine Water & Power in Iowa is racking up impressive Web site statistics. In 2003, the citizens of Muscatine generated more than one million “page views” to www.neighborhoodlink.com/ muscatine. The utility is sponsoring Neighborhood Link, an Internet-based community network allied with Hometown Connections, to provide free Web sites to neighborhood associations and other nonprofit organizations within the city. The site averages more than 90,000 page views per month. Visitors on average spend more than 17 minutes per visit to the site, and nearly 90 community nonprofit organizations in Muscatine have used the Neighborhood Link template to create their own free Web sites.
In addition to sponsoring free Web sites on the Neighborhood Link network, public power utilities are distributing energy usage information via their utility Web sites. They’re offering the Energy Depot suite of online energy audits from Enercom, Inc. And they’re subscribing to KeyMeter, the Internet metering service from Hometown Connections and Itron that enables commercial accounts to view their energy consumption data online.
A utility services subsidiary of the American Public Power Association, Hometown Connections supports APPA members by securing national group pricing and service arrangements from Neighborhood Link, Enercom, Itron and other industry suppliers. Other products and services offered through Hometown Connections include broadband Internet over power lines, green energy programs, power plant engineering and construction, CIS/billing, customer/employee surveys, and consulting in the areas of cyber security, energy risk management, broadband communications, and business strategy development.
To sponsor Neighborhood Link, an APPA member pays Neighborhood Link an annual fee in the range of 50 cents to $1 per year for every metered household served by the utility. Then, the utility helps promote the availability of the Neighborhood Link network to community groups and citizens.
Neighborhood Link does everything else. Neighborhood Link maintains all hardware and handles all network infrastructure and programming for the Web sites. The Neighborhood Link staff provides all customer service to the site visitors. The neighborhood associations and nonprofit community organizations need only a computer, Internet access, and the ability to point, click, copy and paste to create and maintain their own free, interactive Web sites.
Through the Neighborhood Link network, local organizations and individual citizens can post event information, access community news, participate in discussions and address important issues. Listings such as garage sales, zoning board meetings,
Little League schedules, and crime prevention reports are available online to citizens. It’s all done with a unique Web site template, where anyone with a PC and Internet connection can participate.
Each neighborhood or community group Web site is also connected to its city and county governments’ Web sites, including the mayor’s office, city council, county commissioners, schools, libraries, and police department. Neighborhood Link is designed to be a primary resource for civic communication and information in each metropolitan or small town area.
“When we launched Neighborhood Link in 1998, we were ahead of our time,” said Ted Pinkowitz, president of Neighborhood Link. “Our goal was to find an easy way to offer community groups a presence on the Web. Today, citizens expect every public and private organization, including local nonprofit groups, to distribute information through Web sites. But for neighborhood civic associations and other local nonprofits, there is likely no budget for building and maintaining a Web site. And volunteers in the community have limited time. So, the Neighborhood Link templates offer a practical solution.”
According to Gary Wieskamp, director of utility relations for Muscatine Water & Power, the utility had been eager to identify products and services that would add value to the community. He said, “the services from Neighborhood Link gave us a cost-effective way to offer our customers the ability to create and use interactive Web sites free of charge. Because we believe that the vendor relationships developed by Hometown Connections are extremely beneficial to public power systems, we had a high level of comfort proceeding with the Neighborhood Link service.”
When Muscatine Water & Power announced the sponsorship of Neighborhood Link in 2000, the utility promoted the service extensively. It sent letters to all local nonprofits, inviting them to preview the service and participate in training classes. The utility ran newspaper and radio ads. The utility also discussed the benefits of Neighborhood Link at a televised meeting of the City Council. “Once the word spread in the community, the site took off,” Wieskamp said. “We’re delighted that 87 local groups have created their own Web sites on the network. In addition, we’re seeing significant usage in the Talk About It area, through which citizens can comment or share information on any topic. And we’re seeing many visits to the Community Calendar.”
Braintree Electric Light Department in Massachusetts became a sponsor of Neighborhood Link in 2001.
“The folks at Neighborhood Link have made the whole process very easy for us. They are always very responsive to our requests,” said Kenneth E. Stone, energy services manager. Braintree wanted to provide a service that would enable residents to find information about local organizations and events. In 2003, www.neighborhoodlink.com/braintree attracted more than 1.3 million page views. The average page views per month is 113,592. The average time spent on the site is 6.93 minutes. And 95 community nonprofits used the service to create their own free Web sites. Today, many citizens are using the Talk About It section to discuss local government and political issues.
Braintree Electric Light Department runs banner ads on its Neighborhood Link site for the utility’s digital cable and Internet services. “The hit rate on these banner ads far exceeds our expectations,” Stone said. “With customers clicking on our banners more than 1.2 million times in 2003, Neighborhood Link has become a primary marketing vehicle for our utility.”
When Crawfordsville Electric Light & Power of Indiana launched Neighborhood Link in 2001, the utility pulled out all the stops. John Lester, marketing director, discussed it in the utility’s promotional campaign news releases, radio and TV ads, interviews on local radio and TV talk shows, billboard ads, and bill stuffers.
“We believe we’re making a strong contribution to the community by enabling nonprofit groups to have Web sites up and running at no cost to them,” Lester said. “Now that about 120 of these groups have created sites through Neighborhood Link, the Community Calendar is comprehensive and particularly helpful.”
In addition to Neighborhood Link, Crawfordsville Electric Light & Power offers free online energy audits via a link on the utility Web site to the Energy Depot suite of products from Enercom Inc. Enercom’s Energy Depot is an Internet gateway for delivery of online services and energy information to residential and business customers. Customers can receive online personalized energy profiles for their homes and businesses. They can access their energy billing histories and obtain advice on saving energy.
Available in English and Spanish, Energy Depot integrates several applications into one unified customer energy information portal, fostering customer self-service and reducing customer care costs. Applications include online residential and commercial energy and water audits with reports, graphs and consumer recommendations on energy savings. The Energy Depot software also includes an appliance calculator showing energy usage and costs, as well as an Energy Library with tips, fact sheets and answers to frequently asked questions. These services are offered on the utility’s Web site under the utility’s name and brand.
“Industry research finds the number of Internet users and their amount of online time continues to grow,” said Enercom President and CEO Paul Conlan. “Specifically, 2 to 3 percent more utility customers visited their utility’s Web site in 2003 than in the previous year. Energy Depot helps utilities cut customer service costs and foster a customer preference for online self-service.”
Energy Depot and Water Depot are easy to implement. A new site can be open within two weeks. Enercom does all the work, including site hosting and no IT involvement is required on the part of the utility.
“Our utility does not have the resources to visit individual homes and small businesses to conduct field audits,” Lester said. “The Energy Depot suite enables customers to step through a detailed audit or the shorter ‘EZ Energy Audit’ on their own. The newest version, Energy Depot 4.1, is more user-friendly and comprehensive than ever. Plus, as a homeowner, I can personally vouch for the value of Water Depot. My water bills had been sky high. By following such advice as installing low flow showerheads, I’ve reduced my annual water heating expenses by $300.”
South Carolina’s state-owned Santee Cooper added Energy Depot services to its Web site in 2002. According to Dana Wolff-Gilliam, a financial analyst at Santee Cooper, the utility conducts about 150 field audits per year, at the customer’s request. “Last year, 70 of our customers completed an Energy Depot audit online. That means we increased our audit delivery by nearly 50 percent, with zero impact on our field personnel.”
Gilliam added: “The significant pricing discount and packaging made available by Hometown Connections played a major role in our decision to offer Energy Depot to our electric customers.”
Through KeyMeter, a metering service for key accounts, business customers and the utility can access user load information on the Internet. The KeyMeter system from Itron and Hometown Connections uses Itron’s MV-90 and MV-Web software to gather usage data once a day and posts it for customers to view through a standard Internet browser. The only requirement is a meter with a modem connection.
“I’m a great fan of KeyMeter,” said David Werley, key accounts manager, New Braunfels, Texas, Utilities. “Our utility has used KeyMeter through Hometown Connections for about two years and has been extremely satisfied with the service.”
NBU’s key accounts department had used interval data on a limited basis, but access to the data was very cumbersome. “When a customer had a question as to what their load shape looked like, we would have a meter tech download the data from the interval data recorder, then our electric engineering division would transfer the IDR data to an Excel spreadsheet,” Werley said. “Next, I would analyze the data and then consult with the customer. This entire process often took two to three working days.”
When Bill Smart, national sales director-west region, for Hometown Connections, suggested KeyMeter as a solution, the utility jumped on board. New Braunfels Utilities elected to install KeyMeter on all commercial/industrial loads of over 1,000 kW because these customers had the most to gain by understanding their load characteristics.
“The change in service was dramatic,” Werley said. “I can now pull up a customer’s history while we are still on the phone and discuss what the load has been doing. I have used KeyMeter to help customers improve their load factor, power factor, and even to help identify operational and mechanical issues that are affecting their overall energy efficiency.”
New Braunfels Utilities has also used KeyMeter to train some of the commercial/industrial customers on how they can use the service to save money on their electric bills. Within 30 minutes, the participating customers are very comfortable moving from report to report, Werley said.
“Without interval data in an understandable format, a key accounts manager cannot actually do much to help a key customer with any type of load management,” he said. “With the MV-90 data that KeyMeter provides, you can help a key customer with issues like budgeting, load growth planning, and operational protocol creation. As I like to say about KeyMeter, ‘it makes you smarter’.”
Written by Susan Ryba. Ms. Ryba handles marketing for Hometown Connections.
Visit these Web sites for more information.
• Neighborhood Link
• Enercom, Inc.
• KeyMeter
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