June 12, 2014 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Electric utilities' traditional business model is being shaken up by distributed energy resources (DER), which include renewable sources of energy, such as solar PV, and allow residential customers to generate some of their own electricity and sell unneeded power back to the utility. The latest technologies are now more affordable, driving growing interest and adoption by residential customers who see an opportunity for greater control of their energy consumption.

Navigant Research has coined this emerging set of technologies as residential generation and storage (RGS). New stationary and mobile electricity storage capabilities and enhanced energy management tools, which provide residential customers more options to control usage and lower costs, as well as residential combined heat and power (resCHP) systems join solar PV as an attractive option to customers.

Financing mechanisms are providing new choices for residential customers that, up to this point, were out of reach.

"Rooftop solar PV is just one of the technologies that are transforming the traditional residential power industry," said Neil Strother, principal research analyst with Navigant Research. "Some of these technologies, such as residential combined heat and power, are in the early stages of market development, while solar panels are more mature. Nonetheless, these energy innovations and attractive financing mechanisms provide residential customers with new options."

One key driver, according to the report, is continuing advances in new technologies, such as more efficient energy storage systems (ESS). Government subsidies, often in the form of feed-in tariffs, are enabling the combination of rooftop solar PV systems and residential energy storage, in order to collect and store energy for use when sunlight is unavailable or there is a power outage.

For more:
- see this report

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/renewable-energy-disruptive-utilities/2014-06-12