According to a recent March 2021 Zpryme survey of national consumer attitudes and expectations, 42% of respondents were somewhat-to-extremely concerned with their utility’s ability to prevent long-term outages. Within this population, notable pockets of concern were noted.  Older respondents (55-65+) expressed concern with outage prevention and management. And, in a finding likely related to the February 2021 winter freeze and power outages, those living in the South revealed a higher level of concern than other regions of the country about prevention of long-term outages by their utility.

Although most respondents (75.5%) said they were unlikely to purchase a home power generator or solar power, differences emerged among those who were inclined to purchase them. Those who were in the 45-54 age group, as well as living in the Midwest, had the highest likelihood of purchasing a home power generator or solar power.

17.9% of respondents sought information about solar energy systems from their utility. Utilities will note some level of awareness by consumers, however modest at this stage, regarding solar, home generation and energy storage possibilities, and may choose to prepare their organizations for potential future requests for information and interconnection of these systems onto circuits.

To find out how to access the full report and review findings from the Zpryme’s Customer Storm Perceptions, and Solar and Home Generation Interests Benchmarking report, click here.