Channel Partners: How Constellation Works with You to Meet Your Customers’ Needs

Article by Constellation

Constellation was awarded the 2018-2019 Supplier of the Year by The Energy Professionals Association (TEPA) at TEPA’s annual conference last fall. This award recognizes the TEPA member company with the most comprehensive, innovative and strategic vision for competitive electricity and natural gas markets.

Constellation’s energy professionals are continuously working to ensure that the business is regarded as more than just a fixed price, contract negotiation point.

“It’s about two-way communication,” Craig Wilson, vice president of inside sales and sales support, notes. “We’re in this together with the channel partners. When they call us, we want to engage in meaningful conversation, understand what their challenges are and what their customers need.”

These conversations start with a series of questions to determine what a channel partner, and more importantly, their customer is looking for so that we can effectively meet its energy and budgetary needs. For example, we might ask brokers and consultants:

 Is your customer’s challenge meeting sustainability goals?

• Constellation’s Efficiency Made Easy® (EME) offering gives customers the ability to fund energy conservation measures in support of their respective sustainability goals – without any upfront capital. The costs for retrofitted improvements – such as LED lighting upgrades, water and sewer conservation or building automation and analytics – are then paid for over time through the customer’s power or gas contract. Channel partners can utilize this solution to meet their customer’s need for facility updates and energy use reduction without requiring any upfront expenditures.

Is your customer’s challenge not having the time/resources to proactively manage its energy budget and risk?

For customers seeking electric power and hoping to manage load:

• Our Minimize Volatile Pricing (MVPe) solution systematically mitigates energy market and timing risk through an algorithm that buys smaller percentages of load at regularly scheduled intervals over a longer time horizon. The amount of each purchase is adjusted based upon market prices: when the market price is high, a smaller portion of their load is locked. Over time, this approach manages to the mean. By managing to the mean, channel partners can use this solution to help their customers find an energy strategy that helps mitigate risk without requiring them to time the market.

For natural gas customers:

• Our SmartPortfolio solution offers customers varying degrees of volatility protection to ensure they get the right level of budget certainty, volatility protection and risk tolerance for their business. Channel partners can use this solution to help customers find an energy strategy that helps mitigate risk without requiring them to time the market for natural gas procurement.

Is your customer’s challenge its access to renewable projects?

• Many customers may be looking to meet renewable energy goals through offsite sources. Channel partners can work with Constellation to consider whether a solution like Constellation Offsite Renewables (CORe) is right for them. Working together, CORe would provide customers access to utility-scale renewable energy projects, purchased as part of their power supply contract.

“We’re not comfortable with coloring inside the lines when it comes to offering new, sustainable products,” adds Wilson. “We understand that our customers and channel partners want options. That means we have to stay on the outside edge of technology and offer solutions they won’t find somewhere else.”

Constellation Technology Ventures (CTV) is another vehicle for forward-thinking solutions that meet the needs of customers and channel partners. CTV invests in venture stage energy technology companies that have the potential to develop new solutions for Exelon and its customers. The big picture? To engage with innovative startups that have the potential to unlock commercial growth opportunities that accelerate the transition to a clean energy future.

ChargePoint, one of the largest networks of charging stations for electric vehicle (EV) owners, is one of CTV’s portfolio companies. Companies who pursue this solution can brand themselves as green leaders, advancing sustainability, and attract new customers.

For more information on any of the energy solutions described above and how Constellation can help you and your customers meet their budgetary and energy goals, please contact your Constellation representative.

To learn more information about our relationship with channel partners, brokers, aggregators and consultants and to begin working with us, please visit our website.

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