| ComEd: Ahead of the Curve |
| Featured Spotlights | |||
| Written by Ashley McGown | |||
| Wednesday, 30 June 2010 | |||
 Innovative thinking has allowed this utility to improve customer service, streamline costs, and boost revenue. The philosophy is now being applied to its smart grid installation.
 Anne Pramaggiore, president and COO With a corporate history dating to the early days of electric service in Chicago, ComEd is committed to improving electric service reliability for its customers. Anne Pramaggiore, president and COO, said the leadership team sets the company’s strategic direction and inspires others to follow its lead. The current executive team, which has been together for approximately one year, is focused on reinventing the business’s operating model. “We’ve seen a lot of change in the industry in the last couple of years. The traditional financial model is based on continuous growth and declining costs, but we are now experiencing slower growth across the board,” Pramaggiore said, referring to electric businesses as a whole.  Terence Donnelly, executive VP of operations “Reasonable pricing no longer refers strictly to low costs; customers today want more options and more flexibility,” said Pramaggiore, who, last May, became the first female president in ComEd’s history. “Customer service can mean anything from financial assistance to access to real-time data to an energy-efficiency program.” Growing stronger, gaining strength ComEd was established more than a century ago, and thanks to a number of recent initiatives, it’s stronger than ever. Since 2001, ComEd has invested about $6 billion to expand, upgrade, and maintain the reliability of its transmission and delivery systems. One of the most significant investments is a smart grid system test bed. Instead of rolling out one large project across its entire service area, its team is piloting a comprehensive system—one that goes beyond what’s considered standard in the industry today. “We are not deep in any one part of smart grid. Instead, we’re looking at an end-to-end approach, from distribution automation to customer applications in the home, and everything in between,” Pramaggiore said. “We’re making a conscious effort to look at the entire chain, something most utilities are not doing,” she added, noting that the company expects to make a huge dent in the project by the middle of next year. ComEd’s one-year Smart Meter program will analyze operational efficiencies and study how customers interact with the technologies. To date, almost 120,000 new smart meters are installed, with thousands more expected this summer. It’s on schedule to have distribution automation, intelligent substations, distributed generation (solar installations), and storage tests in place by the end of 2011. ComEd is spending money wisely, keeping a customer-value proposition in mind at all times. As a result, the company has been able to sustain financial strength, and it has seen a full show of support from customers, regulators, and all involved stakeholders, Pramaggiore said. “We provided a proposal to the commission and stakeholders and asked to set up a rider that would allow us to recover on our money as we spend it, rather than spending money and waiting until the next rate case,” she explained. The pilot was designed over a six-month period and approved three months later. “We incorporated a significant amount of input from stakeholders, and we will continue to solicit their input throughout the pilot.” ComEd’s Smart Meter program, which launched in early June, will provide four rate structures and three technology options to see how customers will respond to price signals. For example, with the Shift-and-Save rate, customers save by shifting usage to different times of the day; with the Reduce-and-Save rate, customers save by reducing amount of usage. One of the most significant aspects of the pilot, Pramaggiore added, is that it will allow the ComEd team to learn more about what customers want. The company rolled out an In-Home technology pilot last year and was pleasantly surprised with the information it was able to gather. “We gave 300 customers a display unit for their homes. It gave them certain data, like month-to-date usage and bill information,” Pramaggiore said. “We looked for behavioral changes, but we didn’t see much. That taught us an important lesson: you can’t just throw technology at people without an educational component.” Hard work pays off Only time will tell how well ComEd’s approach to smart grid will pay off, but if the positive impact recent investments have had are any indication, it’s looking good for the company’s team. The utility turned out a strong reliability performance in 2009, producing some of the best numbers on record. The results are directly related to a number of forward-thinking investments rolled out in recent years. Last year, the company launched an initiative called Engineering Excellence, which reinvigorated the engineering core. Terence Donnelly, executive VP of operations, explained that the initiative involved development, training, and after-hours courses focused in five areas: asset management, project management, contractor procurement, technology, and high-performance organization. In addition to recording one of its best performance years in reliability and safety, ComEd Operations reduced its O&M costs by 14% and capital costs by 19%. It also raised employee satisfaction by making better use of its inhouse staff. The secret, Donnelly said, is simple but all-too-often overlooked: target efforts where the benefit will be greatest. “Focusing on the staff and management has helped guide the engagement process, which has allowed us to be more successful in revamping operations,” he explained. “We have accelerated reliability investments and exceeded work targets in virtually every area through a focus on productivity and employee engagement.” “We’re really taking a look at the entire staff,” Pramaggiore added. “Bringing more work into our union workforce has saved us money, but more importantly, it’s engaged the staff and allowed us to get the whole company working together in an innovative way. Everyone is on board, and that’s why we’ve been so successful.” |
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