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U.S. Department of Energy
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Marketing research for energy service design

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:102723
 [1]; ; ; ;  [2]
  1. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., West Syracuse, NY (United States)
  2. Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)
As the utility industry becomes more competitive, utilities are seeking ways to identify and develop new energy-related services that meet the changing needs of their customers. This paper explores the application of conjoint analysis for designing an optional electric utility-sponsored program - the Subscription Option Program - aimed at large commercial and industrial customers. Conjoint analysis is a technique for eliciting customers` preferences for a set of product profiles where a product - in this case the Subscription Option Program - is defined as a collection of features or attributes. This approach allowed us to measure the relative importance to customers of each of the program`s features and then to predict the effect of changing program features on program participation. As one method of validating our model, we compared the actual program participation to the predicted participation generated by our model and found that our model yielded satisfactory results.
Research Organization:
Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States); Synergic Resources Corp., Bala-Cynwyd, PA (United States)
OSTI ID:
102723
Report Number(s):
EPRI-TR--104558
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English