Silicon Valley tech has transformed nearly every facet of our lives, but one of the most impactful shifts it’s brought to bear? Disruption as a norm.
We now have a well-trodden path of manufacturing necessary disruption across industries: mix one part startup platform with one part stale industry, and there you have it—a new model for an old business. Uber for pet sitting? Rover. Notion for shipping logistics? Flexport. The list goes on.
What would happen if we gave energy the same treatment? Could we use these successful Silicon Valley startups as corollaries for shaking up the boring ol’ energy sector?
It’s not beyond reality: Plenty of utilities are publicly thinking about making payments more seamless or integrating AI-backed chatbots to give customers what they now expect in every aspect of their lives: convenience, digitalization, customization, and automation.
So here are my 8 ideas for inspiring utility innovation of the future. And I’m also taking a page from my PoliSci 101 Professor almost 20 years ago: When Larry Sabato wrote “A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country” he highlighted that those proposals weren’t necessarily ones he thought would work in practice, but rather were thought experiments to get us that much closer to the ideal.
Now…let’s get into it ➡️
1. Amazon for Energy Rate Structures
Amazon might not be perfect, but it did get consumers accustomed to instantaneous results following just a few taps on their phone. What if utility customers could make instant changes to upcoming rate structures to optimize for their plans in the same way? Someone expecting to travel a lot in the coming week could shift to a Time-of-Use rate that will result in a lower bill. Households having company for a few days could buy into a flat rate that could be advantageous.
If you could press a few buttons on your smart phone and see this automatically change, wouldn’t you? And if more accurate data about expected power use could help the utility plan ahead, could the resultant savings be passed to those responsive customers?
2. Airbnb for Distributed Energy Assets
For plenty of households, the prospect of solar panels and batteries allowing you to generate and store your own power sounds appealing (especially with rising rates). But not all customers have the capital or credit to take on initial installation costs.
Already, some companies allow cash-strapped customers to “lease” the equipment on their rooftop so they get (a portion of) utility bill savings without the high upfront costs. But what if you took that a step further into the Airbnb model: put your rooftop on the market for people who are interested in solar energy but don’t have the rooftop to do so themselves (e.g., renters). Think of it like a matchmaking marketplace, connecting rooftop space with would-be solar punks and splitting costs and savings based on the rooftop owners’ preferences.
3. OpenTable for Power Consumption
Let’s say you’re hosting an outdoor concert at your home. You know it’ll be power intensive, but you don’t want to 1) strain the local grid or 2) get charged an arm and a leg for doing so.
What if, instead of just plugging in and letting the grid deal with the repercussions, you could turn to an OpenTable-style reservation app and see a schedule of current days/times with low expected demand? Set your reservation for your demand spike in the app in exchange for discounted rates, and send an early signal to the grid that it will need some extra planning (while sending other major consumers to a different day so your excess consumptions don’t overlap).
4. Uber Pool for Neighborhood Energy Use
Demand response already exists in some form for certain utility customers, whether that’s via Time-of-Use rates or alerts and incentives to reduce demand during peak consumption. But single customers responding to those signals is hard to predict. So, what’s the solution?
Let’s pool that demand reduction across an entire neighborhood. Users could sign up for an app that would send an alert when some demand reduction is needed. Utilities could set neighborhood-wide targets that, if hit, would trigger more significant compensation benefits than individuals might expect. By combining resources, social pressure, and collaboration (just think of the passive-aggressive posts on the Nextdoor app), demand response results could be amplified.
5. Patreon for Grid Upgrades
Using a Patreon-like fundraising tool, customers with big opinions on how utilities should deploy grid upgrades could contribute directly to the type of investment they want to see in their local energy systems.
Tired of not seeing EV chargers at your local shopping center? Contribute funds to get them installed in exchange for cheaper access to those chargers. Want to see your utility invest more in solar power? Put up some of the initial funds for the panel installations and see a portion of that solar generation go towards offsetting your ultimate power bills.
6. Duolingo for Energy Literacy
Is there anyone who has started Duolingo to learn a new language who didn’t get addicted to keeping their daily streak going? Well, what if we applied that same type of gamification to customers’ understanding of energy?
Among the biggest challenges for power companies these days is storytelling, especially amid mainstream headlines that get folks riled up without truly understanding the bigger picture. Utilities can push back on that trend with a daily lesson on how the grid works, how energy is used in the home, etc. Not only will utilities have more informed customers, but they can also include energy saving advice that ultimately reduces demand. Perhaps users who reach a certain streak of engagement can receive free LEDs, bill reductions, or other benefits.
7. Bird Scooters for Energy Storage Distribution
Many micromobility companies use clever incentives to motivate users to redistribute their vehicles into more opportune landing spots where other users can and will pick them up, ready to ride. That’s the idea I’m chasing here, but with energy storage courtesy of electric vehicles (which are increasingly getting a reputation as mobile energy storage from utilities).
What if EV drivers had a tool to incentivize them to plug into some public-facing outlets to “deposit” V2G power during times when the local transformers risked overload?
8. Pokémon GO for Utility Assets
The summer of 2016 was a magical time for those of us who took to Pokémon GO to find magical creatures and check in at hotspots. Only later did many of us realize that this free app was utilizing our crowdsourced Millenial joy for Pikachu to optimize and update real-world digital mapping of locations.
Does it feel nefarious to learn that our data was being used in a way we didn’t understand at the time? Probably. Could utilities use a massive mobile force of gamified volunteers to take pictures and document its assets to trigger where transformers are damaged or rusted, vegetation is overhanging power lines, or other risks exist? Possibly.
Which of these sound feasible? Which are a bit too far out there to be taken seriously? Are there any that inspire adjacent ideas that may be actually worth workshopping? Even better, let’s further crowd source what this could mean with ideas that you have: share them in the comments below!