What does the future look like for energy suppliers?

The future of energy supply needs to be focused around decarbonisation, that is clear.

But without engagement, can we expect consumers to make choices that lead to lower energy usage?

At our event held last month at EUW in Paris, we invited Delta-EE to come along to share their thoughts on what the energy system of the future might look like, and our client Bristol Energy to share their experiences of how using the Eliq app they were creating better moments of engagement with their customers.

As we discussed in our previous blog – Delta’s model is predicated on the movement of consumers from a pure ‘execute’ (i.e. pay the bill) level of engagement with their supplier – through engagement and empowerment to a final point of collaboration. This final stage anticipates that consumers will be active participants of the energy system of the future – generating their own supply through solar panels, acting as grid level support through battery storage and demand response, and charging their EVs when excess electricity needs to be taken off the grid. But whilst some early adopters are already there and using these new technologies – we can’t expect the average consumer to jump straight from ‘execution’ and simply paying their bills once a quarter to the final stage of collaboration without holding their hands and stepping them through the stages.

Here at Eliq, we’re bringing together user experience, behavioural science with data science to help energy supply businesses engage their consumers with their own consumption. To put it bluntly – how do we make our customers care about their energy use?

Bristol’s Andy Coleman talked about how the challenger supplier is striving to make energy useful for customers via use of the Eliq app, but that it’s critical that they remember that ‘useful’ means different things for different people. That could mean the ability to pay through the app for PAYG customers, providing consumption alerts for the cost conscious, assisted living alerts for the vulnerable home alone, or connection to in home technology for the tech-savvy.

It’s clear that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to engaging energy consumers – but they all have to be taken on a journey towards Delta-EE’s ‘Energy Nirvana’. This future of connected home energy management systems, dynamic time of use tariffs, localised energy systems, heat-as-a-service as well as other technologies we may not have heard of, will all play a role in helping us to reduce the carbon output of our energy systems, as well as helping consumers control their bills.

You can view the full slide deck from the Breakfast Briefing below, and to find out more about Eliq and to be invited to future events, subscribe to our newsletter here.