It is already a reality: in 2015 car manufacturing giant Tesla was inundated with pre-orders for their Tesla wall, a storage solution for homes that will only be available in 2017. And, in February 2016 Telstra, an Australian telecom company, proposed a package to cover all the needs of a connected home including solar and battery storage in addition to internet and telephone.

Ten years ago, when utilities ruled the very regulated and monopolistic market of energy, this would have been inconceivable. Now, as new entrants try to take advantage of this self-consumption market, it is clear the energy landscape is changing – and so it should. With market liberalisation being enforced by politicians, renewable energy solutions improving in efficiency and price, new regulations favourable for self-consumption, and progress being made in storage solutions, all the ingredients are there for the market to develop steadily with new entrants and new offerings for customers.

Although self-consumption remains marginal in most countries – due to the cost of this type of solution, the interaction with the grid, and meeting ones energy requirements – many government bodies are promoting the use of self-consumption, in particular Germany and Australia, which is resulting in us seeing more and more customers take an active role in the energy transition by choosing this type of energy solution.

What’s more, in order to remain competitive, traditional utilities are also starting to position themselves in this market segment: Eon has developed an offer through their partnership with Sungevity, Iberdrola launched Solar Smart in September 2015, a turnkey solution for residential homes, and EDF recently launched a photovoltaics and storage solution for private homes, just to name a few. The opportunities that these utilities are taking advantage of are generating new ways of doing business, whilst enabling them to provide more holistic services for the end user.

At The Business Booster we will be talking this year about all these evolutions. We want to act as agitators and enablers of the future energy solutions and we will bring you visionaries and pioneers to debate about these interesting challenges that are already taking place. An interesting debate is in perspective, we are looking forward to getting you involved with us.