Energy intensity is rising. Vertical industries are reconfiguring. And long-established value chains are evolving beyond recognition. Amid this change, the one certainty for energy utilities is that partnerships are essential.
We’ve entered a decade of dynamism where Australia’s energy utilities will power the economy in ways we’ve never seen before. Already, car manufacturers are partnering with battery manufacturers, bringing together advanced electronics, sustainable energy and digital supply chain integration. Retailers are building ecosystems to integrate renewable energy production, storage and distribution networks to power communities. The potential for partnerships is limitless.
In fact, new PwC global research found more than AU$11.1 trillion (US$7.1 trillion) in global value has been set in motion in 2025 alone as megatrends such as climate change and technology advances rewrite the rules of business. For energy utilities, there’s a US$2.47 trillion global market opportunity up for grabs.
But for energy utilities to succeed in the coming decade, they must understand that partnerships are essential.
This energy & utilities perspective focuses on PwC’s Value in Motion research. Previously, we explored who will win (and lose) in the battle for Australia’s mass market energy retail services. Now, we turn our attention to large commercial and industrial (C&I) retailers. Specifically, how can energy utilities partner with businesses to promote their growth agendas? Let’s start by looking at the (new) state of play.
Navigating reinvention in energy utilities
Against a backdrop of an increasing demand to fuel and power a growing population, decarbonised electricity services, a transformation on a scale like the first industrial revolution is taking place. Our analysis shows a global shift away from legacy industry models towards fluid, interconnected value chains, or ‘domains of growth’. These domains are organised around human needs and companies are seeing – and seizing – opportunities across multiple domains. Now, instead of thinking about utilities as a monolithic provider of a production input, C&I customers are seeing utilities as potential partners in solving problems like ‘how we move’, ‘how we build’ and ‘how we fuel and power’.
Value chain disruption: challenges and opportunities
As Australian businesses become more energy intensive, they are shoring up their long-term supply of sustainable energy by investing in their own generation and forming wholesale power purchase agreements (PPAs)1 directly with renewable project developers.
This shift threatens the viability of C&I energy retailers who have long functioned as intermediaries between those generating energy and those consuming it. But it also presents a massive opportunity: large customers no longer view energy as a commodity production input, but as a value driver that they can secure through long-term investments and partnerships.
This value chain disruption poses an important question:
How do energy C&I retailers achieve growth when large customers are working directly with renewable developers to secure long-term agreements for the supply of energy?
Energy retailers have responded by offering services to package PPAs into retail contracts or ‘sleeve’ offtake arrangements between customer and developers into a retail contract. Under these arrangements customers can pay the retailer for both the energy from a renewable project and the balance of power they consume. This avoids the complexity of making payments directly to renewable generators and managing electricity market transactions.
Under these agreements, customer and retailer have a shared interest in managing energy consumption within the generation profile of the contracted renewable facility. This creates the foundation for a long-term partnership between energy utilities and their customers, forged on mutual interest. However, although there had been a strong trend towards retail PPAs, in the last couple of years wholesale PPAs have staged a resurgence5, prompting C&I retailers to re-think how they can partner with their customers.
Partnerships can progress through five stages as C&I energy utilities develop their value propositions.
- Stage 1 - Green energy
- Stage 2 - Energy insights
- Stage 3 - Energy management
- Stage 4 - Energy-enabled services
- Stage 5 - Energy partnerships
Stage 1 - Green energy
Tailored agreements for access to energy and large-scale generation certificates (LGCs),3 which can be retired to meet renewable energy targets. Contracts may be linked to PPAs for new renewable projects so C&I customers can demonstrate their energy spend is driving incremental renewable investment.
Stage 2 - Energy insights
Services to help customers know how to minimise costs and achieve sustainability goals by providing energy consumption measurements, insights, and advice. For example, dashboards that show potential savings from operating energy-intensive industrial infrastructure at alternative times.
Stage 3 - Energy management
Services to directly control consumption or dispatch stored energy to reduce C&I customers’ costs. For example, cycling refrigeration or space cooling within a commercial property to minimise cost while addressing needs. Services may be provided across multiple customer premises, with charges offset to the extent aggregate needs are met with the customer’s own generation and storage.
Stage 4 - Energy-enabled services
Partnering with plant and equipment providers to deliver energy-intensive outcomes under subscription or “pay for performance” model. These “energy as a service” offerings address businesses’ operational needs (e.g. heating, chilling, lighting, electrified transport). Services can be scaled up or down at different times, or across locations, to balance business needs with cost.
Stage 5 - Energy partnerships
Partnerships to help businesses provide human needs-based services to their end-customers. For example:
Energy-intensive services such as electric vehicle (EV) solutions to help customers move. Intelligent EV monitoring can be used to inform bundled EV products that help customers fund and insure EV’s.
Co-developing data centre solutions, enabling access to land, energy, water; coordinating cooling, local storage and non-time-critical processing to help customers cost-effectively connect and compute.
Co-development of renewable energy manufacturing precincts to sustainably make the products we need.
Finding the answers within (and without)
The conventional C&I utility model is facing a disintermediation threat as large consumers invest directly in energy projects and solutions. But as industry sectors blur, and businesses become more electricity-dependent,4 energy utilities are uniquely positioned to be the platform that enables businesses to provide services across sector boundaries.
To capitalise on this growth opportunity, energy utilities must ask themselves:
Do we have the necessary culture to collaborate in enabling energy-intensive products?
Are we positioned to scale our capabilities to coordinate energy resources to serve the growing needs of our customers while maintaining affordability?
Do our commercial frameworks support the joint pursuit of opportunities with our customers?
Finding answers to these questions won’t be easy, but the amount of value on the table is potentially enormous for energy utilities that reinvent to develop innovate services in partnership with their customers. Your business can move into new domains and increase its share of the value pool if you innovate and reinvent.
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