While the tidal shift to electrified transport is great news for climate - and could be great news for energy retailers too – there’s no doubt mass EV ownership will exacerbate the dynamics of supply and demand on a groaning national energy grid.
For energy retailers, these new grid dynamics present an ‘adapt or die’ scenario. To thrive in the future of mobility, retailers must have technology in place to not only serve a growing EV market but also shape its consumption habits at scale. Tally’s AI-driven data model for EV customer management addresses the challenges of new grid dynamics by enabling energy retailers to identify, target, incentivise and reward EV customers for their load shifting behaviour, taking advantage of new market paradigms and improving their bottom line.
The rise in EV ownership is here to stay and energy retailers have a choice - act now to evolve with the transport revolution, or quickly find themselves unable to keep pace with the effects of the transition. The impact EVs will have on the energy market is undeniable; the question is, will your platform enable you to keep up?
EV charging typically accounts for 20-30% of a household’s energy consumption. When well-meaning but unaware consumers on a mass scale arrive home at the same time every evening and habitually plug in their vehicle to charge - a trend we are already seeing play out in developed countries worldwide - exponential demand is added to the existing peak in the market. For energy generators, this typically requires firing up dirtier sources of energy to meet peak demand, and for energy retailers (and the planet), this typically means paying a much higher price during that period.
In regions with a high capacity of renewable energy or distributed energy resources, low demand outside of peak times has led to troughs in the market. In Australia for example, roughly one in three households, or more than 3.6 million, have solar panels installed on their roof, generating energy during daylight hours that is then sold back to the grid. Excess generation during periods of time that correspond with low demand has resulted in demand troughs, forcing generators to at times pay retailers to soak up wasted energy.
The golden opportunity for energy retailers in this scenario is to shift their customers’ energy use from the peaks to the troughs, and the best way to do that is by bringing them along for the ride. Inspiring consumers to care about when and how they consume energy through education, incentives and reward is the most effective way to shift habitual consumption patterns, and the ever-growing EV customer cohort presents the greatest opportunity to do so. If an energy retailer can shift their customers’ EV charging habits outside of peak demand times, they’ll be taking a leap toward their goal to support cleaner, cheaper energy, as well as their bottom line. The key to achieving any kind of significant impact is scalability.
Knowing when a customer has acquired, upgraded or sold an EV is the first step retailers need to take to optimise said customer’s energy load. Tally’s EV customer management solution allows energy retailers to automatically identify and engage their most profitable EV customers at scale. Using advanced segmentation, our AI-driven data model accurately identifies EV owners within a customer base and extracts granular consumption information down to charging event details of individual vehicles, creating customer cohorts based on demographics, other devices in the home and energy consumption patterns. Disaggregated, individualised data can then be presented back to a customer with recommendations and incentives for load shifting behaviour, including peer comparisons.
Whatever your chosen billing platform, Tally’s EV solution is built to integrate rapidly and seamlessly with your tech stack. To achieve advanced synergy between data analytics and billing, our multi-utility SaaS-based billing platform, Tally Billing, offers full native integration with our EV solution and enables flexible tariff structure. Tally Billing strengthens our EV solution by enabling limitless ways for you to incentivise and reward your customers for their load shifting behaviour.
New technologies provide a catalyst for consumers to better engage with their energy consumption, inviting their participation as essential partners in the energy transition. The mass adoption of electric vehicles not only impacts energy market dynamics, but also presents a critical opportunity for retailers to engage their most profitable customers and transform the way they consume energy for a greener and more cost-effective future.
Underpinning this transformation is software capable of detecting and segmenting customer cohorts, initiating meaningful communication with target customers, and rewarding behaviour changes in real-time and at scale. Tally’s EV management solution is the industry’s most sophisticated AI-driven data model for targeting and engaging customers with the highest impact potential.
Talk to us about how our EV customer management solution can support your energy retail business to thrive in the new market dynamics of a transport revolution.
