Energy companies have always been a critical part of our daily lives and the communities in which we live, but with the advancements in technologies and the ambitious goals to transform the sector that’s becoming even more the case. More people are installing solar panels, researching electric vehicles, and want to be active participants in their energy relationship, moving beyond the once-per-month billing exchange being the only interaction. As that happens, the community-facing aspects of the utility is becoming more mission critical, and that’s creating new and exciting opportunities in the utility workforce.
Recognizing this importance and how various power providers are moving at unique speeds to do so, our latest addition to the Energy Central Network of Experts is an exciting one. Eric BenSalah is an energy consultant at Omaha Public Power District, where he is tasked with educating community members about energy efficiency opportunities, providing information to classrooms and community events alike, and representing this important public-facing aspect of the utility of the future.
Because of the unique perspective he brings, we thought his participation as an expert in the Energy Efficiency Group would bring some refreshing insight, and to kick that off we’re eager to share some insights gained during him sitting down with us as a part of the New Expert Member Interview:
Matt Chester: Thanks for agreeing to be one of our experts, Eric. Can you give your background in the industry so our community better understands what went into you being established as an expert?
Eric BenSalah: I started out at OPPD, back in 2012, as a Part-Time Payment Specialist. All that means is I took payments from customers to pay their OPPD bill. After a few months of that, I started taking general billing questions to help with the queue in the Contact Center. Then I moved over to full-time. This meant I did everything for residential customer service work: billing questions, payment arrangements, start/stop/transfer service, outage inquires and more.
Fast forward a few years I moved over to the Business Solutions Center; essentially commercial customer service. This new role had the same duties as the residential side, but we also handled property managers and landlords. Additionally, that role had our Energy Advisor inbox since we no longer had a dedicated Energy Advisor at OPPD. With my background in HVAC (installs, replacements, troubleshooting, etc.), I took the lead answering any questions that came through the phone line or email inbox.
Fast forward another few years (now we’re at almost 7) and the new Product Development & Marketing Department was created and headed up by Heather Siebken (current Director). In this new department a new role was created: Energy Consultant. I was hired on for that role in December 2018 and have been there ever since. Since being hired as the Energy Consultant, I designed and adjusted the job and what it entailed along the way. I am technically a Product Manager, but also am an energy advisor for customers or, as I like to put it, an Energy Educator since I teach students as well.
In order to properly “productize” what I had in my mind as far as energy efficiency information, I revamped our energy efficiency information on the OPPD.com website at www.oppd.com/EE. This includes energy efficiency tips, information, How-To videos and more. In January of 2022, continuing on the road of externalizing information I had, the Energy Education Program for students 3rd through 5th grade was launched. That program teaches the different aspects of energy, energy efficiency, generation and more not only to students through classroom sessions I teach (as Mr. E), but also to the teachers in the community through Teacher Workshops. In 2023, that program expanded to middle schools and high schools. More information on that program is at www.oppd.com/EnergyEd.
In 2019 I completed the Energy Efficiency Management Certificate Program through the American Public Power Association and also studied building science and energy rating at the Southface Institute in Georiga.
MC: Your role in the industry, serving as the main source of utility educational outreach to both schools and the community at large, is a unique one. Why do you think OPPD benefits from having such a focus on education? What would you say to other utilities that are considering replicating it on their side?
EB: OPPD is dedicated to the future of energy and the future of our community. This dedication includes our current student-customers who may not be bill-paying customers, but they are customers of the service we provide, if not also the products. However, we can give the student-customer and the bill-paying customer all the fancy gadgets, tips and tricks on energy and energy efficiency, but without proper education, they’re just cool, fancy gadgets, tips and tricks.
OPPD’s passion to serve our customers extends beyond providing affordable, reliable and environmentally sensitive energy. It goes into the realm of teaching the customer, young and old, the who, what, where, when, why and how of it all. Think of it this way: I can give a student-customer or a bill-paying customer an LED light bulb and tell them it’ll reduce their energy if they replace an incandescent bulb with it. But, if I sit them down and teach them how that process works, where energy comes from, why it’s important financially and environmentally, they’ll be better prepared for the future. Better prepared to handle the complexities we face now and will certainly face in the future with energy generation, load management and demand reduction.
The benefit here is having a customer base – and their children who are, in fact our future – that is energy literate and understands that we don’t just flip a switch to turn on a power plant. Just that little bit of education goes a long way in better understanding each person’s role and effect when we turn on a light, or turn the thermostat down/up, or leave the water running while brushing our teeth. It also lends itself to energy efficiency programs, rebates and more that are more fully engaged with and supported when they understand WHY these things are important.
Lastly, in the education community, there are some incredible schools that talk directly about how electricity generation works or how important energy efficiency is, but a lot of schools don’t have that luxury. Providing that education not only in the energy efficiency realm, but in the renewable energy education realm, better prepares students for the future they are going to be paying for and participating in. It also creates a relationship between the utility, the education community and the future they both have a part in.
MC: What’s the most surprising or eye-opening part or surprising part about working with young people on how they think about and treat energy efficiency? Are there lessons the adults of the world can learn from kids?
EB: Kids absorb far more in a passive way than we think they do. In many of the thank you cards and letters I’ve received from different classes, the things the kids came up with that were memorable to them or that they liked often ended up being little nuanced things within the material I was teaching. It wasn’t always “I learned that wind turbines can turn to face the wind” or “I learned that the sun can help us create electricity with solar panels”. It would be things like “I learned that we have to keep trying to improve technology”, “I loved learning that the sun helps people without electricity cook food in a solar oven”, or “I now understand why we try to save energy”.
The kids absolutely love building things in class and love to showing that off to their parents. Kids tend to have no preconceived notions or expectations when learning about something like energy and even energy conservation. They just want to have an experience they’ll enjoy. I have found that that starting point – no preconceived notions – sets them up for success in the class and in the future. They don’t want to just be told something is, they what want to know WHY it is, HOW it is and more.
What is it: kids say the darndest things? They also ask them, too. I had a student at one point ask, “why do I need to know any of this?” (Re: a wind energy class) I told him that maybe it wasn’t so much about how to create a windmill or how wind energy works, but rather the troubleshooting that he had to do to get the windmill to work. Troubleshooting and problem-solving skills are almost as important as the material learned.
Without the opportunity to start teaching kids at an early age, the relationship between them and their utility as they age won’t really be there, or it’ll just be transactional. Which if that’s all you’re going for, then okay. But, if you really want to empower your community, improve and establish a relationship with the education community who has the biggest hand in our future, then putting yourself in the classroom with the students to help prepare them (and help the teachers out for that matter) is really the best way to go for the future.
MC: What do you think is necessary to get the adult members of a utility’s community more engaged and thoughtful when it comes to energy? What are the challenges to your job when it comes to reaching various groups?
EB: It’s the preconceived notions that become harder and harder to crack the older we get. Young students (elementary) come in with a fresh and open mind to nearly anything. It’s where the beauty of stories in book or movie form really take shape in their minds. But, as they get older – I mean, let’s face it: we were all students at one point and if we ask our parents how much we knew back then, they’d all answer “everything, apparently”. So, yeah, as they get older the idea that they already know everything starts to take shape. We do lose a little bit of that connection along the way.
The only way to really sort of break that cycle or break that mode of thinking is with hands-on, tangible material. We can all speak AT students and adults about these things, but putting those things in their hands to have them work it out changes their perspective. I’ve used things like a hand-crank to demonstrate how much more energy an incandescent bulb uses vs. an LED, or photovoltaic solar cells with a tone maker wired to it to show how shade, clouds, dust and the likes affect the amount of energy a solar panel can generate. If I just told them these things, they’re just words. If I show them and let them put the pieces together, it’s now THEIR words and THEIR experience.
Really, the challenges of the job sort of increase in scale as the audience gets older. There are still adults and older students that want to learn, that love the subject matter and want to have a fun experience. However, as we know, we can’t reach and inspire everyone, but we can always try. In my experience, hands-on activities, tangible information, and creating education that is interactive and in the form of discourse is the best way to engage those who might otherwise prefer to not really pay attention or engage.
Education is a conversation. In a way, like what Carl Sagan said about science being a way of thinking more than a body of knowledge, I see energy education the same way. It is far more about a way of thinking when it comes to energy, efficiency and conservation than it is just a box of facts to put in your brain. One is far more engaging than the other. One is having and the other is being.
MC: Why did you feel compelled to get more involved in the Energy Central Community? And what value do you hope to bring to your peers on the platform?
EB: As I said earlier, I want energy education to be more of a discourse than just a box full of information and facts to feed student- and bill-paying customers. In order to really learn and understand the body of knowledge that is energy education, conversations and questions must be asked and you need a community for that. I saw that sort of community in Energy Central. Experts from so many different areas of the utility industry coming together to share their insights, troubles, challenges and thoughts…it doesn’t get much better than that.
Someone asked me why philosophy was even necessary or “a thing”. To them, they felt it was just some high brows pontificating on subject matter that seemed to just go in circles. Philosophy isn’t about answering questions, it’s about learning to challenge the way we think and to do so, we must know what questions to ask. THIS is why communities like Energy Central are so important in the industry. Otherwise, we’re working in silos within silos, and I guess, in a way, Plato’s Cave.
I hope to bring my experience out “in the field” with students and adults alike to the Energy Central Community by sharing what they’re saying, what they’re thinking, how these engagements and classroom sessions go and maybe inspire others to get out into the community and start advocating for the education of our industry. We learn in a variety of ways and learning by doing is one of them. It seems like my role as an Energy Advisor to adults and Energy Educator to students is a somewhat rare one. Maybe those experiences will help others and their utilities see the value of taking care of their customers not just by giving them stuff, but by helping them understand, too. I’m not much for standing up top and telling others what to do, I’d just rather go down there and do it with them. Teach and engage from within.
MC: Any last words for our community members, or anything about you that you want them to know?
EB: I read a lot of different subjects, from astronomy to philosophy, from ancient history to psychology. I think we have a lot to learn about who we are, why we are the way we are and more from things other than JUST books on success, utilities, energy efficiency and product management. Those subjects are very important, but so is understanding the way we are as humans who engage with our utilities in various ways, some of which we don’t even realize. It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to do the work I do and create the programs I create at OPPD. I applaud and thank them for their passion to serve our customers the best way possible. The job affords me the chance to better understand the relationship a customer (which I am one, too) has with their utility bill, their utility and what they do about it.
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Thanks to Eric BenSalah for joining me for this interview and for providing a wealth of insights and expertise to the Energy Central Community. You can trust that Eric will be available for you to reach out and connect, ask questions, and more as an Energy Central member, so be sure to make him feel welcome when you see her across the platform.
The other expert interviews that we’ve completed in this series can be read here, and if you are interested in becoming an expert, you can reach out to me or you can apply here.