Uplight Customer Connect (UCC) is a highlight for our utility customers, clean energy ecosystem partners, and the Uplight team. For our third annual event, we returned to the Rally Hotel in Denver for 2.5 days of discussion, collaboration, and fun. This year was even bigger with 52 attendees, more partners, and even an adjacent Developer Conference!
Luis D’Acosta kicked off the event, speaking about the need to shift our thinking from focusing on “our customers,” not “my customers,” and the importance of collaborating together to create a win-win-win for energy customers, utilities, and the clean energy ecosystem alike. By leveraging technology, data, insights, and extensibility, we can collectively enable customers to become active partners as we build a network of connected, optimized homes and businesses that work together to maximize value and impact on the grid.
The agenda was jam-packed with panels around meeting customers where they are, enabling rates as a tool for load flexibility, enhancing the EV customer experience via technology, integrating flexible control, barriers, and opportunities for home electrification, engaging small-to-medium businesses, and more.
We explored real-world problems in engaging customers across channels, helping them electrify (and manage the new load), and ensuring that the energy transition is equitable for all while admitting that our industry still has much to figure out.
Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenbrger, a former astronaut and geologist, inspired us all with her keynote which explored her journey to joining NASA, training to become an astronaut, and her work on the space station, drawing parallels between the space program and the energy transition. One of her learnings was mentioned by many attendees as a key takeaway, “Mission success is not mission perfection,” and “Followership is not being a passenger.”
Outside of sessions, we enjoyed terrarium making, the soulful voice of Dizarae Gold, a typical Denver night with a bluegrass band and local beer, and connecting with new and old acquaintances. Participants left energized to collaborate and innovate “to meet decarbonization targets and make our customers happy”–all while keeping “customers at the center of energy transition.” And the top word that everyone used to describe UCC this year was “engaging.”
