- Digitalization of the grid facilitates more efficient power consumption
- Progression of power generation from coal to natural gas, nuclear and renewables
- Zenergy’s competitive advantage: energy provision and energy conservation
In just one generation, digitalization has transmogrified the world. With streaming movies, it has brought the cinema into our homes. E-commerce has done the same for main street retailing. Also, social media seems to have made geographical location redundant; it’s as easy to communicate with someone in Timbuktu as it is with a neighbor down the street.
Now, with “virtual utility” companies like Zenergy Brands, Inc. (OTC: ZNGY), digitalization is giving us a way to consume energy more efficiently and responsibly. Zenergy has developed a suite of cost-saving energy solutions utilizing the latest digital technologies. The company also owns a Retail Electric Provider (REP), which gives it an excellent platform to market its “smart energy” services. Zenergy is out to make the virtual utility a reality.
For decades, utilities have been anything but virtual. Typically, with massive public corporations, their facilities dominate the landscape as thoroughly as their monopolistic power controls the market. However, digital technologies have eroded this primacy by enabling virtual utilities, which employ software-based technologies to manage independent energy resources from disparate locations and combine them into a network.
The energy market is not what it used to be. In the past, power plants were mainly fueled by coal, but coal’s share had fallen to about 30 percent by 2017, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) (http://ibn.fm/8eEtx). Now natural gas, which accounts for about 32 percent of electricity generation, has taken top place. Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent, while renewable energy sources – hydropower, wind, biomass, geothermal and solar – generate another 17 percent or so. This diversification of sources has reduced cost and increased reliability.
However, too much of one thing is good for nothing. With myriad sources connected to the grid, the danger of reverse power flows is a constant danger. With traditional grids, power flow is unidirectional: from utility to users. With several sources feeding the network, multi-directional power flows result, creating a variety of technical challenges (http://ibn.fm/UDveq).
A virtual utility like Zenergy can help resolve those difficulties because of its technological solutions, mainly the Zero Cost Program, and its position as an energy provider. The Zero Cost Program allows customers to upgrade their energy gadgets to more efficient, cost-reducing appliances at no additional expense. The program reduces utility consumption by 20-60 percent by furnishing energy conservation, smart controls and efficiency-based products and services to residential, commercial, industrial and municipal end-use customers.
As awareness of environmental issues increases, the program is likely to resonate with both corporate and residential customers, particularly as it is a turnkey solution that requires no upfront expenditure. Under the Zero Cost Program, Zenergy upgrades customers’ older, inefficient energy infrastructure and implements a variety of retrofits, including HVAC and refrigeration motor controllers, load factor technologies, building-envelope-based technologies, weatherization-based technologies, smart controls, LED lighting and other energy-saving solutions.
Moreover, through its Retail Electric Provider (REP) division, Zenergy is well positioned to make the Zero Cost Program available to both residential and commercial customers. Bundling energy provision with energy efficiency services gives Zenergy a competitive advantage in the Texas market, where the company is based. The Texas market has over six million residential meters and nearly two million commercial meters.
Zenergy’s strategy as a retail energy provider is to create a beachhead in Texas and then expand to other deregulated markets across the nation. To date, 16 states – California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia – and Washington DC have deregulated markets for electricity (http://ibn.fm/LgZ7t).
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ZenergyBrands.com
