Utilities Innovating Globally: Europe's Lessons Learned

Deck: 

Valuable Hints for U.S. Energy Landscape

Fortnightly Magazine - November 11, 2018
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The new normal in the European energy market is made by persisting economic volatility, excess capacity, falling demand, and pressure on profits. Energy systems are becoming cleaner and increasingly decentralized, with energy generated, stored and distributed closer to the final customers. Consumer expectations are changing too, with decentralization of value, and need for increased distributed energy resource integration. Digitalization allows customers and electricity system operators to control where, when and how electricity is being used, with new business models emerging. Finally, new and more energy uses are going to be electrified with mobility being one of the critical ones.

Utilities are in the midst of this transformation and depending on the level they embrace the pace of this change, the issues the power industry are facing today can become either threats or opportunities.

If we take a closer look to what's happening in Europe, the competitive landscape has already changed, and the market has made first "casualties," while pressure on existing utilities has risen. This brings the first lessons learned from Europe: the power market is no longer the calm, regulated and long-term investment business which we were used to just a decade ago or less.

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