Evaluation of Data Access Authorization Methods using A/B Testing

This Demand Response Emerging Technology project examines the potential customer impact for methods of online customer acquisition involving energy services, and in particular compares and contrasts authentication and authorization flows embedded in an established method using PG&E’s Share My Data (SMD) service platform, against a hypothetical “Alternate Authorization” method, modeled after multi-factor authentication flow, but one that uses one-time passcode (OTP) only. The objective is to measure the potential impact on sentiment when the customer is acquired through the Alternative Authorization method instead of the existing SMD method. The results provide information about factors that can inform stakeholders of key issues when recommending actual data release platform feature sets.