New business models in the electricity sector

In the third decade of the twenty-first century, the electricity sector is facing new dramatic changes that must be supported by new business models. Two of them are key for understanding current transformations. A first model secures ex ante investments into fixed-cost generation assets with guaranteed long-term revenue streams. It is typical of generation from renewable energy sources, be they wind or solar, onshore or offshore. A second model is built with the asset-light approach typical of the digitalization era. It favours particular product characteristics for specially targeted customers. It has many variants: aggregators as new intermediaries; digital platforms bypassing intermediaries; peer-to-peer direct exchange as with blockchain; fleets of consumption, generation and storage devices managed “behind the meter”, as mini-grids or off grid. Between these two, transmission and distribution grids will have to reinvent, as much as regulation will permit, to create efficient loops of interaction with their active users