Service Opportunities for Electric Utilities: Creating Differentiated Products

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Why Service Differentiation? Why Now?

      • Hung-po Chao, Riaz Siddiqi

      Pages 1-6

3. Theoretical Foundations for Service Design

   1. Priority Service Methods

      • Robert Wilson

      Pages 7-29

   2. Real Time Pricing: Bringing Added Value to Utility Programs

      • Bahman Daryanian, Richard D. Tabors, Roger E. Bohn

      Pages 31-67

4. Understanding the Customer’s Needs

   1. Modeling Customer Preferences; Lessons from Existing Models and Data

      • Douglas W. Caves, J. David Glyer

      Pages 69-85

   2. Introducing Market Focus into Rate Design

      • John H. Chamberlin, Kenneth A. Jensen

      Pages 87-105

   3. What Can We Learn from Customer Surveys?

      • Gregory L. Hamm, Steven R. Sim

      Pages 107-120

5. Supply Side Considerations

   1. Technical Foundations for Pricing Systems Security

      • Fernando L. Alvarado

      Pages 121-146

   2. Optimizing Demand Side Contributions to Power System Security

      • R. John Kaye, Felix F. Wu, Pravin P. Varaiya

      Pages 147-168

   3. Design and Management of Curtailable Electricity Service to Reduce Annual Peaks

      • Shmuel S. Oren, Stephen A. Smith

      Pages 169-211

6. Role of Enabling Technologies

   1. Utility and Customer Communication, Computing and Control (UC-3C) Technologies

      • C. Blumstein, A. H. Rosenfeld, H. Akbari

      Pages 213-218

   2. Integrated Utility Communications and Distribution Automation; Building the Framework for Differentiated Products

      • Wade P. Malcolm

      Pages 219-236

7. Utility Experience with Product Differentiation

   1. Reliability Service Options at PG&E

      • Dennis M. Keane, Michael J. Sullivan

      Pages 237-261

   2. Making the Transition: Prerequisites to Product Differentiation

      • Robert Mango

      Pages 263-279

   3. Priority Service and Outage Costs in the Power Sector: The Taiwan Perspective

      • George J. Y. Hsu, Tser-Yieth Chen

      Pages 281-294

8. Experience from Other Industries

   1. Parcel/Message Delivery Services

      • A. L. Kolbe, R. W. Hodges

      Pages 295-325

9. Regulatory Perspective

   1. Are Reliability-Differentiated Products Unduly Discriminatory?

      • Robert E. Burns

      Pages 327-330

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 differ­ entiated products. Its specific objectives were to: xviii • Review the state of the art in implementing reliability differ­ entiated 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 reliabilitydifferentiated product design.

• marketing
• modeling
• organization
• organizations
• research

• University of California, Berkeley, USA

  Shmuel S. Oren

• Santa Clara University, USA

  Stephen A. Smith

Policies and ethics