Accenture has teamed with Connecticut Light & Power Co. (CL&P) to conduct CL&P’s Plan-It Wise Energy Program, a pilot program using smart meters to test residential, commercial and industrial customers’ interest in, and response to, peak time-based energy rates.

The pilot, approved by Connecticut’s Department of Public Utility Control, is scheduled to begin in June. CL&P will use findings from the pilot to determine how to best advance the goals of the Connecticut Electricity and Energy Efficiency Act, including lowering Connecticut’s peak energy demand.

With approximately 3,000 CL&P customers participating, the program will be the largest customer-focused smart-metering pilot of its kind in North America. Smart meters are meters located in the home or office that can identify electricity consumption in more detail than conventional meters and automatically send that information back to the utility for monitoring and billing.

Accenture will work with CL&P to implement the smart-metering infrastructure and design and manage the pilot, including the enrollment of customers, customer care programs, employee education, customer bill calculations and meter data management. Accenture will also validate the rate tests to help analyze customer response to various dynamic pricing options, and estimate the amount of demand response energy saved.  

CL&P and Accenture will run the Plan-It Wise Energy Program through November, with the active customer pilot running from June through August 2009. Accenture will manage a cross-functional team to execute the rate pilot; the team includes Comverge, a provider of demand response technology and energy efficiency solutions; GoodCents, a demand response program operations company; The ITM Group, a utility focused IT solutions provider; Sensus, an advanced metering, home automation and smart grid systems provider; and Trilliant, an advanced metering and intelligent network solutions provider.