‘The utility of the Future’ white paper copywriting, IFS. How can utility organizations leverage software to become united, smart and agile? Following an interview and research, I wrote this 4-page thought leadership executive summary outlining how utility organizations must adapt by applying operational visibility, an asset management strategy, and a service-centric mindset.
- COPY: Ian Castle, Freelance Copywriter
- CLIENT: IFS
‘Utility of the Future’ white paper copy sample, energy sector, IFS (US English)
[Excerpt]:
A CHANGING LANDSCAPE
DIVERSIFICATION: NEW OPPORTUNITIES, NEW BUSINESS MODELS
Energy companies need to diversify, or they will disappear. Renewable energy is now a reality that already makes up a significant portion of our energy supply. But as power generation companies diversify into renewable energy to compete, they face new business management challenges. To operate renewables alongside traditional methods of power generation, companies must embrace new business models. Many new challengers are entering the Transmission & Distribution market, and must deal with disruptive technology, distributed energy sources and changing consumer demands. While renewable energy sources grow, the lifetime of existing assets will be extended, requiring robust maintenance and monitoring to remain reliable and safe. Industry, as well as private households are increasingly looking to energy sources like solar panels and geothermal systems to supplement their primary energy supply, bypassing the traditional energy companies.
This “Behind–the–Meter” Generation and growth of distributed energy resources erodes the revenue of power generation and distribution companies. It also exposes a national or regional grid that is currently not designed to accommodate decentralized, renewable energy production. In response, utilities can diversify, selling and servicing Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) like solar panels directly to end consumers. Energy and utilities players are uniquely positioned to leverage their economies of scale: they have access to an established service workforce, which in turn supports more consumer choice, new payment plans to offset up-front costs, and faster service.
Consumers embracing self-generation offers can reduce energy costs (or monetize surplus energy sold back to the grid) while also dealing with a regulated and certified company. As utilities lose their monopoly of the grid, and more high value energy consumers switch to self-generation islands or microgrids, the utilities will need to introduce connection and operation fees to generate revenue and cover the cost of maintaining supplies to smaller last mile/occasional user customers. The duty of care remains unchanged: a utility must still provide enough power to sustain all of the connections that it has, regardless of whether energy is consumed or not. Increasingly, demand response agreement models to optimize green energy consumption and reduce ‘dirty’ generation in peak periods will filter down to consumers.