Retail Energy CEO: "We Could Be Extinct" If Industry Views New Technologies as "Other Products & Services," Rather Than Different Means Allowing Better Delivery of Current Price Risk Management

Retail energy suppliers risk extinction if they view value-added services and disruptive technologies as, "other products and services," rather than using such services as new means to deliver price risk management to customers, Sayun Sukduang, Chief Executive Officer at ENGIE Resources Inc. (f/k/a GDF Suez), said during DNV GL's Energy Executive Forum

"We, at our core today, are price risk managers for our customers," Sukduang said, which means managing price and quantity.

"I'm not sure that we should be focused on 'other products and services', maybe we should focus on delivering the commodity, the price and the quantity, better than we do today," Sukduang said

With such a view, Sukduang said new technologies aren't disruptive, but rather a new way of achieving the goal of price risk management. For example, Sukduang noted that battery storage is a form of call option, and that customer-sited solar power is an on-peak block of energy.

"If we look at them as disruptions, if we look at them as other products and services, I fear, we, the top 15 retailers, will be extinct, because they aren't other products and services, they aren't disruptive, they are exactly what we do today, but a different way to do it," Sukduang said

"If we as an industry, the retail industry, focus on price and quantity, and focus on delivering commodity better, I think we can win," Sukduang said

"Other products and services are a mindset we have to shift away from, or we could be extinct," Sukduang said