The energy market revolution and opening energy markets are creating new possibilities for the retail industry to complement their traditional offering with new, digital consumer-oriented services.
The energy market revolution and opening energy markets are creating new possibilities for the retail industry to complement their traditional offering with new, digital consumer-oriented services. According to several studies, the market already exists, and its value is expected to further develop to be several billion in Europe alone. With the new opportunities for retail businesses to create energy services, now is the right time to grab consumer market share using smart technologies.
Key to this transformation are Distributed Energy Services.
Your business already manages its energy consumption by optimising energy consumption in offices, stores, distribution centres and datacentres. To do it efficiently, you’re probably using, or at least moving towards using, energy from different sources and managing the system digitally based on data, analytics and IoT.
Why wouldn’t you expand the smartness of your system to your customers?
You can connect your customers to the same management circle. By offering them smart services, you can enhance your sustainable brand perception while achieving better customer retention and loyalty. Your consumer customers benefit from services that improve their quality of life and at the same time lower their energy bills.
The usual stumbling block for entering the services market has traditionally been the installation cost of equipment. If you wanted to offer smart services at the end-customer’s premises, such as energy management or home automation, the initial cost has been prohibitively high.
With smart energy management, you can turn the situation round, whether you’re a retail chain, telecom operator, bank or insurance company. In exchange for the cost benefit and comfort, your customers will be happy to control – or allow you to control – their energy consumption. You can draw energy from their electric vehicles, home batteries or solar panels, manage how and when their home appliances work and guide their energy usage to periods that fall outside of expensive peak periods.
You will, though, need a field service to implement the system. That is why you need to be prepared for an ecosystem-based operating model. Although this will give a slice of the pie to external actors, the gross benefit will still increase your earnings.
According to polls conducted in the Nordics, as many as 35 per cent of consumers would not only be willing to sign up, they would also invest up to €1,000 in a system like this in exchange for ease of use, lower energy bills, loyalty bonuses and the knowledge of taking concrete steps towards carbon neutrality.
In the spirit of “saving the planet”, energy management is an attractive option to the modern sustainability-conscious consumers. They will be happy to concretely participate in the energy market both as micro-generators and allowing their assets to be used as a virtual power plant.
Leveraging your existing customer base and customer commitment, you can engage your consumer customer, optimise energy trading, earn income from reserve markets through demand response and manage demand peaks, thereby potentially avoiding the purchase of expensive peak power.
You get a holistic, real-time overview of your operations, so you can see how to optimise them and generate new revenue streams. The initial investment in systems to be installed in consumers’ homes can be recovered through service fees, efficient energy management and decreasing customer churn. The growing numbers of electric vehicles increase the potential even further.
Saving energy and optimising its consumption are sustainability acts. Enabling active participation in the energy market by managing energy assets will help climate change even further and provide new revenue streams. The market is already there – and its potential is rising.
The earlier you realise the benefits of distributed energy potential to your business, the more you stand to gain.
TietoEVRY is the Nordic leader in energy optimisation as-a-service. Get in touch. Let’s together create a viable business case, activate your customers, act sustainably – and start earning.
For more information, download our white paper with more details.
Matti is an expert in energy management with a mission to save the world and turn energy management into sustainable business. Matti and his team help customers navigate the changing energy industry environment to optimize energy consumption, create virtual power plants (VPP) and contribute to the energy system. - Save the world and start earning.