Genesis Energy promises more choices for customers

Genesis Energy customers can access information about their energy usage online.

Albert Brantley, chief executive of Genesis Energy, explains why Genesis will be at the forefront of a new generation of energy companies.

PROMOTION: The energy industry, like every industry, is facing an exciting, rapidly evolving environment across multiple fronts. Some changes we can see, others are not so clear, but all will put pressure on traditional energy sector thinking. With advances resulting in more options, more information and more meaningful services for energy consumers, we believe the future is about enabling choice.

Many businesses are so focused on what is over the horizon, or on their own internal processes and systems, that they fail to lift their heads and look around to see what consumers are looking for in the here and now. It is not up to the energy sector to tell consumers what they should want, it's up to customers to decide and energy providers who don't deliver in the immediate future will easily miss the new entrant coming up behind them with a completely new and disruptive model. We at Genesis Energy are trying to get ahead of the curve, listening to what customers want over the next few years, and disrupting ourselves to deliver the best options.

The future of energy is about options. The cool stuff like electric cars, solar generation and battery storage are easy to talk about, and will absolutely be part of that future, but more important is the ability to provide energy options to customers. The hard stuff is making it easy for customers to use energy in ways that work in with how they live or run their businesses. It's about making sure that people have the options and tools they want now and into the future, delivered and integrated into ways that work for them.
The focus in the past was who could build the shiniest new power station, but now at Genesis Energy we spend a lot of time thinking about, and talking with, our customers. Asking the basics like how do they want to engage with us, where and when, how do you use energy, how they can practically save energy and what type of information do they want or need. What we do know is that time is precious and our challenge is to make engaging with Genesis Energy easy and valuable.

We see our role in the future as an enabler of smart, simple energy services. As an enabler, our aim is to provide the services and information, create options, partner with other like-minded businesses and technology providers, deliver what our home and business customers want or need, and then get out of their way.

We are transitioning Genesis Energy from being a company that has one way of providing energy that all customers must take or leave, to one that responds to differing needs. For example, the way we sell gas is changing. Instead of using gas for a month and then worrying about the bill, we now offer a range of fixed price packages that suit the varying lifestyle choices of our customers. It may sound obvious, and it is.

Technology is moving so quickly that home energy management systems that we and others trialled or introduced earlier this decade are already obsolete. With smart phones in every pocket everyone talks mobile apps, but apps are only great if they are useful. Using data from a smart meter, the Genesis Energy app provides hourly, daily and monthly electricity usage, estimates a customer's monthly bill based on the daily average usage, enables payment by credit card and even helps the customer to order a LPG bottle in a matter of seconds.

Plenty of generating power
Our industry has reached a point where New Zealand is now over-supplied with electricity generation capacity, and we, and our competitors, are now closing down ageing and expensive generating units. For example, we are planning to close the last two coal/gas fired generators at Huntly by December 2018.

To best give our customers options our future investment will be in the digital platforms needed to support new services. It will be in understanding how best to design and build small-scale distributed generation that suits the New Zealand environment and how we as consumers use that energy. It's about making sure we support whatever customers want to plug in, whether that is a car or a toaster.

So what have we learnt from listening to our customers? We learned that most customers are not interested in kilowatt hours or technical information about how hot water comes out the tap. We learned that consumers want easy solutions; they asked us for certainty, for ways to control their energy costs, and information on how they can change what they do to achieve these goals. They asked for options delivered through practical tools that give them choice, and for us to partner with those that could help deliver more. It is a challenge for all of us to keep up with rapid change and to deliver, and being a facilitator, not a handbrake, has to be the key mantra.

We also believe that it is important for us to not get too excited about some of the technology we see, nor to try to push undesired technology onto customers. Our job is to listen and understand the benefits customers could be getting from international developments and, where possible, bring these developments that can add real value to customers to New Zealand.

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