Rising demand and power bills are giving an extra push to expand demand-side management programs like efficiency and virtual power plants, but experts agree the industry needs to do more to educate consumers to take advantage of the resources.

“You have to make sure that you’re not only educating the end-use customer, but you’re educating those that are executing implementing these strategies,” Melissa Washington, Commonwealth Edison senior vice president of customer operations, said during an Oct. 7 webinar hosted by DNV and Canary Media.

Utilities have done a lot of that work already on programs they can market directly to consumers such as efficient lighting and smart thermostats, but the more challenging part is when they have to deal with third parties like contractors, said Andy Frank, president of Sealed, which provides contractors with software and solutions that are aimed at getting more weatherization and electrification programs installed.

“As we move away from the low-hanging fruit of these measures that can be sold directly to consumers, you’re starting to see more and more savings, and more and more impact come from deeper home energy retrofits on weatherization,” Frank said. “And so, regardless of any other information source that they’re getting, homeowners are going to tend to trust the contractor in the home.”

Sometimes consumers will hear about heat pumps from their utility, or a state program, but then a contractor will argue that it does not work and will not save them any money, Frank said. By ensuring that they have access to the right tools to educate and confirm savings, that can be avoided.

Alliance to Save Energy President Paula Glover agreed, calling the lack of education on efficiency among contractors a real gap in rolling out energy efficiency applications.

“Many times, a contractor may not even mention that there’s a more efficient technology. They may not know about it,” Glover said. “And so, I do think it’s time for us to make a significant effort to really make sure that they have all the information that they need about what works, where and how, so that they can best inform customers.”

ComEd has helped its customers save $12 billion with efficiency upgrades, Washington said, and “implementation partners” like contractors are key to getting that done.

“We try to make sure that we’re spending time with our implementation partners to ensure that they have consistent information so that they can have a consistent experience with the customer,” Washington said. “But what we’ve also learned is that there’s opportunities to grow the number of implementation partners in all of these communities, because what we have learned is that people tend to listen to those that they trust.”

The Chicago-area utility has found working with community-based organizations that are trusted in different neighborhoods has helped to get small business and residential customers signed up for energy and money-saving programs because they can spread the word on benefits and how to sign up, she added.

ComEd saw an uptick in interest in such programs during the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers were increasingly interested in ways that they could save money on their utility bills, she noted.

Energy efficiency programs have not been popular on Capitol Hill lately, and ASE’s Glover argued that was partially from lawmakers not looking at it as an “affordability play,” despite her group’s efforts. She argued utilities could help get that message across.

“I’ll use weatherization as an example,” Glover said. “It is very easy to get lots of utility companies in support of LIHEAP [the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program]. LIHEAP really rises to the top, but weatherization has been under attack all summer, and we struggle to get people to see that as equally as important and … that absent weatherization, that’s just more people who need LIHEAP.”

Another major issue facing efficiency and the demand side more generally is the regulatory construct, Glover added, because cost-of-service regulation does not favor utilities cutting the amount of electricity that they sell.

Price signals would help to grow efficiency and other demand-side resources more than anything, especially with demand growing in a major way for the first time in decades, Frank said.

“The market needs to have those simple and strong price signals to be able to act,” he added. “And, so, I think it’s all of our responsibility to kind of figure out ways to deliver those price signals.”