The Next Big Electrical Gizmo?

Solar, Wind, and LEDs
We’ve all watched as the promise of solar offered many so little return. Soylandra comes to mind as a Government hand out that went astray. Many question just exactly what is in the low cost panels that are imported from China.

Wind continues to offer some type of green payback in certain areas of the country.  But there is not much material sales for an electrical distributor until a fire happens.

LEDs are still in their infancy, but can offer a good return to some electrical distributors.

Coal is dead?
In the meantime Federal, state and some local regulators have continued to pound on Coal as an industry. Sulfur removal is the problem at some of this nation’s largest power generation facilities. From a recent Wall Street Journal titled “There is Life After Death for Coal Power“ big companies are trading or buying coal fired generation plants as electricity use has risen over the past 5 years.

The Grid
All electricity travels along the grid where it is dispersed to industry, high rise office buildings and residential homes. If the power lines stay up and snow storms don’t break branches or fell trees, all is happy with electricity users.
Some business and homeowners have been stranded without electricity for extended periods of time and many have installed back-up power supplies that run on gasoline, LP gas and natural gas. The beauty of this partial solution was that the natural gas delivery system was already in place and not many falling trees break the pipe. So when was the last time you heard of a natural gas outage?

Recently, we have had an extended winter across the upper Mid-West and Northeastern part of the US. Even the West Coast got hit with heavy snow and power outrages. Switch to Summer and we hear about the potential for rolling black outs because of high electrical usage. The power grid has reached its max potential and a change in the way electricity is delivered to the end user might be in order.  Maybe in the form of natural gas that is delivered to the site and then converted to electricity. Some may automatically think ‘stand by power’ and names like Kohler, Briggs and Stratton, Generac and Winco will run through your mind. These are all great solutions. But there is change in the air.

Natural Gas Changes the Marketplace
About two weeks ago I was shown some research that is still in its early stages, where natural gas can be economically converted into electricity for a residential home. Gas is harvested from the existing delivery piping system and then converted into electricity at the home or place of business. Currently the cost of the converter is about $4,000 with a projected install cost of $3,000. The goal for the ‘converter electrical unit’ is much lower. No doubt there are other people looking at a similar solution with an abundance of cheap and clean natural gas.

With cheap natural gas rocking the price of energy, is it time for the next Electrical Gizmo to be invented and delivered to the masses of natural gas users? Will this next Gizmo be for the electrical distributor or do you have to extend your product offering to include plumbing products or other products? Remember when distributors sold appliance equipment? Will your product offering become more diverse?