Angels Den Blog

What is the most defining characteristic of a successful entrepreneur? Is it his (or her) head for figures, an unwavering commitment to a dream, or buckets of profits overflowing in their living room? For me, the most important characteristic is their ability to recognize an opportunity when they see it , where others might walk on by. This will enable an entrepreneur to be successful again and again by recognizing markets and opportunities before anyone else. Energy may well be such a growth market.

This week it was reported – and not for the first time – that Britain is facing an energy shortfall in the near future. Of course, the media reported it like it was new news, ignoring the fact that they all reported it back in January and again in September, and in true sensationalist style they used headlines like “Blackout Warning”, as if the government would allow the lights to go out across the country! But what they are reporting is serious news, and news that should be making entrepreneurial radars go BEEP BEEP BEEP across the country.

Energy is big business – it’s truly massive. The world uses around 15,000 gigawatts every year, which equates to a $6 trillion market, and demand is rising. It is expected that within the next 40 years demand will double. But the vast majority of this business is based on old-school power generation, fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal, and socially less acceptable nuclear power. As demand rises, the UK is faced with a very difficult situation. An EU directive aimed to curb the increase in “acid rain” has ordered the closure of nine of the UK’s largest coal- and oil-fired power stations by 2015, and on top of that four nuclear power stations are scheduled to be decommissioned because of old age. There is a very real possibility that somewhere between 2013 and 2015 there may well be an energy gap between demand and supply. To compound matters even further, after years of relatively low prices the cost of all fossil fuels is rising as location and extraction become increasingly difficult (not to mention that Western governments find it difficult to go for any amount of time without either threatening or going to war with nations that control many of these resources!).

When prices were cheap there was little need for anyone to heed the words of the green hippy lot who kept gabbing on about saving the planet, but – surprise, surprise – now that energy production is becoming offensively expensive, the clever people in the government are left scratching their proverbials, wishing that they’d done more than offer vacuous rhetoric about being greener than the next MP offering vacuous rhetoric. As the reality of raw material shortages and increasing costs both to the environment and the consumer hit home, a new marketplace will appear for energy-efficient products and national and personal power generation solutions – this time around through need rather than fashion or guilt. Jumping into a $-trillion market is not easy, but doing so at the onset of massive change such as is expected over the next few years is the best way of guaranteeing yourself a decent market share.

So dust off those ideas, shake out those brain cells – do you have an energy invention or solution in you? If you do, contact Angels Den, because we have investors just straining at their leads to help finance such a project. Come see what we have to offer at www.angelsden.co.uk.

Sources:
UK experts give blackouts warning
An Alternative Energy Future – And Your Personal Finances
The power and the glory

Image © Kirrus