Energy innovation ‘doesn’t have to wait for policy’

Energy entrepreneurs with a great idea don’t have to wait for government policy to make it happen. Robert Groves, CEO of SmartestEnergy – an electricity supplier to large industrial and […]

Energy entrepreneurs with a great idea don’t have to wait for government policy to make it happen.

Robert Groves, CEO of SmartestEnergy – an electricity supplier to large industrial and commercial organisations – believes innovation is “absolutely key” for the future of the energy industry and businesses shouldn’t wait for regulation to create an environment to change the way they do things.

Speaking at the New Energy Conference in Manchester this week, he told ELN: “The New Energy Market is a market where we’re going to have much more innovation, we’re going to have technology having a bigger effect on the way people generate electricity and consume electricity and I think it’s a market in which innovative new companies like SmartestEnergy will have a real impact for both producers of power and consumers.”

 

Mr Groves also believes self-generation will have a bigger role to play.

He said: “We’ve seen more and more big consumers of power also becoming producers of power and I think that trend is going to continue.

“It’s going to accelerate and we’re going to see, first of all, big businesses producing their own power and as the technology becomes more commercialised, we’ll start to see smaller and smaller producers of power to eventually private homes starting to produce their own power as well.”

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