By Felicity Carus
IT is poised to revolutionize the energy industry by ceding control of consumption and
generation to consumers and lead to an "age of empowerment," an influential figure in the wholesale power sector told the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco.
"We've come a long way from the days of the legendary Henry Ford and his comment that the American consumer can have any color of model T as long as it's black," said David Crane, the outspoken CEO of NRG Energy.
"Today, personal energy consumption is a one-way street - cash flows out of the pocket of the American consumer and into the accounts of big energy companies," Crane said. "But we're on the brink of an age where the average American can be a seller of smart clean energy as well as a customer.
"Leaders of the [conventional] power industry believe that the rate-based, state-regulated, vertically integrated stifling utility business model that was first established during the Henry Ford era is going to persist as the dominant delivery paradigm of the 21st century.
"It's a business model that's based on converting fossil fuels into electricity that were first commercialized in the 18th century. If we think of the 18th century as the age of enlightenment my view is that the 21st century will become known as the age of empowerment."
NRG Energy, based in Princeton, New Jersey, has a diverse portfolio of 26,000MW generation capacity, but has invested $1 billion worth of equity into utility-scale solar projects.
Putting money where its mouth is
"That private equity translates into a $6.5 billion investment in solar projects under construction or various stages of production," Crane said.
In October 2010, NRG Solar invested up to $300 million to become the lead investor in BrightSource's Ivanpah project.
The project was also awarded $1.6 billion in loans guaranteed by the US Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office.
BrightSource is slated to go public the second week of April. Crane declined to comment on the forthcoming BrightSource IPO after his keynote speech.
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