David Crane, the visionary chief executive officer of NRG Energy (NRG, Financial), the prominent American energy company that is the largest independent electricity producer in the United States, predicts that soon the electric power industry will see a revolutionary turnaround driven by new technologies like rooftop solar installations and solar-powered batteries. Riding high on a prosperous first quarter in 2015, in a special interview, Crane compared the electricity sector today to the telecom industry of the '90s which underwent a drastic transformation with mobile telephony which completely wiped out the fixed line telephones with their trendy mobility and convenience. The competitive innovator whose company generates majority of its $3.8 billion revenue from generating electricity from conventional coal, nuclear plants and natural gas, foresees a transition into a new generation of smart living with homes and businesses powered by roof top solar panels and self-regulating batteries that are independent of the central grids.
NRG’s energised first quarter of 2015
In 2009, Princeton, N.J.- and Texas-based NRG Energy Inc., which powers more than 40 million homes through its 100 fossil fuel power plants located across 18 American states, started investing in clean energy projects and by 2011 emerged as the largest green power retailer in New York City, powering the Empire State Building on 100% renewable energy. Its continued commitment to harness solar power has started fructifying results as evident from the first-quarter results of 2015 which reported a substantial growth in its solar distribution with 3,000 new customers taking its penetration to 16,000 consumers in 10 states in spite of obstructing snowfalls covering roofs in the Northeast where NRG carries out most of its solar business.
With a year-end target of servicing 40,000 solar customers, NRG is striving to position itself as a competitor to the industry leader SolarCity (SCTY, Financial) that boast of 218,000 installations across U.S. With ingenious Tesla (TSLA, Financial) joining the solar race by unveiling a series of powerful home batteries that charge on solar panels to power the whole home or office, the possibility of off grid electric supply is even more eminent and would soon be inexpensive as well.
Time for innovative engineering
With SolarCity Corp’s CEO recently stating that consumers burdened by heavy electricity bills are looking at alternative electricity sources to leave the cumbersome grids, the market is ripe to tap into this high potential demand. NRG’s CEO strongly believes that people will have the option to go off the grids within this decade and is actively investing in technologies and partnerships to enable this future with Segway inventor Dean Kamen developing ‘electricity from natural gas’ generating engine that is driven by a battery charged from rooftop solar panels. With questions being raised over state policies and regulations by utility board regarding higher operating costs and burdensome bills, fairness of policies like net metering that compensate solar powered home owners for the unused solar electricity are being debated upon. Crane dismisses all such speculation saying once the consumer is out of the grid and enjoying independent solar powered electricity, all issues of fairness and extra charges would be irrelevant. With its current crop of customers belonging to a wide range of demographics from blue collar to elite, he also said that the utilities are raising baseless charges that solar panels service only homes in higher income locations to fight the mounting threat to their monopoly over electric supply.
