The business of supplying energy is changing rapidly. As we saw a few weeks ago from Solar Media UK Editor Liam Stoker’s piece, ‘Power to the people’, an increasingly diverse range of actors are joining the retail energy market, from Shell, through a wave of clean and smart power acquisitions, to the likes of solar companies and demand response aggregators.
Increasingly, we see solar PV companies move away from simple business models around selling modules and other commoditised components or equipment and more into selling ‘energy-as-a-service’, or creating their own utility play, based around their ability to supply whole, integrated systems to the homeowner.
Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis
- Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
- In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
- Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
- Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual
Or continue reading this article for free
After our look at SolarEdge’s interactive AR demonstration earlier this week, it’s the turn of Q CELLS. Q CELLS technical sales expert Cyril Hinz talked us through the concept as well as the equipment for the company's new holistic energy solutions at this year’s Intersolar / ees Europe in Germany.
Going 100% renewable doesn’t have to be at odds with modern life as we know it. Although it may take us a little while to configure it and adapt, smart technologies such as automation and digitisation of information networks will do a lot of the hard work for us.