A Handshake at the Meter

The energy industry from US and the international markets descended on Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, for GTM’s GridEdge Live conference last week. The utilities and Independent Power Producers were outnumbered by some multiple by an impressive array of advanced power electronics manufacturers, forecasting, control and aggregation suppliers (IoT), system integrators, storage financiers, solar installers, connected-home players, and entrepreneurs, analysts and energy consultants. With cumulatively thousands of years of energy experience in the room, and with the energy industry literally in their hands, this conference generated a dynamic snapshot of the energy industry in 2015, an industry experiencing rapid, awesome growth alongside complex hurdles and challenges.

The name “Grid Edge’ seemed to have been an intended industry defection from previous terms such as ‘Utility of the future’ or ‘Utility 2.0.’ The name “Grid Edge” actually introduces an idea that goes far beyond retrofitting a “modern grid.” Rather, the edge is a thrilling, rapidly-developing two-way interaction between existing energy producers and consumers, combining existing infrastructures and new technologies. This ‘grid edge’ is an exciting new engagement between utility and the customer, aided by incredibly smart market technologies – technologies that are so disruptive that they enable radical efficiencies and a total reconfiguration of the way energy is produced, bought and sold.

At the many panel discussions, the state of the electricity market, US and International, was compared with many other industries. The energy markets apparently shares basic fundamental principles with data networking according to CODA CEO Paul Detering, its pricing structure resembles the telecommunications industry of yester-year, and its technological landscape looks like a crazy mashup between the Android market’s “spaghetti” structure, and Apple’s tighter linear landscape.

In my next post, I will review some thoughts by the captains, leaders and disrupters of the energy industry, discussing some energy players who attended, and some that didn’t, the DoE’s message, as well as some of the challenges and opportunities which emerged at what must be one of the leading energy industry conferences of the year.