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Treading on the path less traveled and resolving concerns that largely remain unaddressed are perhaps the reasons for the astounding success of many renowned enterprises. Bidgely, a California-based organization too chose a similar pathway when it observed that the utility sector had been deprived of the benefits assured by data analytics, unlike retail, healthcare, and several other industries. While in industries like e-commerce, organizations precisely target the audiences as per their preferences by analyzing past purchases and behaviors, and a lot more, utility companies often stick to the traditional ways wherein data analytics can be underutilized. These companies continue to send monthly bills with minimal details to the consumers rather than itemized power consumption, which can help in efficiently utilizing the resources and prevent wastage. “Beyond the personalization of the interaction with a customer, energy consumers don’t get the basic information that they expect from other modern services,” mentions Abhay Gupta, Founder & CEO, Bidgely, in a candid conversation.

Bidgely empowers utility firms with its energy disaggregation solutions and allows consumers to understand the patterns of their energy expenditure to identify the causes behind power bills. “The past decade witnessed a sharp increase in the installation of smart energy meters globally across dwellings. Our aim is to derive value from the data gathered by these smart meters and deliver insights to customers,” says Gupta.

The CEO’s words are a reflection of Bidgely’s organizational goals, which revolve around enabling utilities to be energy-efficient and importantly, satisfy their customers.

Delivering energy-efficient solutions has become quintessential for enterprises in today’s scenario to comply with regulatory standards and control the frequency of user complaints seeking explanations for their high bills. Gupta, an industry veteran observed that although there has been a significant increase in adoption of smart meters globally, there is still a large opportunity to derive useful insights from the data collected by smart meters.

Bidgely caters to more than 10 million homes across 12 nations, which speaks volumes about its abilities

Gupta recalls a grid management instance to define how vital the insights derived from smart meters prove to be in preventing excessive dissipation. Charging electric vehicles for longer durations often exploits power grids. Employment of Bidgely’s analytics dealt with such woes of several utility solution providers and enabled the end users to change their energy consumption behavior.

The fact that Bidgely filled this void by itemization of energy usage is a testament to the company’s uniqueness. The firm’s support has enabled the utility firms to provide itemized bills to their customers with details of energy consumed by each appliance in the home, providing details quite similar to monthly credit card statements. Additionally, consumers can be informed about their rate of energy consumption prior to bill generation as an expenditure reduction measure. The appliance or behavior responsible for the high bills can be accurately identified owing to itemization. These capabilities enable the utility companies to witness a significantly positive change in customer satisfaction and a drastic reduction in the number of bill queries. The company’s itemization solution also eliminates the need to invest in additional hardware of any kind, unlike several other vendors. “A vital fact that differentiates us from most competitors is that we possess a patent for energy disaggregation that helps identify appliances based on data patterns from meters already installed in the home,” Gupta adds.

To paint a comprehensive picture of Bidgely’s capabilities, he cites the company’s recent collaboration with NV Energy—a Nevada-based utility solution provider—which caters to the needs of millions of homes. NV Energy was looking to boost participation in their home energy survey program, which is a key avenue for customer engagement for the utility. By using Bidgely disaggregation services to pre-fill customer surveys with a home’s actual energy usage information, NV Energy customers were more apt to engage with the survey. NV Energy saw a dramatic uptick in their survey completion rates by improving the customer experience and personalizing the information.

The CEO states an additional example of thermostat usage to emphasize the benefits of the business analytics tools offered by Bidgely. Utilities can observe the air conditioner utilization behavior of its customers during typical summer afternoons to identify the consumers using their appliances the most and prevent exploitation of power grids.

The average time taken by Bidgely to deploy a solution is roughly three to five months. Comprehending clients’ requirements, data elicitation, and migrating data obtained from smart meters to the Bidgely Platform are the primary tasks conducted before the company delivers a turnkey solution customized to suit the utility brand’s requirements.

Bidgely is currently a trusted partner of around 25 highly reputed utility firms and caters to more than 10 million homes across 12 nations, which speaks volumes about its abilities. The company’s rapid growth in a short time span along with its innovative disaggregation solutions has helped it to fetch a recent capital round worth $27 Million. The firm is continually striving to enhance the capabilities of its products by effective utilization of the funds. Additionally, Bidgely intends to further establish its foothold across Europe and Japan in the months to come.