European utilities focus on regulated business models – a good strategy?

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The sudden decision that Peter Terium, the CEO of Innogy, will leave the company points at an ongoing struggle in the utility sector: The shift to regulated business models that are combined with retail businesses requires high capital investments and increases the vulnerability of the company against increasing competition and dropping margins in the retail sector. How will utilities adapt to this challenge? Will they make use of digitalization to increase their earnings from retail business? We discuss data from the IEA and results of a recent survey among European retailers to find some answers to these questions. 

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German Utilities struggle with digitalization – especially the retail sector

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Utilities in Germany and around the globe strive to become service-based energy providers to address the challenges arising from decentralization and digitalization. In this post we discuss two recent surveys that show two things: Utilities are struggling to enter the smart home market and their adaption of existing digital solutions is very slow. Especially the retail sector does not apply many digital solutions, even though retail is at the heart of a service-based utility. One response to these shortcomings by some utilities are digital attackers that are launched now in Germany to digitize retail business. Is this the right strategy?

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Blockchain in the energy sector: Institutional disruption?

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Blockchain is driving a lot of discussions in the energy sector lately. Let us suppose that the blockchain technology can overcome its current challenges and unlock its potential in the energy sector: Which institutional implications could we expect in a scenario where the blockchain becomes a standard tool in the energy sector? What happens with retail or network operation? How about regulation? These are the questions we try to address in this post. 

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