OPOWER Helping Consumers Reduce Energy Consumption--With Smiley Faces

Local energy efficiency software company OPOWER has found a way to dramatically reduce emissions more than both wind and solar power combined—by treating utility bills like report cards.

By Avery Fellow | February 17, 2010

OPOWER, an energy efficiency and smartgrid software company, has developed a way to drastically cut emissions without building solar panels or wind turbines—but by printing smiley faces on utility bills.

The Arlington, Va.-based company has found a way to make real changes in reducing emissions by combining analytics with behavioral science techniques. OPOWER takes meter data from oil and gas utility companies and overlays it with utility customer demographic and location data to churn out detailed, individualized reports for utility customers. The company even affixes smiley faces to the accounts of residents who are more energy efficient than their neighbors.

OPOWER’s Home Energy Reporting platform includes a data-rich back end that consists entirely of open source software and a front end including printed reports as well as an online energy management portal.
 

Opower CEO Dan Yates

OPOWER CEO Dan Yates said the system is working remarkably well.

"We help utilities substantially reduce per customer usage on a scale of two to three percent," Yates said. "The total generation of power from solar and wind combined is less than one and a half percent, so we’re able to have a good impact."

According to Yates, the simplest change consumers can make to lessen their energy consumption is lowering the thermostat in the winter and raising it in the summer. "Even a two degree change can have a 10 to 15 percent impact on your bill," Yates said.

OPOWER was recently recognized for its innovation in the consumer energy market with a nomination for the Discovery Channel’s 2010 Edison awards this month.

"We took a big bet in terms of this company," Yates said. "It’s a crazy idea to send people information about their usage and take a bet that it will actually measurably reduce it. It’s really thrilling that it’s working."

OPOWER already counts six of the nation’s top ten utility companies as clients, and Yates expects to triple or quadruple business this year.

"We’re hiring like mad," Yates said. OPOWER is currently hiring Java developers, product managers, QA engineers and front end engineers.

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