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Direct Energy Launches New Tool Providing Insights on Customer Usage, Predicted Energy Spend

April 17, 2015

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Copyright 2010-15 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

Direct Energy has unveiled "Direct Your Energy," a new online experience allowing Texas customers with smart meters to view their energy usage alongside weather patterns, as well as receive alerts when their energy usage spikes for any reason.

This first phase of the experience can now be seen online by Texas customers of both the Direct Energy and Bounce Energy brands when they log in to MyAccount, the online customer account tool where customers can manage their energy account, pay energy bills, track energy usage and get personalized insights, recommendations and offers.

"We are committed to providing the tools and information for customers to better understand and control their energy usage, so they can use less if they choose," said Manu Asthana, president of Direct Energy Residential. "We made a concentrated effort to present this data in ways that make sense to the customer. For example, a customer’s daily usage will now be translated into dollars and cents, rather than only in kilowatt-hours."

The new interactive online customer dashboard in MyAccount will have a weather overlay with a dynamic heat map calendar. Customers will see past, current and future predictive energy usage day by day according to the weather, with each day color coded to quickly identify usage patterns that will also have either one or three dollar symbols to indicate low or high usage. The date range can also be changed for customers to view patterns over various days, weeks or months.

The total bill amount will be displayed along with the highest, average and lowest cost day of energy use. These costs will also be color-coded in conjunction with the calendar. Customers are able to view energy usage details specific to a particular day by clicking on that day in the calendar, which may help the customer identify what may have contributed to a high or low energy use day.

Usage anomaly alerts will also be sent to the customer when their actual usage is considerably different than what was predicted given their historical usage patterns and weather conditions. These messages will be visible in the Alert portion of the dashboard, and a historical log of alerts will also be available. Direct Energy will also promote its services brands -- Mister Sparky, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, and One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating -- on MyAccount.

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