These are exciting times in the energy industry. The transition to a sustainable, clean, and distributed grid is underway worldwide. The positive drivers of the energy transition include political climate goals, enormous funding and investment opportunities, and the available technology to integrate buildings, renewables, batteries, controllable loads, and electric vehicles with the grid. All these drivers are aligned to accelerate the climate transition. Despite there being a nearly “perfect storm” for rapid change and dramatic climate-friendly energy solutions, we remain stuck. So, what is the problem?
While the drivers are clear, in the US, we still lack an exact blueprint for how a clean distributed energy business model could be implemented. The industry’s problem is as much of a business model challenge as it is a technical or policy challenge. How do we transition to a new, flexible and distributed, clean energy future from a business perspective?