Suburban Birmingham
Todd Rath is Director of Marketing Services at Alabama Power.
With the support of the Dentons Smart Cities & Communities Think Tank, PUF chose to honor Austin, Columbus, San Antonio, Spokane and suburban Birmingham as the Fortnightly Smartest Communities 2019.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: What is your role?
Todd Rath: I am the Director of Marketing at Alabama Power. My job is to find and implement various programs to help our customers be able to use energy effectively and efficiently. Then we make that energy that they use match up with the things that make their lives better.
PUF: You've got this project for this new smart neighborhood. Tell us what it's about.
Todd Rath: This was an attempt by us to try to understand and take a snapshot of year 2040. We wanted to understand what the efficiency measures for homes would be like, what technology might look like, and then how customers would be interacting with their homes, energy, security, and entertainment systems in a way that's different from today. It would give us some insights as to where the market's going and how we're going to need to be ready to serve that market of the future.
PUF: How did you go about it?