Opower is an energy efficiency company that provides utilities with a customer engagement platform to help households save energy. It was founded in 2007 and has grown to over 200 employees. Opower works with over 50 utilities to deliver personalized energy reports, online tools, and alerts to over 10 million households. This has helped households save an average of 3-5% on their energy bills, totaling over $450 million in savings. A California utility saw continued higher savings each year working with Opower by integrating it with their systems to easily transfer usage data. Key to Opower's success is that its reports are opt-out rather than opt-in, and it has good relationships with utilities.

1. Case Study 7
OPower
Sep 21, 2011
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2. Company Overview
Name Opower, Inc.
1515 N. Courthouse Rd, 8th Floor
Headquarters
Arlington, VA, 22201
Year Founded 2007
Employees 217 employees (registered on linkedin as of Sep. 2011)
Business Provides a multi-channel customer engagement platform that
Sectors delivers energy efficiency gains to clients
Utility companies
Partners
(more than 50 utilities—including 8 of the US’s 10 largest)
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3. Funding History
Year Amount Participants in the Round
Series A Aug. 2007 1.7M New Cycle Capital
Series B Dec. 2008 14M New Enterprise Associates
Accel Partners
Series C Nov. 2010 50M
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Total - 65.7M -
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4. Focus Area
Block Diagram
Demand Response Network Household
Power Company Energy
Business Generator
AMI HEMS Household
System
Controller Devices
Distribution Energy
MDMS Concentrator Communication
Storage
Automation
System Building/Commercial/Industrial
Energy
Generator
Measure
Control
Gas Company
BEMS/FEMS Household
Controller Devices
Service Energy
Provider Storage
System Structure Wired/Wirelsss
Communication
Unit MDMS Smart Meter
EMS Controller
Concentrator 4 ⓒ 2011 insprout Corporation.
※Source: “Technologies and Standardization of Smart Grid” published in 2010 by Japan Standard Association All rights reserved

5. Opower’s Solutions
Deliver personalized information about
Home energy usage in home or small business,
Energy Reports and offer easy-to-follow tips that can
quickly lead to energy saving
Offer personalized insights about
home energy use, tools that allow users
Online Tools to choose the optimal energy rate plan
for their lifestyle, and individualized
energy-efficiency tips
Tell customers how much energy they've
used during the month (rather than at
Energy Alerts the end), and let them know about high
bills before it's too late to do anything
about them.
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6. Opower’s Business at Glance
$30 Million 450GWh Saved
in Revenue 57 utilities Over 10 Million $50 Million Saved
Household
Utility
Household
Household Energy
Opower Utility Savings
Household (Avg. 3-5%)
Household
Utility
Household
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7. Benefits for Utility Companies
Case: California municipal utility
California municipal utility began sending Home Energy Reports to 25,000 customers
in November 2009. Savings rates have trended even higher year-over-year.
Partners with Itron, the utility’s AMI and meter-data management system provider.
Opower and Itron have built a data extractor that makes transferring data into Opower’s
customer engagement platform easy.
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8. Key Success Factors!?
So far, two things stand out and are worth mention
Opt-in, not Opt-out
In this early stage of the market, it seems like programs that are opt-out
(sent unless the customer says they don’t want it), not opt-in (only sent if the
customer wants it), are the ones working.
Utility is one of a few types of companies that can send its customers this type
of information without getting an opt-in agreement, and the mailed Opower energy
bills have a very high open rate, because they look just like a utility energy bill.
Good Relations with Utilities
Google first launched PowerMeter, some utilities saw the tool as a threat to the
relationship they have with their customers.
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9. Citations
English
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/12/03/opower.energy/index.html
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/5-reasons-google-powermeter-didnt-take-off/
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/OPower-Making-Millions-in-Home-
Energy-Efficiency/
Japanese
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=235257263163077
http://ippei.posterous.com/smartgrid-32
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10. TO BE CONTINUED
We will analyze in detail various EMS technologies and
companies in those domains
10 ⓒ 2011 insprout Corporation.
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