New business models: All change

• Ref:
• Location:
• Type:
• Salary:
• Start Date:

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Let there be light

Fly Title: 

New business models

Rubric: 

The power industry’s main concern has always been supply. Now it is learning to manage demand

Main image: 

20150117_SRD005_0.jpg

THE BASIC MODEL of the electricity industry was to send high voltages over long distances to passive customers. Power stations were big and costly, built next to coal mines, ports, oil refineries or—for hydroelectric generation—reservoirs. Many of these places were a long way from the industrial and population centres that used the power. The companies’ main concern was to supply the juice, and particularly to meet peaks in demand. Most countries (and in America, regions) were energy islands, with little interconnection to other systems.
That model, though simple and profitable for utilities and generators, was costly for consumers (and sometimes taxpayers). But it is now changing to a “much more colourful picture”, says Michael Weinhold of Siemens, a big German …

Source: Utilities
New business models: All change