Shape & Lead
Energy is becoming a market we could earn from
Which role in charging, flexibility or storage can we take, and with whom?
Which role in charging, flexibility or storage can we take, and with whom?
The vehicles are on the road, the batteries are on site, the chargers are in the car park, and each of them can now be sold to the grid as well as used. A carmaker hears that its cars could earn while they are parked. A fleet operator is offered a vehicle-to-grid tariff. An industrial site is asked by an aggregator to shift its load. A charge point operator watches suppliers, roaming platforms and carmakers move into the same space, and a supplier wonders which of them will end up holding the customer.
Each offer arrives with a revenue line and a partner already chosen. Behind it sits a piece of software: the orchestration that decides when each vehicle, battery or site charges, discharges or waits. Whoever runs it sells the flexibility and sets the wear on the battery. The questions it raises have no single owner on the leadership team: who holds the delivery point, who holds the customer, who carries the price risk, and what is left of the margin once each actor in the chain has taken its share.
Which role to take in the new energy market, and who decides how the assets are run.
In this market the actor who decides captures the value. The orchestration sets the margin between what the grid pays and what the owner of the asset receives, and it sets the wear on the asset and what its second life will be worth. A company can own the vehicles, the batteries or the sites and leave both to someone else. Owning the assets, operating the charging points, aggregating flexibility, supplying the electricity and holding the customer relationship are different businesses, with different risks and rules that are still being written. The decision is which role the company can win, whether it runs the orchestration or lets a partner run it, and on which terms.
The work is Market Opportunity Scan, applied to a market that is still being organised.
We start by mapping the value chain as it works today and as the rules are moving it, from the vehicle, the battery and the site to the charging point, the aggregator, the supplier and the grid. For each role we set out who decides, who pays, who earns and what each actor depends on: the orchestration, the data on the state of the battery, the delivery point, the customer, the licence.
Then we test the positions open to the company against its own assets, customers and capabilities, and against what partners will grant. For the CEO that means a short list of roles the company can hold. For the CFO it means the net return of each, once the energy lost on the round trip, the partner's retained share and battery wear are counted. For the technology and data teams it means knowing who runs the orchestration software, who can read and audit its decisions, and who answers for them on a customer's asset. For the teams who negotiate the alliances it means the terms that turn a pilot into an arrangement that pays at scale.
What leaves the room is a position: the role the company takes, the partners it needs, the rules of orchestration and data access it should write into each agreement, and the conditions under which the choice should be revisited as the market rules change.
The case below compares the three models now on offer to run vehicle-to-grid dispatch, the carmaker with a utility, the carmaker's own subsidiary and the specialist aggregator. It shows that whoever runs the dispatch keeps what the grid pays above the driver's bonus, and that the battery's second life is priced on what the dispatch contract records about its use. A position in this market starts there.
BMW and Volkswagen offer drivers one connection bonus; what the grid pays above it goes to whoever runs the dispatch.
ReadMaxime Ferrand, Senior Partner. Sixteen years at Enedis across innovation, risk management and EV-charging deployment, from engineering projects to Chief of Staff. He holds the system: the grid, the delivery point, the flexibility and what a charging point or a site can sell back, and when.
Fabrice Macarty, Founder, CEO. Twenty-five years across Google, Microsoft and Deloitte, from technology to strategy, in financial services, energy, defence, retail, industry and the public sector. He works with leadership teams on the business models that technology is about to move. On this situation he holds the market side: where the margin sits between the vehicle, the charger and the grid, and which partners a company needs to keep its share.
Responsibility can be built in full and still earn nothing, because others decide when it pays and how much. In energy the grid, the regulator and the customer each decide a share of it, and the margin goes to whoever decides how the assets are run.
Read the principle in Our Approach: The verdict belongs to othersThe tariff offered to the fleet, the aggregator at the door, the partner who wants to run the dispatch. Tell us which role is on the table and we will tell you what it is worth.