Sunday, September 11, 2011

Duke Energy and the Outlook for Energy Storage

Posted: 11 Sep 2011 01:45 AM PDT
That statement really caught my attention. I have talked for some time about my view that utilities will invest in storage as much as a defensive strategy as for immediate return. The long term value of most electric utility companies lies less in the value of their assets than in their close relationship with electricity customers. That relationship is the legacy of a historic monopoly market structure. Energy storage is potentially transformational to the utility industry because of storage’s potential to change, or, at a minimum, significantly to affect, that relationship. Distributed energy storage is a technology that is coming to the grid; the only question is when. Electric utilities that fail to be first movers in deploying this technology and instead let it be deployed and developed on the customer side of the meter or under the control of third parties will forfeit a significant market advantage and seriously impair their long-term equity value.

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