In December 2021, the UBM team published a report synthesizing the learnings from the eleven UBM webcast sessions that took place between October 2020 and 2021. The report is available for download from the EPRI.com website now!
This Consortium is pleased to invite you to a utility focused working group on industry-related topics of strategic importance, designed to provide participants with a chance to forward their own thinking and their companies in relation to evolving electric-power sector best practices, in a forum designed for learning, sharing, Q&A, and networking with strategists around the country. Welcome.
What are Utility Business Models?
Electricity is big business. Investor-owned, public power, and member-owned cooperatives electric utilities account for more than $397 billion in annual retail sales, and total investments in the U.S. energy sector top out at about $350 billion.
In a little less than 150 years, electric utilities ascended to one of the largest industries in the world, and their services have become essential to their communities. Maximization of a societal good (electricity) suggested that to serve the most citizens, given the very high cost of capital investment required, electric companies should be the single seller of electricity in respective markets – in effect, a monopoly. So, the utility business model was born of an electric company’s obligation to serve every customer in its market in return for a fair rate of return on its investments and for its operating expenses via regulated rates.
This investment model is being modernized to accommodate sources of cheaper, safer, and more reliable power, coupled with incentives for competitive performance. Utilities are partnering with energy innovators to accelerate competitive engagement with distributed energy resources; non-wire alternatives; wind, solar, and hydrogen coupled with economic battery storage systems; digitalization; and a tangible appetite for removing policy barriers for these new technologies. The questions naturally become - how might this alter the regulatory construct? Are there ways to influence the outcomes through creative business models for revenue and return on investment? How might utilities scale the grid modernization pilots they have in place? What rates and services accelerate getting to scale?
As sponsors of energy innovation through research, content development, and active engagement with energy incubators and innovation firms, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Gridwise Alliance, and Grid Forward, (The Working Group Collaborative), invites you to join the Utility Business Model Working Group. This is a forum for utility leaders to learn, share best practices, and network with peers across the country on industry-related topics of strategic importance. The discussions will revolve around platform models for funding solutions and/or expanded opportunities with performance-based structures. Discussions can be applicable across a number of energy market structures and utility ownership models.
Monthly, virtual sessions will be held to present and discuss important energy innovations that have demonstrated success in integrating new technology into utility operational processes, planning and designing a model for prudent investment, enabling revenue generating or cost mitigation strategies, and meeting or influencing policy directives for new utility constructs. For 2021, the Working Group Collaborative is planning the following themes:
2021 THEMES
- Utility Engagement with Smart Communities
- Monetization Strategies for Customer DER Solutions
- Utility Program Design, Energy-As-A Service, and Commercialization Opportunities
- Utility Business Models for Carbon Reduction Strategies
