We provide technology services to help our member utilities manage power distribution, billing, and other efforts.
Having the right technology is an essential piece for delivering exceptional reliability and superior service. We work with our member communities to analyze their needs and select the right technology solutions to support their customers.
Economic Benefit Studies
Economic Benefit Studies help members quantify the annual economic contribution from the electric department to the municipality. Target audiences include elected officials, city management staff, key accounts, and retail customers who want a comprehensive yet concise review of the benefits their municipal-owned electric utility provides to their local community.
Energy Resource Mix Reporting
Our annual Energy Resource Mix reports provide our Power Agency members with city-specific Scope 2 emissions information. These reports include energy resource mix percentages, CO2 emissions rates, and renewable energy for the North Carolina Clean Energy Portfolio Standard (NC CEPS).
Grid Technology Support, Project Management & Training
We help members evaluate, plan, and deploy smart grid solutions for electric, water, and gas utilities. Support options include project management, system monitoring, troubleshooting, and training.
Load Management Support & Training
We support various load management technology solutions for members. We can also help members implement, promote, and manage these solutions. Technologies include two-way residential load management switches, distributed generation controls, smart thermostats, and more.
Reliability Tracking & Assistance
Reliability is one of the many strengths of public power. Our members can use APPA’s eReliability Tracker program to track their outages and reliability. We offer this subscription-based service at no cost to our North Carolina member communities.
We also provide reliability education and annual reliability reporting and benchmarking.
We also provide reliability education and annual reliability reporting and benchmarking.
RP3 Collaboration
APPA’s Reliable Public Power Provider Program (RP3) recognizes utilities that excel in reliability, safety, workforce development, and system improvement. We provide tools to collect information required for the application and assist members throughout the application process for this prestigious designation.
Clean Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard Compliance & Management
ElectriCities develops and executes the strategies necessary for NCEMPA and NCMPA1 to efficiently achieve and maintain compliance with North Carolina’s Clean Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (CEPS). Services include providing technical and economic analyses related to procuring renewable energy certificates (RECs), tracking and reporting compliance status, providing budget projections, responding to data requests, and managing relationships with the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) and the Public Staff of the NCUC.
Retail Billing Assessments & Process Consulting
A Retail Billing Assessment (RBA) is a high-impact, detailed analysis of a utility’s billing systems and processes. This service identifies sources of billing irregularities, system losses, and unbilled revenues and provides recommendations to increase billing accuracy, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction. These assessments are especially helpful for cleaning billing data prior to a system upgrade or migration. Learn how an RBA helped one small utility uncover over $100,000 in unbilled revenues here and how another RBA identified the root cause of demand charges being underbilled by a factor of 100 following AMI deployment here.
Statewide Outage Map
The ElectriCities Outage Map is a vital tool during major weather events, enhancing communication with customers and coordinating mutual aid through the ElectriCities Mutual Aid Program. North Carolina’s State Emergency Response Team (SERT) uses it, and it feeds into the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s (NCDPS) statewide outage map, ensuring comprehensive coverage and response.
Our map offers seamless integration options for members with an Outage Management System (OMS), enabling automatic outage reporting. For those without an OMS, we support manual reporting. Additionally, members can participate in the Outage Data Initiative Nationwide (ODIN) using the ElectriCities Outage Map without requiring direct integration, ensuring flexibility and ease of use for all participants.
Our map offers seamless integration options for members with an Outage Management System (OMS), enabling automatic outage reporting. For those without an OMS, we support manual reporting. Additionally, members can participate in the Outage Data Initiative Nationwide (ODIN) using the ElectriCities Outage Map without requiring direct integration, ensuring flexibility and ease of use for all participants.
Technology Partner Liaison
Through continual research, assessment, collaboration, and active networking, the Grid Innovation and Technology Services team fosters strong partnerships with strategic allies who can effectively meet the technological and service needs of ElectriCities’ members. The Grid Innovation team advocates collectively on behalf of all members to drive advancements in technology and service quality. User groups, pilot programs, product demonstrations, and other collaborative efforts aim to optimize user experience and service delivery. These partnerships often result in significant discounts or additional complimentary services for members.
Utility Billing/System Best Practices & Consulting
We have partnered with best-in-class vendors who provide member utilities cloud-based utility billing and financial systems at a discount, along with technical and implementation support. Their cloud-hosted model enables member utilities to minimize infrastructure costs and project risks while maximizing system availability. We also share best practices for utility billing/ERP system implementations.
Reach out to us if you need assistance with any of the following projects. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, contact us and we’ll collaborate to help ensure success.
Reach out to us if you need assistance with any of the following projects. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, contact us and we’ll collaborate to help ensure success.
- Outsource bill & mail
- Implement prepay
- Deploy/expand electronic billing
- Business process review
- Evaluation of vendor capabilities
Additional Capabilities
- GIS solution evaluation & optimization
- Drones/Unmanned aerial systems
Retail Customer Surveys
The annual Retail Customer Survey provides valuable information for our member utilities. Since 2017, we’ve partnered with member communities to survey their customers and find out how they feel about the service they receive from their electric utility provider. The Retail Customer Survey helps our member utilities:
- Gauge residential and commercial/industrial customer satisfaction levels.
- Understand customer preferences for programs, services, communication and trends for emerging topics.
- Identify customer concerns and priorities.
- Establish benchmarks and gauge performance compared to other utilities in North Carolina.
The survey is a key component of our plan to strengthen public power and provide customer-centered innovation.
Looking for more information about how your community can participate?
I cannot say enough about the support from the ElectriCities CIS Team and how they work with us if and when there is an upgrade, maintenance or just a simple question. There is always someone available to assist us, and that means a lot.
Judy Redwine, Director of Public Utilities
Albemarle, North Carolina