Reliant Energy Providing Free Home Energy Monitors to 1,000 Low-Income Customers

June 3, 2011
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Reliant Energy announced that it is providing up to 1,000 free home energy monitors to Reliant low-income customers in Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth with provisioned smart meters, and announced several other assistance programs for high summer bills.

Reliant is not offering a blanket summer disconnect moratorium as it has in past years.

The home energy monitor is a wireless in-home display that communicates near real-time information, including current electricity usage and cost, comparison of daily usage and weekly usage data, and daily, weekly and monthly totals for the amount and cost of power used.

Matters first reported in January that Reliant would begin offering the home energy monitors sometime this year (1/6).

Low-income customers requesting a monitor must live in a single-family home in Houston or Dallas/Fort Worth and have a smart meter to receive a free home energy monitor. The monitors are available online and will also be offered through the Mayor's Citizens Assistance Office in Houston and Reliant's CARE agencies in Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Reliant reported that it is now serving more than 250,000 customers on at least one of over half a dozen different "eSense" products, which incorporate various capabilities from smart meters. The eSense products range from weekly usage summary emails and other information tools to formal pricing plans such as Time of Use. Reliant had previously reported serving 220,000 customers on the eSense products when reporting first quarter earnings (see 5/6).

Reliant Energy also announced several summer assistance programs for critical-care, chronic-condition, and qualified low-income residential customers, some of which are required by rule, including:

- Nearly $800,000 to assist low-income and elderly residential customers pay their electricity bills through CARE (Community Assistance from Reliant Energy)

- More than a dozen Beat the Heat Centers in Corpus Christi, Dallas and Houston to provide heat relief in high-need areas

- Deposit installment plans for qualified low-income residential customers

- Extensions and payment plans for qualified residential customers

- Dedicated agents to help customers who need social agency assistance

- Average billing to help manage bill payments during the hottest months of the year for qualified residential customers

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