Jeannette M. Mills, VP, Customer Operations & Chief Customer Officer
There’s a lot of “smart” going around these days. From phones, to cars and even appliances, smart technology and systems are undergoing continual development in order to provide new ways to deliver products and services to a constantly evolving customer population.
At BGE, we understand the importance of what we do and the expectation that our customers have on our ability to provide safe and reliable service. As the nation’s oldest gas utility and one of the oldest electric utilities, we have a nearly 200-year history of delivering power to homes and businesses – and over that time, we’ve committed ourselves to ensuring the safety and reliability of our systems.
In recent years, the energy industry has
undergone a somewhat revolution in the way energy is managed – not only for energy distribution companies, but also for customers. New technology is leading to enhanced service – such as real time usage reports, online energy management programs and automated outage detection capabilities. While we’re excited about the introduction of such new tools, we recognize that smart energy delivery does not simply rely on the use of modern technology to measure usage. It also means our continuing efforts to improve the safety and reliability of our electric and gas systems. More than 370,000 poles, 25,000 miles of distribution lines and 7,000 miles of natural gas pipes are regularly monitored, maintained and upgraded to deliver energy to our 1.2 million customers.
Even as we begin to further modernize our delivery and management systems with technologies such as smart meters, multi-directional communications devices and customer-friendly web portals we realize that the smartest component to making the energy system more efficient is our customer.
As part of our ongoing efforts to build relationships with customers and improve energy management, BGE has introduced a myriad of programs designed to help participants use less energy, save more money and help preserve the environment.
Our BGE Smart Energy Savers Program
alone has helped to provide more than $1 billion in life cycle savings and more than 650 megawatts in demand savings, which is equivalent to the output of a medium-sized power plant. These kinds of reductions help to lower energy costs and improve energy sustainability.
So, when you hear BGE use the term “smart energy”, know that this is something we are continually striving to deliver upon, it is a concept that drives all we do to meet the current and future energy needs of our customers – not just safely and reliably, but efficiently, cost effectively and responsibly.
Jeannette
