Opower

Overview

Opower is a publicly held Software-as-a-Service company that offers cloud-based energy saving software to utilities. Working with 95+ utilities and serving 50+ million homes in 9 countries, the company's software tracks metrics about homeowners' energy consumption and compares the results with the numbers of their neighbors in similarly sized homes. Opower works with utilities to give homeowners better insight into their energy use on a continual basis, sending e-mails or text messages when usage spikes. [10] The company also provides tailored recommendations to homeowners on how to save energy and money. Opower's technology platform analyzes more than 300 billion meter reads to deliver its services, and Opower's customers, on average, reduce energy usage by over 2.5%.

History

Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Opower was founded in 2007 by by friends Dan Yates and Alex Laskey. Alex and Dan launched the company based on scientist Robert Cialdini’s psychology study about our need to keep up with our neighbors. In 2007 Robert walked through his neighborhood and left flyers on doors asking people to save energy. Some flyers touted the financial benefits of saving energy, others made appeals to people to be better citizens. The most effective flyer, however, said “most people in the neighborhood” were conserving energy. [2] Within only a few years of its launch, Opower had partnered with over 90 utilities. On September 1, 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011. With a successful IPO in April of 2014, the company reached a market cap of nearly $800 million. Shortly thereafter, Opower announced that it would partner with Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), Japan’s largest utility and one of the largest utilities in the world. [7] Also in 2014, Opower announced that it would try to reinvent residential demand response through behavioral science. The decision was a result of a successful initiative to cut residential electricity demand for Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) during peak times by 5% by sending customized emails, sms, and phone calls to homeowners. The plan involved implementing smart meters to provide real-time information on energy usage, and a pricing model to encourage people to shift their demand. [8] Since February of 2014, the company has built 5 offices that employ over 500 people in Arlington, San Francisco, London, Singapore, and Japan. As of the beginning of 2015, Opower’s utility customers included Connecticut Light & Power, which has saved 50.8 GWh; Northern Indiana’s NIPSCO reports saving 67.5 GWh and 1.8 million therms; and New Jersey Natural Gas has saved 1.6 million therms, enough to offset carbon emissions from burning more than nine million pounds of coal. [3]

President Obama Praises Opower

On March 5, 2010, President Barack Obama visited Opower headquarters and praised the company for its economic growth and job creation during tough economic times, and called it a "great emblem" for clean-energy jobs. [12] 

Funding rounds

References

1. Alex Laskey "How Behavioral Science can Lower Your Energy Bill" TED February 2013

2. Parmy Olson "A Massive Social Experiment On You Is Under Way, And You Will Love It" Forbes January 21, 2015

3. Kathleen Tracy "Opower Platform Reaches Six TWh of Energy Savings" January 19, 2015

4. Lewis Diuguid "KCP&L compares neighbors’ energy use and helps cheer people to lower electricity bills" THE Kansas City Star January 20, 2015

5. Kim Hyatt "Owatonna homeowner helps neighbors have a jolly Wally Christmas" Owatonna People's Press December 20, 2014

6. Jonathan O'Connell "Opower, darling of Arlington tech sector, mulls move to D.C." Washington Post August 22, 2014

7. Aaron Tilley "Energy Data Miner Opower Is Taking Big Steps Into Asia" Forbes July 31, 2014

8. Stephen Lacey "Opower Expands Behavioral Demand Response to 1 Million Customers" Greentechmedia.com May 20, 2014

9. Billy Mitchell "Office Envy: A Walk Through Opower's Headquarters" DCInno February 21, 2014

10. Steven Overly ""Opower plans expansion with $50 million investment" The Washington Post November 30, 2010

11. Robin Wauters "Opower to Expand to West Coast, Names iLike Founder Hadi Partovi to Advisory Board" TechCrunch, June 29, 2010

12. "Remarks by the President on Clean Energy Jobs" White House release, March 5, 2010