“Decentralized generation is already eating into revenues and partly marginalizing conventional generation. Ultimately, it could shrink the role of unwary power utility companies to operators of back-up infrastructure,” the tax and consultancy firm said in its 2013 Global Power & Utilities survey.
The survey is based on research conducted in April-July 2013 with senior executives from 53 utility companies in 35 countries worldwide, including Romania.
According to the survey, 94% of the polled executives predict complete transformation or important changes to their power utility business model.
Moreover, 57% of the participants said there is a high or very high likelihood that distributed generation will force utilities to significantly change their business models.
“Many in the industry expect the existing power utility business model in their market to transform or even be unrecognizable in the period between now and 2030. However, the growth of distributed generation and its threat to the power utility business model depends on technological developments and cost,” PwC said.