Comcast has expanded its partnership with Toronto-based utility Crius Energy LLC and will now jointly license their collaborative energy product to utility providers across the U.S.
“This is a white label version of the energy program we started working on with Crius Energy in 2015 in several energy-choice states to provide customers with alternative energy supply solutions and various rewards,” Comcast spokeswoman Jenni Moyer told FierceCable this morning. “Crius is the energy supplier and will use this platform to work with other service providers.”
Comcast and Crius jointly created a private energy label in 2014 in which they sold solar, natural gas and other energy products to Comcast customers in Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Jersey. Customers who signed up for the services received a $20 prepaid Visa card, as well as free movie tickets and three months of bill-free HBO, Showtime or Cinemax.
"We have seen a growing number of Comcast customers benefit from the value provided by energy choice through bundled service solutions, and we are excited to expand our reach by welcoming new partners who can help bring this value to more customers across the nation," said Michael Fallquist, CEO of Crius Energy and Crius Energy Trust, in a statement.
The move into residential energy comes as Comcast steadily builds its home automation business, which is partly focused around energy management.
Comcast has been working with other energy companies, including Commonwealth Edison, which several years ago tied an initiative to control “load” on its electrical grid to the MSO’s home automation push to sell Nest Labs thermostats.
“We essentially turned over the marketing and the direct-to-customer proposition to companies we believe are probably better at making that pitch to the customers than we are," Val Jensen, senior VP of customer operations at ComEd, told Utility Dive in 2015.