Joaquin Luque | Searcharxiv

arXiv2025

Customer Identification for Electricity Retailers Based on Monthly Demand Profiles by Activity Sectors and Locations

The increasing competition in the electric sector is challenging retail companies as they must assign its commercial efforts to attract the most profitable customers. Those are whose energy demand best fit certain target profiles, which usually depend on generation or cost policies. But, even when the demand profile is available, it is in an anonymous way, preventing its association to a particular client. In this paper, we explore a large dataset containing several millions of monthly demand profiles in Spain and use the available information about the associated economic sector and location for an indirect identification of the customers. The distance of the demand profile from the target is used to define a key performance indicator (KPI) which is used as the main driver of the proposed marketing strategy. The combined use of activity and location has been revealed as a powerful tool for indirect identification of customers, as 100,000 customers are uniquely identified, while about 300,000 clients are identifiable in small sets containing 10 or less consumers. To assess the proposed marketing strategy, it has been compared to the random attraction of new clients, showing a reduction of distance from the target of 40% for 10,000 new customers.

cs.CE↗

arXiv2024

The limits of progress in the digital era

The concept of progress clearly percolates the activities in science, technology, economy and society. It is a driving vector (probably the main vector) of our daily activity as researchers. The InThisGen initiative, proudly displayed in places across the University of Berkeley campus, and its headline lemma (what can we change in a single generation?) are clear exponents of the underlying assumption that progress is not only possible but also desirable. But about the concept of progress two major concerns arise. First of all, progress means some kind of going forward, that is a direction in a journey. But deciding the way in the route clearly implies that we are explicit or implicitly defining the goals, as individuals and as society. That is, the concept of progress has a set of underlying values. Additionally, the conceptual paradigm in scientific research (and probably in the whole spirit of our times) it is assuming some kind of endless progress. It is true that many technological innovations and their subsequent impact on society have found resistance, from Luddites to ecologist movements. But the last 150 years (the age of our university) have been witness of an enormous and general increase in knowledge, wealth and welfare, showing how progress can be sustained in the long-term and positively influence the human beings and the society. In this contribution will try to discuss these bounds, addressing the limits of materials, scientific knowledge and technological know-how. We will mainly focus on the limitations in technological knowledge in the software design, a key aspect of the digital era. Our main thesis, which will be addressed through the paper, is that there are intrinsic limits to technological knowledge and the concept of progress should take them into account.

cs.CY↗