NRG Counting Down to Launch of NRG Residential Solutions; NFL-branded Products and Smart Energy Products Coming?

NRG Energy has created a website counting down in real time the forthcoming launch of NRG Residential Solutions.

As of July 25, the website (www.nrgresidentialsolutions.com) indicates that there are about 20 days until the launch of NRG Residential Solutions, which is anticipated on August 15.

In Maryland, Reliant Energy Northeast LLC notified the PSC that it was adding the trade names NRG Residential Solutions and NRG Retail Solutions to its electric supplier license and operations in Maryland.

The following is purely speculation, but the new NRG brand may be a bundling of several existing Reliant/NRG efforts, such as time-based and smart energy products, with new offers such as distributed solar with storage. It may also serve as a vehicle for the new branding of electricity plans with NFL franchises.

What is known is that the HTML source code for the site nrgresidentialsolutions.com contains "meta" keywords such as:

• 2 cent Sundays

• Eagles electricity plan

• Giants electricity plan

• Jets electricity plan

• Patriots electricity plan

• Redskins electricity plan

• NFL electricity plan

• Cash back electricity plan

• Rewards electricity plan

• Design your own electricity plan

• Nest learning thermostat

• Learn Nest game

• New way to buy electricity

• Natural Gas

Other meta tags suggest a focus on the Northeast, particularly Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Meta keyword tags, which do not appear on the page as displayed, are intended to describe key content or topics of the page, and at one time were relied on by search engines in determining relevance of a page to a search (modern search engines have abandoned the use of meta keywords). While, as not appearing on the page, meta keywords do not indicate that any of these provisions will definitely be offered by NRG Residential Solutions, there is no reason to include them in the meta tags unless they were at least being considered.

NRG does have a series of partnerships or sponsorships, including the placement of solar generation, at facilities used by all of the NFL teams listed above in the meta keywords.

Many of the meta keywords describe products already offered by NRG retail businesses in Texas but which have not yet been offered in other markets, perhaps due to metering limitations. However, metering capabilities at PPL, and many of the Maryland, Delaware, and D.C. utilities, should now support a 2-cents Sundays plan, for example.

The keyword natural gas also stands out, as, today, NRG's retail businesses have focused on electricity. NRG CEO David Crane, however, has proposed bundling distributed renewable generation with distributed natural gas generation, as noted by Bloomberg

Additionally, the similarly named NRG Residential Solar Solutions provides a solar leasing program in Arizona, California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, with expansion plans into additional states.

As first reported by Forbes, NRG has also developed, "a solar electric system with energy storage for the residential market," which makes use of a pergola and a battery.