Executive Energy Forum: Insights on the Future of Energy
3 min readOn September 16, Constellation hosted its first Executive Energy Forum (EEF) virtual conference of 2020, where energy industry experts gathered online to inspire and inform energy managers, focusing on market trends and technologies that impact customer energy strategies.
The Forum included:
- An economic update from Ed Fortunato, Chief Economist at Exelon, who discussed COVID-era trends driving behaviors in the energy market;
- A panel of senior business development managers who shared goals and strategies that businesses are developing to improve their environmental, social and governance metrics and how Constellation has partnered to offer relevant solutions; and
- A keynote presentation from Andy Karsner, Senior Strategist & Space Cowboy, Google X, who talked about pathways from our current energy grid to a system that provides efficient and profitable operations in the information age.
In this blog post, we focus on three insights that inform the future of the energy industry.
Ed Fortunato discussed the effects of emerging technologies on the energy market.
1.) Companies at the forefront of technology that support wind, solar, batteries and hydrogen are being rewarded.
Technology in business is accelerating – like participating in virtual conferences – and energy is no exception. Companies with a focus on technologies around wind, solar, batteries and hydrogen are quickly coming on the energy market scene, at the same time, we’re seeing a devaluation of major oil companies.
Automotive companies and utilities are working extensively to harness the significant potential of hydrogen, which produces non-hazardous emissions and offers about 3 to 3.5 times the amount of energy in one gallon of gasoline. The stock market is a forward-looking mechanism and companies that are producing technology to harness these leading-edge energy sources are being rewarded.
Raj Bazaj, Executive Director, Solutions Sales, spoke with Senior BDMs about empowering shifts in customer energy strategies to meet lofty corporate goals.
2.) To meet corporate sustainability objectives, customers are recognizing value beyond just energy supply.
Energy customers are facing new challenges as their markets and objectives change. An increased focus on sustainability is forcing specific target dates for meeting these objectives, such as an organization committing to become carbon neutral by 2025.
To meet the evolving needs of customers, energy suppliers are moving beyond their traditional functions to create additional value. Energy strategies are more sophisticated, with an increasing focus on measurement and long-term planning. Advising and supporting customers to develop a comprehensive energy strategy with options like onsite generation, renewables and energy efficiency programs, while using analytics data to benchmark and track energy usage, is key to meeting energy their goals.
Analytics provide valuable insights and a better understanding of customer energy usage. Looking forward, energy managers can leverage and apply machine learning to their analytics systems, which means it will continually analyze and learn from data collected to provide improved insights and help customers remain competitive.
Andy Karsner spoke about leveraging a new suite of technologies for energy grid management.
3.) Regulatory framework for energy grid management technologies could bolster companies to better serve their communities in the information age.
Whether it’s your car or your toaster or your thermostat, most future devices will have connectivity and either produce, consume or store energy. “How those objects interact and who coordinates that cacophony into a symphony that has some probability of profit will be the emerging enterprises,” said Karsner. Energy grid management and related technologies need to enable more efficient and profitable operations in a system that currently has a lot of noise.
As this interconnected technology develops, considerations for the energy industry include bringing this technology from the grid and utility scale to be more accessible to communities at the residential scale. To achieve these goals, policymakers, regulators and investors need to understand the new suite of technologies that enable companies to better serve the public.