New business models in the electricity sector

In the third decade of thetwenty-firstcentury, the electricity sector is facing new dramatic changes that must be supported by new business models. Two of themare key for understanding current transformations. A first model secures ex ante investments into fixed-cost generation assets with guaranteed long-term revenue streams. It is typical ofgeneration from renewable energy sources, be they wind or solar, onshore or offshore. A second model is built with the asset-light approach typical of the digitalization era. It favoursparticular productcharacteristics for specially targeted customers. It has many variants: aggregators as new intermediaries; digital platforms bypassing intermediaries; peer-to-peer direct exchange as with blockchain; fleets of consumption, generation and storage devices managed "behind the meter", as mini-grids or off grid. Between these two, transmission and distribution grids will have to reinvent, as much asregulationwill permit, to create efficient loops of interaction with theiractive users.