Energy as a Service

Discussion

Chris Cook:

"But as was publicly recognised for the first time at the recent World Energy Congress in Istanbul the reality is that electricity – like water (which is currently being commoditised/marketised ) – is not a commodity but is a service requiring a different market structure and instruments.

Consumers don’t use raw oil, gas, refined fuels or even electricity: they use heat, light, transport/mobility, communications, and power (eg to drive machines). Financing operating costs may simply be achieved through consumers sharing the cost of a utility via a Platform Co-operative legal platform. But what about the vast cost of funding new infrastructure? This is where we may learn lessons from the past to create the new Smart Markets of the future.

James Watt’s Smart business model for Cornish tin mines water pumping in 1778 shows the way. Instead of selling his more efficient steam powered pumps to drain the mines of water, he supplied the use of his pumps in return for a third of the coal the tin mines saved. The more reliably and efficiently his engines worked, the more coal was saved. In other words, he did not sell his pumps as a commoditised transaction for profit: instead he shared the carbon fuel savings – through a simple production sharing agreement – achieved from Pumping as a Service." (http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/10/18/on-energy-independence/)