New Energy Ecosystem: The Six Tailwinds

The past decade has accelerated the energy industry in three important ways:

1. The climate crisis has moved from a purely scientific forecast to an impactful phenomenon.
2. New technologies have accelerated at a dizzying pace.
3. A (partial) awakening by society and the business community that future growth needs to structurally reflect the limits of our planet.

Over the past few years, we have observed these macro shifts and collaborated with mobility companies, utilities, banks, and local communities to work towards a more sustainable economy.

In this series, we attempt a big picture summary of what we call “The New Energy Ecosystem” defined as a large-scale network of intelligently connected decentralized energy assets that fulfill the rising demand for electricity in a sustainable and customer-friendly way.

It will reflect our learnings from several projects, combining the industry shifts in energy, mobility, and real estate with our thinking of how digital technologies change value creation and distribution.

To start off, there are six key tailwinds are contributing to a future scenario we call “The New Energy Ecosystem:”

1. Changing Customer Needs: With increasing competitiveness of electric vehicles, solar panels, and storage batteries, the economics of consumer mobility and real estate is changing. We are slowly approaching the “early majority” of the innovation adoption curve.
2. Technological Progress: While renewables pose their own resource issues, the compounding efficiency gains in solar panels or lithium-ion batteries are the key economic reason why a change in the system will happen.
3. Geopolitical Tensions: The tragic war in Ukraine contributes to massive friction in primarily Europe’s energy market. While the short-term reshuffling of supply chains is not immediately contributing to the “New Energy Ecosystem,” the war is a collective wake-up call to rethink energy from the ground up.
4. Electrification of Everything: Moving away from fossil fuels while maintaining our lifestyles inevitably means that electrification runs our lives – from transportation to real crypto. 
5. Policy Shifts & Regulation: While the 2015 Paris Agreement is often criticized for its lack of commitment & enforcement, certain regions, such as the State of California or the European Union, are taking steps to set a regulatory framework to better account for carbon emissions. 
6. New Competitors: Anticipating the changing customer needs and regulatory environment while harnessing the advances of technology, entrepreneurship in both startups & corporates becomes the pacemaker of change towards the New Energy Ecosystem.

These six macro-tailwinds prove that the push towards a “New Energy Ecosystem” is ongoing. There are of course impediments – which we will cover later in this series – but the direction is clear!