Month: January 2008

Delivering the Tools for Creating the Next-Generation Electrical SmartGrid

PowerSense delivers cutting-edge monitoring and control equipment together with integrated supervision to enable the modern electrical utility to prepare its existing power infrastructure for tomorrow’s SmartGrid.

PowerSense uses world-leading technology to merge existing and new power infrastructures into the existing SCADA and IT systems of the electrical utilities. This integration of the upgraded power infrastructure and existing IT systems instantly optimizes outage and fault management, thereby decreasing customer minutes lost (the System Average Interruption duration Index, or SAIDI).

At the same time, this integration helps the electrical utility further improve asset management (resulting in major cost savings) and power management (resulting in high-performance outage management and a high power efficiency). The PowerSense product line is called DISCOS® (for distribution networks, Integrated Supervision and Control System).

Discos®

The following outlines the business and system values offered by the DISCOS® product line.

Business Values

  • Cutting-edge optical technology (the sensor)
  • Easily and safely retrofitted (sensors can be fitted into all transformer types)
  • End-to-end solutions (from sensors to laptop)
  • Installation in steps (implementation based on cost-benefit analysis) system Values
  • Current (for each phase)
  • Voltage (for each phase)
  • Frequency
  • Power active, reactive and direction
  • Distance-to-fault measurement
  • Control of breakers and service relays
  • Analog inputs
  • Measurement of harmonic content for I and V
  • Measurement of earth fault

These parameters are available for both medium- and low-voltage power lines.

OPTICAL SENSOR TECHNOLOGY

With its stability and linearity, PowerSense’s cutting-edge sensor technology is setting new standards for current measurements in general. For PowerSense’s primary business area of MV grid monitoring in particular, it is creating a completely new set of standards for how to monitor the MV power grid.

The DISCOS® Current Sensor is part of the DISCOS® Opti module. The DISCOS® Sensor monitors the current size and angle on both the LV and MV side of the transformer.

BASED ON THE FARADAY EFFECT

Today, only a few applications in measuring instruments are based on the Faraday rotation principle. For instance, the Faraday effect has been used for measuring optical rotary power, for amplitude modulation of light and for remote sensing of magnetic fields.

now, due to advanced computing techniques, PowerSense is able to offer a low-priced optical sensor based on the Faraday effect.

THE COMPANY

PowerSense A/S was established on September 1, 2006, by DONG Energy A/S (formerly Nesa A/S) as a spin-off of the DISCOS® product line business. The purpose of the spin-off was to ensure the best future business conditions for the DISCOS® product line.

After the spin-off, BankInvest A/S, a Danish investment bank, holds 70 percent of the share capital. DONG Energy A/S continues to hold 30 percent of the share capital.

Real-Time Automation Solutions for Operation of Energy Assets and Markets

Areva T&D offers solutions to bring electricity from the source to end-users, building high- and medium-voltage substations and develops technologies to manage power grids and energy markets worldwide. It is a full-fl edged solution provider, offering safe, reliable, efficient power distribution down to the lowest level end-user consumption. Its software applications cover all the strategic operational business processes of an energy utility, including optimization of transmission and distribution grid operation; management of wholesale and retail market operations; and energy transaction solutions involving strategic business processes from energy trading, energy scheduling and dispatch management to demand-side management and settlements.

As long as advanced monitoring and control infrastructures have been used for grid management, Areva T&D has been at the forefront of innovation. Its strategy has always been to supply the most accurate real-time vision of the network infrastructure. This has led to several major breakthroughs, including Areva’s latest e-terraVision™ product.

The e-terraVision technology provides control rooms with higher level decision support capabilities through visualization tools, “smart applications” and simulation – thus improving situation awareness. This operator-friendly system enables power dispatchers to fully visualize their networks with the right level of situation awareness and proactively operate the grid by taking the necessary real-time corrective actions.

Expertise acquired in the high-voltage network enables Areva to supply distribution monitoring and control applications as well, and these have greatly influenced its distribution management strategy. As a result of early successes, the company developed an adapted eterra product offer for distribution customers.

Areva T&D continues to integrate unique new concepts to meet market trends and innovation. For example, Areva T&D SmartGrid solutions are designed to supply the following benefits.

  1. Alignment with deregulation trends in the consumer electricity market, including:
    • Making the process of changing energy supplier easier;
    • Providing better service quality for energy usage, including accurate and appropriate billing of actual consumed energy;
    • For specific countries where nontechnical losses are significant, allowing accurate audits to be conducted; and
    • Allowing for differentiated energy offerings with greater pricing flexibility and integration of renewable energy offers.
  2. Support for further structural benefits discussed and validated as part of international working groups on SmartGrid initiatives:
    • Better selectivity of the IEDs in medium- and low-voltage leads to reduce the number of customers affected by outages, thus improving service quality and reducing maintenance costs.
    • Careful monitoring of low-voltage grids, including consumption by phase and distribution cell – which is especially relevant in terms of renewable energy generation.
    • Online asset monitoring, which enables predictive maintenance, thus increasing assets’ life span.
    • Dynamic security management of primary and secondary networks. Introducing renewable energy sources into the distribution network poses a challenge. Combined infrastructures for monitoring systems for distribution and metering will be needed in the near future.

All these challenges have driven the definition and development of Areva SmartGrid solutions. The company’s enhanced supervision and control center products, including smart metering, supply all the advantages of automation technologies to distribution networks.

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent’s vision is to enrich people’s lives by transforming the way the world communicates. Alcatel-Lucent provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end users. As a leader in carrier and enterprise IP technologies; fixed, mobile and converged broadband access; applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at work, at home and on the move.

With 77,000 employees and operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry and includes Bell labs, one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations focused on communications. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted revenues of €17.8 billion in 2007, and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris.

YOUR ENERGY AND UTILITY PARTNER

Alcatel-Lucent offers comprehensive capabilities that combine carrier-grade communications technology and expertise with utility industry- specific knowledge. Alcatel-Lucent’s IP transformation expertise and utility market-specific knowledge have led to the development of turnkey communications solutions designed for the energy and utility market. Alcatel-Lucent has extensive experience in:

  • Transforming and renewing network technologies;
  • designing and implementing SmartGrid initiatives;
  • Meeting NERC CIP compliance and security requirements;
  • Working in live power generation, transmission and distribution environments;
  • Implementing and managing complex mission-critical communications projects;
  • developing best-in-class partnerships with organizations like CURRENT Communications, Ambient, BelAir networks, Alvarion and others in the utility industry.

Working with Alcatel-Lucent enables energy and utility companies to realize the increased reliability and greater efficiency of next-generation communications technology, providing a platform for – and minimizing the risks associated with – moving to SmartGrid solutions. And Alcatel-Lucent helps energy and utility companies achieve compliance with regulatory requirements and reduce operational expenses while maintaining the security, integrity and high availability of their power infrastructure and services.

ALCATEL-LUCENT IP MPLS SOLUTION FOR THE NEXT-GENERATION UTILITY NETWORK

Utility companies are experienced at building and operating reliable and effective networks to ensure the delivery of essential information and maintain fl awless service delivery. The Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS solution can enable utility operators to extend and enhance their networks with new technologies like IP, Ethernet and MPLS. These new technologies will enable the utility to optimize its network to reduce both capital expenditures and operating expenses without jeopardizing reliability. Advanced technologies also allow the introduction of new applications that can improve operational and workflow efficiency within the utility. Alcatel-Lucent leverages cutting-edge technologies along with the company’s broad and deep experience in the utility industry to help utility operators build better, next-generation networks with IP/MPLS.

THE ALCATEL-LUCENT ADVANTAGE

Alcatel-Lucent has years of experience in the development of IP, MPLS and Ethernet technologies. The Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS solution offers utility operators the flexibility, scale and feature sets required for mission-critical operation. With the broadest portfolio of products and services in the telecommunications industry, Alcatel-Lucent has the unparalleled ability to design and deliver end-to-end solutions that drive next-generation communications networks.

Is Your Mobile Workforce Truly Optimized?

ClickSoftware is the leading provider of mobile workforce management and service optimization solutions that create business value for service operations through higher levels of productivity, customer satisfaction and cost effectiveness. Combining educational, implementation and support services with best practices and its industry leading solutions, ClickSoftware drives service decision making across all levels of the organization.

Our mobile workforce management solution helps utilities empower mobile workers with accurate, real-time information for optimum service and quick on-site decision making. From proactive customer demand forecasting and capacity planning to real-time decision-making, incorporating scheduling, mobility and location-based services, ClickSoftware helps service organizations get the most out of their resources.

The IBM-ClickSoftware alliance provides the most comprehensive offering for Mobile Workforce and Asset Management powering the real-time service enterprise. Customers can benefit from maximized workforce productivity and customer satisfaction while controlling, and then minimizing, operational costs.

ClickSoftware provides a flexible, scalable and proven solution that has been deployed at many utility companies around the world. Highlights include the ability to:

  • Automatically update the schedule based on real-time information from the field;
  • Manage crews (parts and people);
  • Cover a wide variety of job types within one product – from short jobs requiring one person to multistage jobs needing a multi-person team over several days or weeks;
  • Balance regulatory, environmental and union compliance;
  • Continuously strive to raise the bar in operational excellence;
  • Incorporate street-level routing into the decision-making process; and
  • Plan for the catastrophic events and seasonal variability in field service operations.

The resulting value proposition to the customer is extremely compelling:

  • Typically, optimized scheduling and routing of the mobile workforce generates a 31 percent increase in jobs per day versus the industry average (Source: AFSMI survey 2003).
  • A variety of solutions, ranging from entry level to advanced, directly address the broad spectrum of pains experienced by service organizations around the world, including optimized scheduling, routing, mobile communications and integration of solutions components – within the service optimization solution itself and also into the CRM/ERP/EAM back end.
  • An entry level offering with a staged upgrade path toward a fully automated service optimization solution ensures that risk is managed and the most challenging of customer requirements may be met. This "least risk" approach for the customer is delivered by a comprehensive set of IBM business consulting, installation and support services.
  • The industry-proven credibility of ClickSoftware’s ServiceOptimization Suite, combined with IBM’s wireless middleware, software, hardware and business consulting services, provides the customer with the most effective platform for managing field service operations.

ClickSoftware’s customers represent a cross section of leaders in the utilities, telecommunications, computer and office equipment, home services, and capital equipment industries. Close to 100 customers around the world have employed ClickSoftware service optimization solutions and services to achieve optimal levels of field service.

To find out more visit www.clicksoftware.com or call 888.438.3308.

Technology with vision for Today’s Utilities

Around the world, utilities are under pressure. Citizens demand that utilities provide energy and water without undermining environmental quality. Customers seek choice and convenience, and regulators respond with new market structures. Financial stakeholders look for operational efficiency at a time when aging workforces and infrastructures need replacement.

Pressures like these are forcing utilities to re-examine every aspect of the utility business, from supply to consumption. And no utility can handle those changes alone.

Oracle has positioned itself to become utilities’ software partner of choice in the quest to respond positively and completely to these pressures. To do so, Oracle brings together a worldwide team of utility experts, software applications that address mission-critical utility needs, a rock-solid suite of corporate operational software and world-leading middleware and technology.

The result: Flexible, innovative solutions that increase efficiency, improve stakeholder satisfaction and future-proof the organization.

Oracle has reshaped the utilities IT marketplace. During the past year, by acquiring two world leaders in utility-specific applications – SPL WorldGroup and Lodestar – Oracle has created Oracle Utilities, a new brand that establishes a unique portfolio of proven software, integrating industry-specific applications with the capabilities of Oracle Applications, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Database.

Oracle Utilities offers the world’s most complete suite of end-to-end information technology solutions for the gas, water and electric utilities that communities around the world depend on. Our revolutionary approach to providing utilities with the applications and expertise they need brings together:

  • Oracle Utilities solutions, utility-specific revenue and operations management applications:
    • Customer Care and Billing
    • Mobile Workforce Management
    • Network Management System
    • Work and Asset Management
    • Meter Data Management
    • Load Analysis
    • Load Profiling and Settlement
    • Portfolio Management
    • Quotations Management
    • Business Intelligence

These solutions are available stand-alone, or as an integrated suite.

  • Oracle’s ERP, database and infrastructure software:
    • Oracle E-Business Suite and other ERP applications
    • TimesTen and Sleepycat for real-time data management
    • Data hubs for customer and product master data management
    • Analytics that provide insight and customer intelligence
    • ContentDB, SpatialDB and RecordsDB for content management
    • Secure Enterprise Search for enterprise-wide search needs
  • Siebel CRM for larger competitive utilities’ call centers, specialized contacts and sales:
    • Most comprehensive solution for Sales, Service and Marketing
    • Complete out-of-the box solution that’s easy to tailor to your needs
    • Results such as percentage increase in sales pipeline, user adoption, opportunity-to-win ratios and doubled revenue growth

Stand-alone, each of these products meets utilities’ unique customer and service needs. Together, they enable multi-departmental business processes. The result is an unparalleled set of technologies that address utilities’ most pressing current and emerging issues.

THE VISION

Cross-organizational business processes and best practices are key to addressing today’s complex challenges. Oracle Utilities provides the path via which utilities may:

  • Advance customer care with:
    • Real-time 360-degree views of customer information
    • Tools to help customers save time and money
    • Ability to introduce or retire products and services quickly in response to emerging customer needs
  • Enhance revenue and operations management:
    • Avoid revenue leakage across end-to-end transactions
    • Increase the visibility and auditability of key business processes
    • Manage assets strategically
    • Bill for services and collect revenue cost-effectively
    • Increase field crew and network efficiency
    • Track and improve performance against goals
    • Achieve competitive advantage with a leading-edge infrastructure that helps utilities respond quickly to change
  • Reduce total cost of ownership through access to a single global vendor with:
    • Proven best-in-class utility management solutions
    • Comprehensive, world-class capabilities in applications and technology infrastructure
    • A global 24/7 distribution and support network with 7,000 service personnel
    • Over 14,000 software developers
    • Over 19,000 partners
  • Address the “Green Agenda”:
    • Help reduce pollution
    • Increase efficiency

STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY FOR THE EMERGING UTILITY

Today’s utility is beset by urgent issues – environmental concerns, rising costs, aging workforces, changing markets, regulatory demands and rising stakeholder expectations.

Oracle Utilities can help meet these challenges by providing the leading mission-critical utilities suite in the marketplace today. Oracle integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle’s industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware and database technologies. We enable customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, help them meet ever-evolving customer demands, enhance operational excellence and deliver on commitments to environmental conservation.

Oracle Utilities’ flexible, standards-based applications and architecture help utilities innovate. They lead toward coherent technology solutions. Oracle helps utilities keep pace with change without losing focus on the energy, water and waste services fundamental to local and global human and economic welfare.

Only Oracle powers the information-driven enterprise by offering a complete, integrated solution for every segment of the utilities industry – from generation and transmission to distribution and retail services. And when you run Oracle applications on Oracle technology, you speed implementation, optimize performance and maximize ROI.

Utilities today need a suite of software applications and technology to serve as a robust springboard from which to meet the challenges of the future.

Oracle offers that suite.

Oracle Utilities solutions enable you to meet tomorrow’s customer needs while addressing the varying concerns of financial stakeholders, employees, communities and governments. We work with you to address emerging issues and changing business conditions. We help you to evolve to take advantage of new technology directions and to incorporate innovation into ongoing activity.

Partnering with Oracle helps you to future-proof your utility.

CONTACT US

For more information, call +1.800.275.4775 to speak to an Oracle representative, or visit oracle.com/industries/utilities.

Copyright © 2008, Oracle. All rights reserved. Published in the U.S.A. This document is provided for information purposes only and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Trilliant: Advanced Metering Infrastructure Solutions for Utilities and Green Energy Markets

Trilliant Incorporated provides wireless network solutions and software for advanced metering, demand response, smart grid and submetering. With more than 20 years’ experience solving utility meter communications needs, the company empowers flexibility and choice through the adoption and integration of open standards-based technologies.

ADVANCED METERING

Trilliant SecureMesh™ AMI solutions enable utilities to introduce services and programs such as time-of-use (TOU) metering, CIS initiated real-time meter reads and customer disconnect/ reconnect. These programs are transforming the traditional customer-utility relationship through interval-based consumption data and two-way messaging, resulting in reduced operational costs and improved reliability.

DEMAND RESPONSE

Many utilities are initiating smart metering and AMI programs with a primary goal of ad dressing critical peak demand challenges using TOU pricing, critical peak pricing and demand response programs. Trilliant is the first AMI supplier to provide an open standards-based platform for AMI-integrated demand response (i.e., load control) incorporating smart thermostats – and thus air conditioning equipment – and other loads such as pool pumps and water heaters. The Trilliant Demand Response solution also supports in-premise (“in-home”) displays that offer consumers real-time information on energy usage and utility-initiated messages.

SMART GRID

By leveraging Smart Grid solutions from Trilliant, utilities can realize dramatic improvements in system performance and cost. System operational challenges such as outage detection and restoration verification are supported through a combination of network-based intelligence and operations center applications. Trilliant’s Smart Grid solutions enable operations to more effectively identify faults and rapidly restore service on the basis of real-time readings of on-premise conditions. These offerings may also be integrated with extended enterprise systems supporting the mobile field force. Smart Grid solutions from Trilliant provide the foundation for advanced applications such as utility asset life cycle management and others that can benefit from the use of actual loading data.

SUBMETERING

Trilliant Energy Services offerings include turnkey submetering solutions, utility data profiling and online presentment to meet the needs of electric and natural gas utilities. Because Trilliant is an expert in energy technology the company’s solutions offer benefits to all stakeholders – from condo developers and corporations to owners and managers and directly to residential suite owners.

Analyzing Substation Asset Health Information for Increased Reliability And Return on Investment

Asset Management, Substation Automation, AMI and Intelligent Grid Monitoring are common and growing investments for most utilities today. The foundation for effective execution of these initiatives is built upon the ability to efficiently collect, store, analyze and report information from the rapidly growing number of smart devices and business systems. Timely and automated access to this information is now more than ever helping drive the profitability and success of utilities. Most utilities have made significant investments in modern substation equipment but fail to continuously analyze and interpret the real-time health indicators of these assets. Continued investment in state-of-the-art operational assets will yield little return on investment unless the information can be harvested and interpreted in a meaningful way.

DATA CAPTURE AND PRESENTATION

InStep’s eDNA (Enterprise Distributed Network Architecture) software is used by many of the world’s leading utilities to collect, store, display and report on the operational and asset health-related information produced by their intelligent assets. eDNA is a highly scalable enterprise application specifically designed for integrating data from SCADA, IEDs, utility meters and other smart devices with the corporate enterprise. This provides centralized access to the real-time, historical and asset health related data that most applications throughout a utility depend upon for managing reliability and profitability.

A real-time historian is needed for collection, organization and reporting of the substation asset measurement data. Today, asset health monitoring is often not present or it is comprised of fixed alarm limits defined within the device or historian. Additionally, fixed end-of-life calculations are used for determining an asset’s health. It is a daunting task to identify and maintain fixed limits and calculations that can be variable based on the actual device characteristics, operating history, ambient conditions and device settings. As a result, the historian alone does not provide for a complete asset monitoring strategy.

ADVANCED ANALYTICS

InStep’s PRiSM software is a self-learning analytic application for monitoring the real-time health of critical assets in support of Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). PRiSM uses artificial intelligence and sophisticated data-mining techniques to determine when a piece of equipment is performing poorly or is likely to fail. The early identification of equipment problems leads to reduced maintenance costs and increased availability, reliability, production quality and capacity.

The software learns from an asset’s individual operating history and develops a series of operational profiles for each piece of equipment. These operational profi es are compared to an equipment’s real-time data to identify and predict failures before they occur. Alarms and Email notification are used to alert personnel of pending problems. PRiSM includes an advanced analysis application for identifying why an asset is not performing as expected.

TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENT

Utilities are rapidly replacing legacy devices and systems with modern technologies. These new systems are typically better instrumented to provide utilities with the information necessary to more effectively operate and better maintain their assets. The status of a breaker can be good information for determining the path of power fl ow but does not provide enough information to determine the health of the device or when it is likely to fail. Modern IEDs and utility meters support tens to hundreds of data points in a single device. This data is quite valuable and necessary in supporting a modern utility asset management program. Many common utility applications such as maintenance management, outage management, meter data management, capacity planning and other advanced analytical systems can be best leveraged when accurate high-resolution historical data is readily available. An intelligent condition monitoring analytical layer is needed for effective monitoring of such a large population of devices and sensors.

CONCLUSION

The need for efficient and effective data management is rapidly growing as utilities continue to update their assets and business systems. This is further driving the need for a highly scalable enterprise historian. The historian is expanding beyond the traditional role of supporting operations and is becoming a key application for effective asset management and overall business success. The historian alone does not provide for a robust real-time asset health monitoring strategy, but when combined with an advanced online condition monitoring application such as InStep’s PRiSM technology, significant savings and increased reliability can be achieved. InStep continues to play a key and growing role in supporting many of the most successful utilities in their operational, reliability and asset monitoring efforts.

Cutting-Edge Communication: Streamlining Customer Contact With Automated Messaging

Improving cash flow, reducing costs, freeing up agents, experiencing an immediate return on investment: These are what it’s all about, right? Since 1992, TeleVox has been at the forefront of customer communication, offering best-of-breed communication technology. More than 14,000 clients rely on TeleVox each and every day to efficiently and effectively contact their customers. Why? Because the subscription-based HouseCalls automated messaging system has proven to meet all their objectives for only pennies per call.

There’s no denying the positive impact of clear, dependable communication between a utility and its customers. Over the years, however, this has presented an increasingly difficult challenge. Utilities are being asked to communicate with growing customer bases with fewer resources. To help reverse this trend, automated messaging technologies, such as TeleVox’s HouseCalls, have emerged to play an important role in customer contact. As other messaging providers have battled rigid pricing structures, limited calling capacity and functionality challenges, HouseCalls has consistently performed as a cost-effective solution that meets the needs of each individual client.

COLLECTIONS

Nowhere are the benefits of automated messaging technology more apparent than in collections. HouseCalls delivers payment reminders personalized with names, dates, amounts due and other information. Messages also employ multiple levels of right-party verification to protect the customer. Once the message is delivered, the customer can take advantage of response options to speak with a live agent or transfer to an automated third-party credit card acceptance company. When matched with a third-party collector, HouseCalls automates the entire collections process without manual intervention from the utility.

Utilities can determine their own strategy when integrating automated messaging into the collections process. The messages sent to customers can vary in tone and content based on internal credit ratings and scores. Many TeleVox clients use HouseCalls to contact large volumes of newly delinquent accounts (30 to 60 days), hoping to resolve them before they age further. This frees agents to focus on more difficult accounts.

The immediate ROI of automated messaging in collections has made it a widely embraced practice among the nation’s leading utilities for reducing Accounts Receivable. Some utilities have estimated as much as $200 in return for every dollar spent. The technology’s flexibility facilitates quicker, less expensive collections efforts. It also decreases expensive mailings, costly disconnects and truck rolls that become necessary as delinquencies progress.

MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

From billing to usage issues, the range of programs utilities offer to customers has become increasingly broad. Automated calls have experienced phenomenal response rates from customers eager to take advantage of new offerings.

Common marketing campaigns include:

  • Budget billing
  • Low-income housing assistance
  • Meter replacement
  • Demand conservation

Why do automated calls produce greater results than direct-mail pieces, bill stuffers or Emails? One factor is audience attention. Since HouseCalls outbound messages can be recorded using 100 percent human voices and feature the Caller ID number of the utility, customers are more likely to listen to the telephone message than read an extra piece of mail. During the message, many utilities give customers the opportunity to transfer to live agents to learn more about the particular program, enroll during the call or be directed to a website for more information.

Calls cost pennies to deliver, far less than the soaring printing and postage costs associated with mailed media. Whether employed as a stand-alone marketing strategy or combined with direct mail, automated messaging proves to be a cost-effective promotional tool.

OUTAGE AND RESTORATION NOTIFICATIONS

In the utility industry, the old saying holds true: Expect the unexpected. A little preparation goes a long way toward instilling customer confidence, and this certainly applies to service outages. It’s inevitable that at some point customers are going to experience unavoidable interruptions in their service.

When that happens, leading utilities can proactively communicate with customers and keep them informed of the progress being made to restore service in the area. Automated messaging is ideal for such situations, covering large service territories (able to reach as many as 300,000 customers per hour) while maintaining a high capability of customer interaction. Messages can be created and delivered in as little as five minutes.

During outages, customers will often receive messages from their utilities reassuring them that technicians are working to restore service. Providing important contact numbers and information can also be helpful to customers during this period.

As restoration efforts progress, utilities can deliver messages to each customer to determine if service has been restored. Automated messages allow for immediate customer feedback and significantly reduce inbound traffic to the utility’s call center.

In some situations, utilities contact their customer base before a planned outage. This approach is especially appreciated when working with critical-care customers.

HOUSECALLS BENEFITS

Since HouseCalls is a subscription-based ASP (Application Service Provider) solution hosted by TeleVox, there are no hardware purchases or capital investments for the utility. Rather than requiring large expenditures for on-site equipment, utilities are charged on a per-call basis for completed calls – with no cost for undeliverables.

NEXT STEPS

To begin harnessing the power of HouseCalls for your customer communication, you are encouraged to contact a TeleVox representative at 1-800-644-4266 or info@televox.com. You may also visit TeleVox online at www.televox.com.

Bill Pay and Presentment Solutions for Utility Companies

Recognizing that not all customers view and pay bills in the same way, Check- Free helps you deliver a complete range of billing and payment options – from the traditional methods of receiving and paying bills by mail, in person and over the phone to complete paperless online billing and payment using either a bank or your website. CheckFree offers solutions that help you meet market demands.

Whether you need to improve a single solution or your entire offering, CheckFree can offer experience and expertise in the following payment channels:

  • By Mail. Some people still choose to receive paper bills and write checks. CheckFree can help turn these paper checks into ACH electronic debits, speeding payment collections.
  • In Person. Give your customers in-person payment convenience and choice to use cash, checks, money orders or merchant-issued certificates.
  • By Phone. Enable your customers to pay a bill anywhere they have access to a phone, all day, every day. With the recent acquisition of CheckFree by Fiserv, you can look for Fiserv’s industry-leading BillMatrix platform to be integrated into our suite of offerings.
  • Online. Deliver bill paying ease and convenience through CheckFree’s full range of electronic billing and payment (EBP) solutions at your site and beyond your site.
  • Emergency Payments. Offer a fee-based option for last-minute online payments and eliminate expenses due to delinquent payments.
  • Electronic Remittance. Provide quicker access to payment funds while reducing the cost of processing paper checks.

CUSTOMER INTERACTION OPTIMIZATION

CheckFree solutions enable you to optimize each customer interaction by offering multiple payment channel options that focus on security, reliability, functionality and convenience. Each interaction with the consumer represents an ideal opportunity to enhance the customer experience and build loyal customers.

Our Customer Interaction Optimization solutions make interactions a win/win for both you and your customers. You deliver the payment channels they seek while maintaining the ability to guide them to the most profitable channel for your organization. The ultimate business objective is to steer customers to the lower cost-to-serve billing and payment option: the online channel.

CheckFree understands your company’s strategic need to direct consumers to the optimal online channel to enhance revenue growth through reductions in operating costs. By investing in substantial consumer behavior, segmentation and marketing research, CheckFree can assist with creating marketing campaigns focused on promoting your online channel. Every bill received, payment made or visit to your website can be utilized to strategically drive adoption of online bill pay, e-bills and paper shut-off.

For more than 25 years, CheckFree has been a leading provider of electronic billing and payment services. We process more than one billion electronic payments each year. With CheckFree’s Customer Interaction Optimization solutions, you can enhance your payment offerings while improving your bottom line.

Tomorrow’s Bill Payment Solutions for Today’s Businesses

Providing consumers with innovative services for more than 150 years, Western Union is an established leader in electronic and cash bill-payment solutions. We introduced our first consumer-to-consumer money transfer service in 1871 and began offering consumer-to-business bill payment services in 1989 with the introduction of the Western Union Quick Collect® service, providing consumers in the United States with convenient walk-in agent network locations where they can pay bills in cash.

In 2008, our comprehensive suite of services has grown to include Speedpay® – an electronic bill payment option that provides businesses with Internet, IVR, desktop, mobile payments, online banking and call center solutions, as well as e-bill presentment with payments and interactive outbound messaging integrated with payment processing.

THE CONSUMER-TO-BUSINESS SEGMENT

Western Union’s electronic and cash bill payment services provide consumers with fast, convenient ways to send one-time or recurring payments to a broad spectrum of industries. At Western Union we have relationships with more than 6,000 businesses and organizations that receive consumer payments, including utilities, auto finance companies, mortgage servicers, financial service providers and government agencies. These relationships form a core component of our consumer-to-business payment service and are one reason we were able to process 404 million consumer-to-business transactions in 2007.

PORTFOLIO OF SERVICES

Our consumer-to-business services give consumers choices in payment type and method, and include the following options:

  • Electronic payments. Consumers and billers use our Speedpay® service in the United States and the United Kingdom to make consumer payments to a variety of billers using credit cards, ATM cards and debit cards, and via ACH withdrawal. Payments are initiated through multiple channels, including biller-hosted websites, westernunion.com, IVR units, Online Banking websites and call centers.
  • Cash payments. Consumers use our Quick Collect® or Prepaid® services to send guaranteed funds to businesses and government agencies using cash (and in select locations, debit cards). Quick Collect is available at nearly 60,000 Western Union agent locations across the United States and Canada, while our Prepaid service can be accessed at more than 40,000 U.S. locations. Consumers can also use our Convenience Pay® service to send payments by cash or check from a smaller number of agent locations primarily to utilities and telecommunication providers.

DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING CHANNELS

Our electronic payment services are available primarily through an IVR, over the Internet and via Call Center using a desktop application while speaking with a biller’s customer service representative. Through our Quick Pay® service, it is possible to receive payments sent from outside the United States or Canada from over 320,000 agent locations in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. We work in partnership with our billers to market our services to consumers in a number of ways, including direct mail, Email, Internet and point-of-sale advertising.

ONLINE BANKING

In late 2007, Western Union launched its Online Banking initiative, helping to change the way consumers pay their bills. The channel accelerates the speed with which billers receive payment from two to four days to a next-day or same-day delivery, and enables Western Union Payment Services to process bill payments initiated by consumers from their banks’ online banking sites.

Western Union plans to work with the nation’s largest banks to provide your customers with a new class of online banking payment that allows them to make same- and next-day payments that are posted and funded to you faster and are of a higher quality than other online banking payments currently available.

EMAIL BILL PRESENTMENT AND PAYMENT

While the benefits of electronic bill presentment and payment are compelling for both billers and consumers, low consumer adoption rates have prevented billers from fully realizing the cost savings and improved customer service levels these services promote. Western Union® Payment Services aims to change this through its integration with Striata® Email bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions.

With this integrated, encrypted Email bill presentment and one-click payment service, consumers no longer need to register to receive their bill electronically, visit a separate website to download the bill and send a payment, or remember multiple user names and passwords. By removing these extra steps from the process, these services become dramatically easier to use for consumers.

The critical differentiator of the Western Union/Striata service is that the entire e-bill is delivered directly into the consumer’s in-box as an encrypted off-line attachment, enabling payment to be sent through the e-bill itself using the Western Union® Speedpay service. While complementary to existing online presentment solutions, this “push” Email billing offering can be more successful at driving adoption.