Blockchain: The basis for disruptive innovation in the energy sector?

October 01, 2017 by Marius Buchmann in Research

The potential for an application of blockchain technology is one of the most discussed topics in the energy sector at the moment. Though blockchain technology is often described as a disruptive technology, we stress in this post that blockchain is a fundamental technology that provides the basis for new applications that in the future might become disruptive innovations in the energy sector.

Disruptive innovation in the energy sector – definition & application to renewables

September 15, 2017 by Marius Buchmann in Research

Disruptive innovations are supposed to destroy established business models in different markets. For the energy sector, the debate is heating up to which extend certain technologies (e.g. renewables or battery storage) & new digital applications (e.g. AI or blockchain) might disrupt the business case of energy utilities. With this post we provide a basis for this discussion. We built on the definition of disruptive innovation by Christensen and apply this theory to renewables to show that they are actually disruptive for the incumbent energy businesses.