Residential U.S. electric consumers fall into five distinct segments that influence their willingness to participate in energy management programs, according to the SGCC’s Consumer Pulse and Market Segmentation Study, a national research project conducted for the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative.
Unlike other segmentation studies to date, SGCC’s Consumer Pulse and Market Segmentation Study is a nationally representative telephone survey that has been used to create a richer, more actionable segmentation framework. The study spent more than twenty minutes per phone call, delving deeply into beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and demographics. The results were then combined with specific energy data to create meaningful insight into consumer lifestyles, attitudes, values, motivations and communication preferences.
SGCC’s Consumer Pulse and Market Segmentation Study was conducted by telephone from August 15 to September 6, 2011. A national RDD (random digit dialed) landline and cell phone sample was used. To qualify, a respondent had to be over the age of 18 and a head of household. Targeted RDD sample was also used when needed to assure appropriate representation of key ethnic and age groups, and the data were weighted by age, ethnicity, gender and region to align with national population parameters. The margin of error for the total sample size of 1,200 is ± 3.2 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%.
