Imagine a world in which Alexa, or a similar virtual home assistant, manages the energy in your home. She uses the power produced by your rooftop photovoltaic panels and the energy stored in your electric car batteries to make sure your home has enough energy. If necessary, she requests electricity from the grid — purchased from Amazon or Google, which sell their own excess renewable electricity at rock-bottom prices. If a storm is coming, she might disconnect your home grid from the overall grid and recommend a power reduction to keep you powered for the next few days.
It’s a world that David Crane, the former president and CEO of NRG Energy, imagines, and one he tried to move his former company toward. Crane wanted NRG to be the Apple, Google, Amazon or Facebook of electricity. He first convinced the company’s board of directors to begin decarbonizing the company’s power fleet, which had twice as much coal in the mix as the average electric company. Then he moved the company toward solar and tried to convince shareholders that NRG’s future was as a service company to help consumers produce their own electricity.