If you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in energy, you should. We’ve seen this movie before. Spoiler alert: There’s massive economic opportunity ahead. How massive? Imagine standing in 1992, knowing that Google, Akamai, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, BuzzFeed and Uber lay ahead.
This time it’s the “enernet,” not the internet, that will transform our lives. The story is the same, though the players have changed.
Here’s the tee up. Across the country, incumbent network providers operate highly centralized networks in their respective cities. Then, scrappy local outfits start serving the market with innovative, distributed technology. These startups create competition, and a new network emerges atop the legacy network.
That was the backdrop 30 years ago when a little thing called the internet emerged. Startups like CompuServe, AOL, EarthLink, Netcom and a host of other local ISPs kicked off the conversion from analog to digital by offering internet access over existing cable and telco networks.
Today, the actors are SolarCity , Sunrun and a host of others moving us off fossil fuels and into clean energy supported by smart equipment, services and software, offered atop existing utility networks. This time, it’s the enernet.
Enernet. Noun. A dynamic, distributed, redundant and multi-participant energy network built around clean energy generation, storage and delivery and serving as the foundation for smart cities.
Jigar Shah , founder of SunEdison , seeded the enernet revolution more than a decade ago. He devised a breakthrough financing model that made solar affordable and scalable. He’s the Marc Andreessen of this storyline… seminal, smart and strategic.
Today, watch Elon Musk. He presented new solar roof shingles to the world a few months ago. Solar that’s affordable and attractive. Plus, he’s integrating it into a game-changing home system with storage and EV charging. Think the world’s first iPhone. Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, is poised to be an enernet giant, the Amazon of this go-around — margin-challenged in its early years, but set to move.
