The Association of Energy Service Professionals (AESP) of which I have been a member since the 1990s, held their 30th Annual National conference recently. Over the years an underlying goal of theirs has been to work with customers by helping them manage their energy usage.
What will the next 30 years look like? Presenters at the conference painted many potential futures and I see a future that is increasingly integrated. Energy efficiency, load management, and renewable programs were traditionally separated into different organizational silos within a utility but are now changing in order to meet customer expectations. Through battery storage, solar photovoltaics and electric vehicles, how and when customers use energy is being fundamentally changed.
How program administrators manage these new integrated offerings will need to evolve as well. Not only will tracking platforms need to interface with reporting systems such as CRMs or other workflow solutions, but they will also need to be able to monitor total portfolio performance. Tracking systems in the next 30 years will be more agile and serve a purpose other than accounting for energy savings.
