When it comes to their expectations for their electricity providers and the management of their household electricity usage, today’s consumers exhibit a wide range of values, behaviors, concerns and interests.
With the “Consumer Pulse and Market Segmentation – Wave 9” research, which was released in August of this year, the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC) divided U.S. consumers over 18 years old who are responsible to paying their electric bills into four attitudinal segments: Turnkey Comfort, Tech-Cautious Savers, Curious and Capable, and Informed and Engaged.
Turnkey Comfort consumers largely want to be left alone by their providers and want utility programs or services to be easy and to improve their home comfort, as their name implies. At the other end of the spectrum, the Informed and Engaged make every effort to be more energy efficient at home, value sustainability and are an ideal segment for innovative pilot programs.
For the final paper in the Customer Insights Spotlight Series, which previously examined Gen Z and low-income consumers, we used the data from the latest “Consumer Pulse and Market Segmentation” research but posed a different question: “How do consumers’ electricity-related values and behaviors vary by the area they live in, i.e., an urban, suburban or rural area?”
In our final blog of 2025, we look at three key findings from the “Understanding the Impact of Geography on Consumer Values” paper that highlight the similarities and differences between energy consumers residing in rural, suburban and urban communities:
1. Consumers share much in common, especially on affordability.
Given the geographic differences between these regions and considering how these differences impact one's lifestyle, we surprisingly found significant commonalities among consumers as we explored their energy behaviors and attitudes. In particular, consumers share their priorities around affordability, concerns about rising prices, most common energy efficiency actions taken at home, preferred sources of energy efficiency information and more. About one-third of consumers in each geographic area stated that saving money on their electric bills is of the utmost importance and that electricity providers should prioritize keeping rates affordable. Consumers were also aligned on the importance of grid reliability and resiliency. When it comes to these big issues, geography makes only a modest impact on consumers.
2. Urban consumers lean more toward technology and sustainability.
While urban, suburban or rural dwellers share much in common, consumers in urban areas do tend to have stronger environmental attitudes, greater familiarity with and interest in technology (including smart home devices, AI and electric vehicles), and more frequent engagement with their electricity providers. Urban dwellers also rate their providers the highest on satisfaction, trust and reliability. While the differences are not as significant as those between the Turkey Comfort and Informed and Engaged segments noted above, these attributes can make urban consumers better candidates for some energy efficiency and clean energy programs when compared to rural and suburban consumers.
3. Suburban consumers are closely in line with the general population.
As suburbs are a blend of urban convenience with more space to spread out like in rural areas, it makes sense that suburban residents sit in the middle of the values and behaviors of urban and rural consumers. In fact, the new research shows that suburban dwellers represent a near-perfect mirror of the general population. While rural consumers over-index slightly in the Turnkey Comfort and Tech-Cautious Savers segments and urban consumers are more likely to fall into the Informed and Engaged segment, our segmentation models for suburban consumers and the U.S. general population are nearly identical.
While there are some nuanced differences between consumers in the three geographic regions – e.g., urban consumers are more likely to be interested in the environment, and rural consumers are slightly more concerned about rising costs – the new paper demonstrates that an attitudinal segmentation approach will be far more effective in reaching consumers with programs and communications than an approach based on geography. To learn more about SECC’s latest segmentation and our recommended steps for engaging each of the four new segments, read the “Consumer Pulse and Market Segmentation – Wave 9” report here.