Understanding Residential Customer Support for – and Opposition to – Smart Grid Investments

Abstract

Consumer research data suggest that the industry needs to think about the challenge of communicating with residential customers about Smart Grid investments as less one of educating them about the promised downstream benefits than reassuring them on why they can and should trust the promises made to them by their utility on these issues. The latter task is the more difficult, but must be proactively addressed if residential customer opposition to Smart Grid investments is going to be appropriately managed.