How EDF used data to incentivise customers to reduce consumption
There is a big opportunity for revenue leaders in connecting the real world of your customers with the data you are sitting on.
I just watched a talk by the data team at EDF - the French electricity company that also provides energy in the UK.
At the start of 2023 through a combination of geopolitical and economic events the demand for electricity was at risk of outstripping supply here in the UK, and the National Grid (who manage the overall system) were at risk of enforcing rolling blackouts.
Encouraging reduced energy consumption
To avoid this National Grid launched a Demand Flexibility Service where they would warn electricity providers of specific times when usage was likely to be high, and ask them to reward their customers for not using as much power over that two hour window.
EDF’s programme was called “Beat the Peak” and their data team stood up a Snowflake platform to support the project.
Firstly they measured a baseline of around 150,000 qualifying customer’s usage over the previous 10 days. These met criteria set by National Grid including customers with smart meters where the hour by hour consumption was recorded.
As you can see in my diagram below - in normal usage there is a bump at breakfast when everyone makes their tea and coffee, and then the big demand comes in the evening when kids return from school, adults return from work, and the ovens and lights go on.
The objective was to reduce that late afternoon surge.
The afternoon before a predicted surge National Grid would provide EDF with a data upload of the criteria of customers to include in the incentive.
EDF would then let their customers know that, for example, the following afternoon between 3-5pm they would be rewarded for any usage below their normal consumption.
In the talk the EDF team showed a chart (which I have recreated as best I can below) that showed a stark reduction in consumption over the required two hour window.
Out of 150,000 qualifying customers, 30,000 took part, and £160,000 was paid out to consumers in incentives.
Data in your business
For business leaders data discussions can quickly become technical and overly detailed, but don’t let this distract you from the strategic implications of what is possible.
Most organisations are sitting on so much data, in so many places, that the opportunity to drive customer behaviour is often missed.
For EDF, they’ve used their data to segment customers, to baseline their hour by hour usage, and provided monetary incentives to change their behaviour - communicating that out with just a few hour’s notice.
Your business will be generating similar types of customer data - product usage, location, spending habits - and there is an opportunity to present that data back to customers in a way to reinforce or change their behaviour.
Have a think through your version of the EDF graph above and consider how data might be able to deliver some of your strategic objectives.
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