Those retail companies that are used to competing with small-scale, electricity or dual fuel retailers will face new competition from tech-enabled, large-customer-base entrants hungry to deploy scale investments through existing platforms to new users. Margin-selling retailing will largely cease and barriers to entry will rise, with new entry retailers facing pressure to lease digital platforms to compete effectively, and to gain customers from a higher relative cost platform. We’ll see the emergence of digitally enabled retailers that strive to reach a scale of five million customers, while managing wholesale risk through financial or physical integration with open-cycle, storage or baseload generation assets. The subsequent reduced need for capital expenditure will place pressure on current models for valuing these assets, and require utilities to investment more in the technologies and practices that will increase revenue and profit yield from the network.
This would allow for load flow management across the network and, in time, the disappearance of the peak. A new life and model for distribution systemsĭiscussions around household beyond-the-meter storage will soon be replaced by those around investment cases for storage within transformers and substations. Within 10 years, we’ll see different approaches to how these companies are valued, as they increasingly compete with – and are enabled by – battery storage. Networks will be the providers of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transportation between markets, as well as existing AC and connection asset technologies. An enhanced role for electricity networks Availability and pricing of gas will be an increasingly critical factor in determining electricity prices. Just as conventional generation competes on heat rates, placement of projects in good solar areas, and on conveniently dispatched parts of the grid will determine the winners from the losers. Large-scale storage enabled by short-term settlement in electricity wholesale markets will complement open-cycle gas turbines and better ramp rates for conventionals to meet peaks. While the fast pace of technology and consumer-led change makes it difficult to predict exactly how this new energy system will look, it’s clear that key factors shaping it include: A new paradigm for generationīaseload and peaking generation, with conventional and renewable generation augmented by storage and open-cycle gas generators, will manage the peak. The era of power-purchase-agreements (PPAs) for renewable developments, already endangered as the pipeline of permitted projects without funding grows, will be a thing of the past.
#TECH UTILITIES 2.0 SERIES#
These investments, often in the form of series A and B funding, demonstrate a repositioning of utilities – and the entrance of newcomers – in readiness for a new energy system.
These assets remain in high demand by investors seeking long-term, stable returns.īut beneath the megadeals, an emergence of smaller energy investments signal a new direction for the sector. In power and utilities, multi-billion deals dominate the headlines, with 2017’s transactions focused on big-ticket networks sales (US$100.3b of a total US$200.2b). It’s often said that if you want to know how a sector is moving, follow the money.
Transactional activity still dominated by network deals. In energy system 2.0, changing conditions are reshaping the value of assets and creating complex conditions for investment.