What is the largest opportunity in energy by 2020 and how to get your piece of it

You’re looking for the hottest trend. Newest product. Ways to wow and amaze your family and friends. You want to be a leader. A source of knowledge. An authority.

Little secret. You will be, as it relates to the energy business. But you’ll need to spend some time learning about the technology. The hardware. The software. The lifestyle of your clients.

Centralized power plants are fading. One look at the financial statements of utility companies shows very anemic growth. This is for a few critical reasons.

We are using less energy. This comes from the fact that we’ve encouraged manufacturers of all things energy consuming to get more efficient. It also came on the heels of $100 a barrel oil for a good chunk of time. This forced everyone to examine what they made and how to make it use less energy in every component we made.

We also use more solar. This is correlated to incentives and some areas around the globe encouraged more solar public policy adoption than others. Either way, it seeped into the hearts, minds and wallets of the energy consuming public at almost every sector from homes to businesses.

Just as we see the trend of cord cutters- people no longer subscribing to local cable TV and going to a Netflix or internet only habit, the same will slowly segue for power.

This means that people we all know will have the capability to self-create and self-manage all of their (or most of their) energy in their homes.

How?

Solar + storage will be one way. Storage prices continue their precipitous decline on a CAGR that impresses even the most conservative of observers. Companies like Tesla are leading the way and others are playing catch up. This is good for consumers, as more innovation will spawn more enthusiasm.

Energy arbitrage, anyone?

With the software and hardware in place, could energy markets open up for every prosumer? Could your clients make power on their roofs, store it and make money distributing the excess to the grid? Will utilities become the toll-booth operators of the future? Like Bitcoin, will a new currency be created to value and share home-made electrons?

Sending power miles and miles will be a thing of the past for smaller scale consumers. Industrial parks and corporate campuses will take longer to segue, but they’ll find a way. The issues of sighting new power plants and even potentially hazardous nuclear plants will be a distant memory.

Service businesses for you.

Now you’ll be servicing your clients in a unique way. Batteries will be delivered via pallet trucks with lift gates to people’s homes. Swapping them out will be like getting gasoline at the pump. Swipe the credit card, get your storage and the truck is gone. Your clients have fresh batteries for another 8 years.

This is an exciting future. One that helps all of us. Like farming, we all support each other locally. Locally grown power and the “energy silo’s” will resemble corn silos in Iowa today.

Big expenses updating the grid will become less as the organic way to make energy will reduce the need for this old business model and create a new paradigm.

The question remains- will you be a part of it?