| | March 20209communities can trade energy amongst residents and use blockchain as the immutable record of transactions and a ledger of payments. I sell my excess solar power to my neighbor or we sell to the next community. Transactions such as these were not easily managed and certainly not in real-time prior to payment processing tools.Omni-channel and mobile payments: Online payment tools on multiple form factors (phones, tablets, PC's) allow utility transmission and distribution customers to pay bills automatically or instantly. The opportunity to pre-pay for energy or services will also be made possible ­similar to buying parking time from a meter through a mobile phone. As a customer scenario, "I have a summer cottage and want to pre-pay for service for the weekend only." As utilities provide more and more services around the energy they transmit and/or distribute, the more options and choices consumers get. Such services will soon become an expectation instead of an exception.Big Data, Analytics, and Cloud: Providing recommendations to consumers on when they should charge their electric vehicle based on carbon emissions on a certain day, excess supply of energy, or peak/valley time of day for a given geographic area. Or, even make the best electricity balancing decisions or energy brokering decisions based on a wealth of data available through insights on events, behaviors and weather patterns. And, all this can be done with the elasticity of the cloud through platforms-as-a-service where you pay for your usage only.As we embrace the rapidly changing landscape of alternative energy sources and the future of battery technology, smart-meters, IOT and edge-computing, the power of FinTech in our industry should not be underestimated. It has and will continue to drive business model, customer engagement model and energy transmission and distribution service changes and opportunities. The technology will help drive improvements in already existing commercial models, and will also enable disruption as it has in other industries. Nothing has changed or challenged the efforts of regulators and utilities more than the evolution of technology
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