Opportunity Mapping

Capturing New Business Opportunities in a Changing Energy Landscape

Opportunity Mapping is designed to help energy sector stakeholders identify and capture emerging business opportunities. This engagement provides clarity on where and how to invest resources in order to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the changing energy landscape. The AEC will support the development of a detailed business case for an emerging technology and/or new business model, as well as identify and evaluate potential technology providers and project partners for successful delivery.

Structure of Opportunity Mapping offering:

1) Build the Opportunity Map:

• Develop and align on strategic rationale for pursuing a specific opportunity
• Identify relevant technologies/business models and curate a robust factbase of  features, benefits, limitations, etc. 
• Conduct a deep dive analysis on the technologies/business models with the highest potential for the chosen market(s), exploring all relevant considerations (e.g.,  business, social, environmental, regulatory, political, etc).
• Identify and understand case study examples from other markets, including ‘lessons learned’ and an analysis of their applicability to the chosen market.
• If applicable, understand the various financing methods available (e.g. with deploying energy storage solutions).

2) Identify the Pilot Opportunity:

• Establish and align on a pilot prioritization framework
• Leverage outputs of Phase 1 and the prioritization framework in order to select one or more pilot opportunities.

3) Outline the Business Case:

• Develop the project vision, robust business case, and project execution road map
• Outline technical specifications, staffing and resourcing requirements, and estimated cost vs return on investment.
• Draft the high-level implementation timeline, including success metrics, accountability and key milestones.

4) Build a Supplier Map:

• Determine the evaluation metrics in order to select suitable suppliers and project partners
• Develop comparison summaries of potential suppliers and project partners.

Opportunity Mapping is grounded in the Advanced Energy Centre’s ‘System Change’ framework, which provides a holistic approach for tackling barriers to innovation adoption. In our view, it is important to take a ‘systems thinking’ approach to this engagement, to ensure the development of a truly economic and scalable solution. This approach notes that in order to address complex problems, we should act across three dimensions - policy, technical solutions and capacity building. If we focus along only one or two of these change vectors, we miss addressing all dimensions of the problem. Doing so will result in insufficient solutions that are unable scale.  This systemic approach is embedded in all aspects of Opportunity Mapping delivery.  An example of some of the questions that are answered are shown below:

To learn more about the opportunity mapping program at AEC contact Jesika Briones, Manager International Programs at [email protected].