Fortum’s latest Energy Review: Electricity retail market must be developed towards a customer-centric model
Fortum today published in Helsinki its latest Energy Review, which focuses on electricity retail market development.
The transition to a renewable energy-based solar economy has begun. The growth of weather-dependent electricity production, like solar and wind power, will strongly shape our current energy system. This change will reflect also on the electricity retail market, where the role of active consumers will grow. When the production structure of the energy sector changes, customers will be able to increasingly participate in maintaining the balance between electricity production and consumption by controlling their own consumption.
“The significance of flexibility will increase in the new energy reality, and, in fact, the timing of energy use is becoming a more important factor than the level of consumption,” notes one of the authors of the review, Jukka Toivonen, from Fortum’s Consumer Solutions division.
Consumers today already have the opportunity to be more independent in energy issues and to choose energy solutions that are best suited for their own energy needs. For example, consumers can utilise smart home solutions in controlling electricity consumption, produce electricity themselves, store it, or sell the excess electricity to grid. In the future, automation will help to control and monitor all aspects of household energy. With digitalisation, consumers expect energy companies to offer smart and easy-to-use services that widely utilise consumption data and, for instance, local weather information.
“In the future, in order to leverage the opportunities that digitalisation brings, legislation related to retail markets must be renewed. The premise in renewing the retail markets must be a customer-centric model, an essential component of which includes the combined billing of electricity and electricity transmission. It is important to ensure an equal operating environment for all commercial players,” Jukka Toivonen says.
The Fortum Energy Review series highlights the challenges and opportunities we see in the energy sector. Our aim is to offer solutions that drive progress. We hope the Energy Reviews engage our stakeholders in a dialogue with us about the future of the energy sector.
Source: fortum
