The energy industry today and its multiple facets look to the future as natural gas and renewable-based generation increasingly replaces coal, changing the standard concepts of baseload, against a backdrop of low load growth and regulatory uncertainty.

 

Regulatory initiatives continue to heavily influence many aspects of the energy business including retail, generation, and transmission. Renewable generation remains at the forefront of new innovative measures to ensure environmental sustainability. Energy storage and smart grid infrastructure developments are gaining traction and momentum, addressing concerns created in part by aging transmission and distribution infrastructure as well as increased intermittency driven by increased renewable generation. Energy retailers seek to develop new business lines and expand product offerings to areas adjacent to traditional commodity businesses. Big data and data integration across various levels of the energy supply value chain optimizes performance from generation all the way down to the home energy consumer. Global commodity price uncertainty and market volatility play a significant role in extraction infrastructure and upstream development trends.

 

Rather than employing overarching blanket solutions, understanding the unique challenges found within respective regional energy markets is a critical component when looking to address the concerns of the industry. Nevertheless looking outside of respective regions whether for integration potential or lessons learned can guide energy players to more practical solution sets. Opportunities exist for organizations that can consider and manage both external factors such as regulatory environments and technology developments as well as with internal considerations such as network stability and overall resource adequacy.