It’s time for another quick round up of social media sightings in state utility commission decisions. For those unfamiliar with the round ups , I search terms like “social media,” Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in my LEXIS public utility commission data base to see how many times they’ve been mentioned. Since I started tracking back in 2009, social media related terms have risen from just a scant handful of 9 mentions to 21 in both 2011 and 2012. This year, I’ve found ten mentions to date – which is on track to match the previous two years.

Even more interesting, however, are the increasingly varied ways in which social media is getting attention. Once used almost exclusively for consumer education on green power and efficiency options, today, commissions are insisting on social media use by utilities for crisis communication and allowing utilities to employ it to communicate curtailment or to retain as contact information. The summaries below highlight some of the most interesting social media sighting in the past six months.

Social Media for Consumer Education

Utilities continue to employ social media for consumer education programs. Both Indiana Commission (2013 Ind. PUC LEXIS 119) and  Kentucky Commission  (2013 Ky. PUC LEXIS 181) approved utility proposals to promote energy efficiency programs through a variety of mechanisms, including social media. North Carolina Commission  2013 N.C. PUC LEXIS 369 allowed cost recovery for a program that incorporated social media to inform customers of the utility’s demand response programs. Finally, the California Commission  noted that it would consider funding for a consumer education program for a utility’s emergency curtailment program once the program was developed more fully. [click to continue…]

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