Latest Brief by Brattle Economists Examines Electrification Opportunities and their Impact on the Utility Industry
Published by The Brattle Group, Inc.
In the third installment of Brattle’s Retail Energy Practice Briefing Series, Brattle economists examine the many factors accelerating the phenomenon of electrification and the profound implications for electric utilities, as well as potential strategies for utility involvement.
The transformation of the electric power industry, led by advances in distributed energy solutions such as rooftop PV and customers becoming more active managers of their energy consumption, is often tied to an observed slowdown in sales growth. In the brief, “New Sources of Utility Growth: Electrification Opportunities and Challenges,” the Brattle authors discuss how this prevailing paradigm of anemic utility sales growth could be reversed through beneficial electrification, where electric utilities would play a central role in making (clean) electricity the fuel of choice for old and new applications including transport and enabling consumers to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
The brief finds that utilities and society will require early and proactive utility action on several critical fronts. Beyond careful planning and evaluation of the right sequencing of electrification incentives, early interactions with other stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers are needed. This will allow utilities to play a positive and central role in an increasingly electrified economy.
The brief can be downloaded below.
