Apogee Interactive Presents 2012 ACE Awards to Top Performing Utilities At INNOVATIONS--19th Annual User Group Meeting

ATLANTA, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- APOGEE Interactive Inc., an industry-leading provider of online solutions to over 650 energy utilities, is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 ACE Awards.  Eleven recipients will be honored at Apogee's upcoming INNOVATIONS Conference—Apogee's 19^th Annual User Group Meeting, on October 1^st in Denver and on October 9^th in San Diego.

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Apogee CEO Susan Gilbert recognized these top performing utilities for their outstanding service to their customers. "It's my great pleasure each year to review the innovation and creativity of our utility clients and recognize them for stepping up, pushing the envelope, taking risks, and trying new things all in the interest of better serving their customers." 

This year Apogee recognizes Con Edison, NSTAR, SRP, AEP – Oklahoma, and SMUD for their marketing efforts that successfully increased customer engagement and participation in their energy efficiency programs.

These include ConEd's Green Team Program that featured a series of engaging online videos and other integrated marketing tactics resulting in more than 65,000 visitors to the online applications. NSTAR's Vampire Calculator received more than 700 calculations bringing customer awareness to phantom load and distributing rebates for hundreds of power strips. SRP's success with email marketing has resulted in 1,000 customers reviewing the Home Energy Analyzer in one day. AEP – Oklahoma has successfully increased traffic to their Online Energy Checkup by five times their baseline traffic. In addition, SMUD has engaged 844 customers with the Electric Vehicle Calculator since February of 2012 and 177 customers have learned about phantom load with the Vampire Calculator in just one month.

In the category of Energy Conservation Education, Apogee recognizes Entergy and PSEG.  Entergy has increased traffic to their Home Energy Calculator by 39%, and of those visitors 55% completed the online home energy audit. Entergy's increase in traffic is attributed to online do-it-yourself videos showing customers how to save money. PSEG's online Home Energy Toolkit has resulted in over 21,000 customers accessing the home energy calculator this year, resulting in almost 16,000 completions, an impressive 70% completion rate.

In the category of Innovations, Apogee presents the ACE awards to:  Georgia Power, PECO, Prince George Electric Cooperative, and Flint Energies.

Apogee's ACE award acknowledges Georgia Power's instrumental role in the field testing and development of the iPad energy audit. PECO is recognized for their implementation of ProgressInsights™, Apogee's software that allows customers to track their energy use and progress in their energy efficiency efforts. Prince George Electric is recognized for their efforts in pioneering the implementation of NISC's billing platform with Apogee's billing integrated tools. Prince George EC has paved the way for ODEC members to have access to the most accurate energy analysis tools in the industry.  This year Flint Energies has helped pioneer the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Interactive Text Response (ITR) system that answers customer's energy questions through voice and text messaging, incorporating personal bill data. This system, new to Flint as of August 2012, has served 132 callers.

First presented in 2006, the Apogee Customer Excellence Award (ACE) was created to recognize top energy utilities for excellence in engaging, educating, and empowering customers to make wise energy choices. 

APOGEE Interactive Inc. (www.apogee.net) is a leading provider of online energy efficiency solutions to the utility industry. Founded in 1993, APOGEE's energy analysis applications are currently in use by more than 650 utilities across the US, reaching millions of consumers daily. APOGEE's clients span a wide range of leading investor-owned, public power and cooperative energy companies including Marietta Power & Water, Southern Company (SO), Jackson EMC, Cobb EMC, NOVEC, Con Edison (ED), BGE (CEG), NSTAR (NST), American Electric Power (AEP), Entergy (ETR), PSEG (PEG),SMUD, TVA, and Salt River Project.

SOURCE APOGEE Interactive Inc.