“Public utility new style”

Online platform with User-Generated Content

How can an electricity board upgrade its image from a inaccessible and official utility to a “public utility new style”. Eneco energy, one of the three largest energy suppliers in the Netherlands, enlisted the help of the fourth year Communication and Multimedia Design students to find a solution for the image-problem of the company. I happen to be one of those fourth year students and together with four other co-students I’ll try to pass this assignment, but maybe also to make a chance for the travel cheque of 300 euro’s per person Eneco gives for the best idea and presentation. A more concrete description of what Eneco wants: A platform on the Internet, arranged by user generated content, where the local society (Rotterdam) can experience “tangible and positive energy”.

Just a recently denationalised public utility
Like I said, Eneco is one of the three largest energy suppliers of the Netherlands. The other two in that top three are Essent and Nuon. The utility is denationalized, all tough the Dutch government still keeps an eye on her. 4700 people are joining the company as employees and they take care of the production, transport and delivery of electricity, gas, warmth, and accompanying services (measuring, managing, installing and invoicing) for 2 million business and household costumers.

Eneco mostly delivers her products in the west of the Netherlands (Rotterdam and environs), but also in the north (province of Friesland) and in the south (Weert).

Mission of the company:

“Eneco continually takes care of available, save and future-directed energy provision for business and private end users.
We strive for the recognition of our costumers, shareholders, co-workers and the society as a whole, as the best energy company of the Netherlands. Our goal is to make this ambition to come true, through in our acting always to be trustful, enterprising, professional and sympathetic.

Nice details: Eneco sponsors the largest cycle race in the Netherlands and the Dutch Clini Clowns. With the platform they had in mind and what the assignment is about, they also want to give users the chance to get a sponsorship for good initiatives.

Personal experience
I live near Rotterdam and I also get my energy and gas from Eneco and they always deliver so I am a satisfied costumer. What is maybe a bit misleading or at least not so decent is the description on the site of their two sorts of tax-measuring: A costumer can choose always to pay the same price for what they use (single tax reader, the “standard tariff”) or pay less in the evenings (after 23.00) and more (than the standard tariff) in the evening, this is called the “double tax reader”. So when you use a lot of energy durig the night its profitable to choose for the double tax reader On the site it says that with the double tax reader, during the day, you pay the standard tariff (that you also pay when you have the single tax reader), but that’s not true: You pay much more! This probably is not so shocking information and just a little detail but i thought it was remarkable …

 

Up next: Bridging the gap: more about the assignment, who are the costumers of Eneco and what do they want……