The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) today announced the recipients of the 2025 Best Practices Awards at the 2025 Consumer Symposium, a one-day forum on the consumer-focused energy transition that is held each year as part of DISTRIBUTECH, the premier annual event for transmission and distribution.

SECC’s Best Practices Awards – now in their eighth year – recognize leadership from electricity providers in the U.S. and Canada in the transition to a smarter, more consumer-focused energy ecosystem. The awards highlight programs, technologies and strategies that have proven to deliver significant benefits for residential and/or small business utility customers.

Selected by an independent advisory panel of industry veterans, the 2025 winners are:

• Arizona Public Service (APS) has been honored with the Smart Energy Innovation Award for developing a virtual power plant (VPP) that is helping maintain grid reliability and resiliency during extreme weather conditions.
• Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC) has been honored with the Culture Transformation Award for upgrading its payment operations to a digital-forward system, transforming the cooperative’s relationship with its members in the process.
• Cobb EMC has been honored with the Consumer Engagement Award for reimagining customer communications in a manner that boosted program enrollment for paperless billing, autopay, energy efficiency incentives, HVAC tune-up rebates and more.
• American Electric Power (AEP) has been honored with the Energy Equity Award for harnessing the power of predictive analytics and behavioral science to ease the energy burden for many low- and moderate-income customers.
• Evergy has been honored with the Consumer Education Award for developing and launching a multi-channel and multi-tool education campaign that eased the transition to time-of-use rates.
• Dominion Energy South Carolina has been honored with the SMB Engagement Award for creating a comprehensive energy efficiency program that provides financial assistance, educates business owners and ensures high-quality implementation.

“Innovation is essential to meeting customer needs amid the energy transition,” said SECC’s President & CEO Nathan Shannon. “This year’s six winners showcase the innovative ways that electricity providers are helping consumers and small businesses address the challenges they are facing and meet their energy goals. We hope these inspiring examples will encourage further customer-focused innovation in the industry.”

Past winners of SECC’s Best Practices Awards include Xcel Energy, SMUD, CPS Energy, Con Edison, Consumers Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority, ComEd, National Grid, Puget Sound Energy and Austin Energy. This year, Evergy and Dominion Energy South Carolina joined a limited group of multiple-time recipients of the Best Practices Awards.

More information on the winners and runners-up for each category can be found in the 2025 Best Practices Guide. In addition, the six winners will be featured throughout the year in webinars, case studies and other content at www.smartenergycc.org.