What is the state and future of the electric utility industry? That’s a broad topic, much discussed and debated. This special report takes a unique approach to getting a handle on our present and where we’re heading.
Editor-in-Chief Steve Mitnick conducted a roundtable interview with Navigant’s leading industry experts focusing on topics like renewables, distributed energy resources (DER), and how the Energy Cloud is transforming the industry and becoming a priority for C-level utility executives. Jan Vrins, Karin Corfee, Rob Wilhite, David O’Brien, Jay Paidipati, Mackinnon Lawrence, and Colette Lamontagne highlighted key changes utilities can expect in the future and how the evolving energy landscape will change business as usual for utility executives.
The report also presents findings from a PUF reader survey of 366 participants on the future of electricity.
Key findings from the survey include:
- Solar photovoltaic (PV) (70%), energy efficiency (42%), demand response (40%) and energy storage (39%), were named as the most prevalent DER solutions in terms of capacity by 2025.
- More than 90% of survey respondents believe that the growth of DER will force a major shift in utility business models.
- Almost 50% of industry respondents pointed to a supportive regulatory environment as the most important tipping point for moving aggressively into owning and operating DER.
- Almost 50% of the survey participants believe that by 2025 there will be five or more states to adopt a distribution-level system operator model.
- Over 80% of the respondents believes that residential and commercial customers’ demand for choice and control will change moderately (50%) or substantially (33%).
- Emerging customer engagement channels that will be most widely used to deliver value to customers are: apps (55%), behavioral & analytical demand-side management (38%) and integrated energy services platforms (37%).
- Survey findings point to an increasing threat of cyber-attacks, from more connectivity on both sides of the meter:
- 55% of the respondents expect there will be one or two cyber-attacks.
- 30% expect there will be several serious service disruptions in the coming years
Download the report below:
White Paper:
