Toronto: The Electricity Distributors Association (EDA) and its member local distribution companies announced the launch May 10 of a new Ontario Electricity Customer Panel.
The initiative is a first-ever online opinion panel exclusively drawn from electricity customers in the province who have agreed to participate. The goal is to establish an online community so electricity customers can express their opinions on such public policies as pricing, conservation and local power generation.
“We know that customers use social media to voice opinions,” said Vinay Sharma, Chair of the EDA Board of Directors and President and CEO of London Hydro. “With the launch of the Ontario Electricity Customer Panel, for the first time in its history the electricity distribution sector will now have a means by which to gain a substantial sample size of data on customer opinions that may be of value to energy policy decision makers.”
Participants in the Ontario Electricity Customer Panel will be recruited from across the province. Initially the EDA hopes to recruit six hundred participants and grow that number to up to two thousand over the next year.
Mr. Sharma said, “This online customer panel enables in-depth discussions and information sharing with electricity customers. And, by sustaining these conversations over longer periods, we hope to see trends in how opinions shift in response to current events and policy changes.”
Electricity customers who are interested in participating in the panel can go to www.YourVoiceHasPower.com for more information and fill out a short questionnaire.