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UTILITY WEEK | 12TH - 18TH JUNE 2015 | 23 Operations & Assets has both improved efficiency and extended the time required between overhauls to 36,000 EOH, which over the life of the station will save millions of pounds. The work included the heat recov- ery steam generator, balance of plant, major overhaul and upgrade to the gas turbines. If you have an asset or project you would like to see featured in this slot, email: paul.newton@fav-house.com Pipe up Tony Stiff E nergy is not enough. Not for today's consumers and not for the successful energy companies of the very near future. Consumers want more than simple supply from energy companies – they now want something they can experience and something they can believe in. And the energy companies that are going to succeed are the ones who can provide that. This requires energy companies to think differently. If you look around the global energy industry, there are now plenty of companies who are self-consciously "thinking differently". Corporate energy websites are now just as likely to boast irrelevant lifestyle images of attractive youth as they are pictures of pylons. But the industry has always had companies who say they are different. Delivering difference is now the key. And the way to be genuinely different, and to deliver the tangibility and inspiration that consumers crave, is to look beyond the supply of energy to the supply of energy products, to start to provide things that, unlike invisible home energy, consumers can touch, feel and understand. Of course, this is already happening. The reality of the connected home, previ- ously always just around the corner, is now upon us, and it is energy companies leading the way as they push the new generation of connected, intelligent thermostats. But the successful energy company of the future will deliver a broader suite of energy products into the home – will, in fact, own the idea of the connected, efficient, tech-powered home. Because who better to help you to understand and use energy more efficiently, saving you money to spend on the things you love? Who better to deliver comfort and warmth and safety in myriad ways via myriad energy products? Who better, indeed, to empower you to gener- ate your own electricity in the home via innovative, con- nected microgeneration products than the industry that already heats your home and powers your life? A lack of a compelling vision, a lack of something customers want to be a part of, has long been an issue for the industry. The current shi in its direction offers the chance to reset the customer relationship, the his- tory of under-performance and this lack of vision. Con- nected, efficient products provide the opportunity for a journey into the future that energy firms and customers can take together. Taking the time to define a compel- ling reason why customers should take this journey with their energy company will form the basis of a new relationship based on trust and belief – the kind of rela- tionship that will be vital as the industry reinvents itself. Tony Stiff, chief executive, Flow Energy "The way to be genuinely different is to look beyond the supply of energy to the supply of energy products." "A lack of a compelling vision has long been an issue for the industry"