Service Opportunities for Electric Utilities: Creating Differentiated Products / Edition 1

by Shmuel S. Oren, Stephen A. Smith

Overview

This monograph is the proceedings of a symposium held at the University of California at Berkeley, September 12-14, 1990. It was sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPR!) and by the University of California University-Wide Energy Research Group (UERG). The sympo­ sium brought together researchers and practitioners from academia, the utility industry, private and public organizations and regulatory agencies to address various challenges and opportunities related to product differen­ tiation in the electric power industry. Electric utilities are evolving rapidly from commodity-oriented services to product-oriented services. Utilities are offering menus of service options tailored to the needs of different customers. Reliability is one important dimension of electric service that lends itself to such product differentia­ tion., Options include lower rate curtail able services for industrial cus­ tomers, higher reliability power for some commercial customers, and load control with rebates for residential customers., These specialized services are a first step toward the product differentiation goal of allowing all customers to choose the type of service best suited to their electricity needs. The symposium provided a forum for in depth examination of the complex planning, development, and implementation issues associated with differentiated products. Its specific objectives were to: xviii • Review the state of the art in implementing reliability differentiated electric services. • Address the entire process for developing and implementing reliability differentiated product menus including research, design, marketing, implementation, and evaluation. • Consider technical, economic, and regulatory barriers to imple­ menting reliability differentiated product design.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780792393191
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	02/28/1993
Series:	Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy , #13
Edition description:	1993
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

I: Introduction. II: Theoretical Foundations for Service Design. III: Understanding the Consumer's Needs. IV: Supply Side Considerations. V: Role of Enabling Technologies. VI: Utility Experience with Product Differentiation. VII: Experience from Other Industries. VIII: Regulatory Experience.