Peoples Natural Gas partnering with local startup to reduce energy insecurity
Pilot partnership with Peoples Energy Analytics uses data to identify customers at risk and encourage enrollment in support programs
Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility is joining forces with a local startup company to fight energy insecurity and enhance energy affordability.
Peoples Natural Gas (Peoples) entered into a pilot partnership with Peoples Energy Analytics (PEA) to better identify customers at high risk of defaulting on their payments, and use targeted outreach to increase enrollment among those customers in assistance programs that make bills more manageable. The pilot spans the 2024-25 winter heating season and is limited to Allegheny County.
“We believe every person who is eligible to participate in our assistance programs should benefit from them,” said Rita Black, Peoples Community Assistance Programs Director. “Collaborating with PEA has already helped us better identify individuals and areas in Allegheny County to target for additional outreach. We are excited to continue this work into 2025.”
Peoples Energy Analytics uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze factors like historic gas usage, billing data, and temperature levels to identify the customers who are most vulnerable to experiencing negative outcomes such as frozen pipes or falling behind on energy bills. PEA then works with Peoples to customize and target outreach for those vulnerable customers, both individually and to areas of Allegheny County with a higher clustering of at-risk customers. By enrolling more customers into Peoples’ Customer Assistance Program (CAP) and similar offerings, Peoples and PEA will improve affordability through lower monthly bills for these individuals.
“We are thrilled to be able to deploy our data algorithms to identify households that are struggling to afford their energy bills, and then connect them to assistance,” said Dr. Destenie Nock, CEO of PEA. “Peoples has proven itself to be an innovative and forward-thinking organization that understands the importance of gaining a deep understanding of its customer’s needs. We are honored that Peoples Natural Gas chose to engage in a multi-year agreement with us to tackle energy affordability challenges.”
Named one of Pittsburgh’s “Startups to Watch,” PEA grew out of research at Carnegie Mellon University, where Dr. Nock is a Professor of Engineering & Public Policy, and Civil & Environmental Engineering. Despite their similar names, Peoples and PEA are not affiliated with each other beyond this pilot.
Initial analysis by PEA identified several “hot spot” areas within Allegheny County, determined by high energy burdens (more than 10% of income used on energy bills), and households where the amount of gas used did not change consistently with variations in temperature. Using consistent levels of heat despite fluctuating temperatures can indicate a greater risk of pipes freezing or overall financial insecurity due to housing or appliance inefficiencies. Armed with these insights, Peoples is modifying its targeted and broad-based outreach approach to better reach those customers and help them apply for assistance through the Low-Income Housing Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) or enroll in CAP.
The pilot project between Peoples and PEA will continue through Spring 2025. While the federally funded LIHEAP has a fixed period for applications, Peoples and the Dollar Energy Fund accept eligible customers year-round. To learn more about Customer Assistance Programs, please visit peoples-gas.com/help or call 1-800-400-WARM (9276).