NRG Energy, one of the country’s largest independent power producers, is getting into the mobile solar business with the acquisition of a start-up called Goal Zero, company executives said on Thursday.
Goal Zero makes solar-charged battery packs that can fit in a handbag and mobile generators that could run the main components of a home. The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, is one of several changes at NRG aimed at repositioning itself in a fast-moving utility market, said David Crane, its chief executive.
“It allows us to expand the opportunity of solar,” he said of Goal Zero in a telephone interview. “Our ultimate goal is to energize people wherever they are.”
Toward that end, Mr. Crane recently announced that he was reorganizing the company into three main units, a shift that comes as the electric power industry is contending with the spread of so-called distributed generation, like rooftop solar, and smart appliances, like Nest, both of which offer customers greater control over their energy.
NRG Business will comprise its conventional wholesale energy enterprises, including coal, nuclear and gas power plants. NRG Renew will focus on developing renewable energy sources — including large-scale wind and solar farms and microgrids — for commercial customers like businesses or governments.
The third, NRG Home, will focus on residential customers, offering solar and home energy products and services. Already, NRG has acquired Roof Diagnostics, a fast-growing residential solar installation company based in New Jersey, and the retail electricity business of Dominion Resources. Goal Zero will fit into that division.
Executives and analysts say that the electric market, traditionally dominated by large companies like Duke Energy, is increasingly up for grabs.
“In this environment, utilities have to change their business model and become more customer-oriented or actually get into distributed generation or microgrids themselves,” said Aditya Ranade, who leads green building analysis at Lux Research. “Competitors like Duke have so far stayed away because it’s too far out of their comfort zone. That has left that field open to smaller, more nimble competitors like NRG.”
But NRG will have other competitors to worry about as it develops its residential division, which Mr. Crane said could eventually eclipse selling power to utilities at the nearly $10 billion company.
Others are already moving aggressively to stake a claim in the market, including information, communications and computing giants like Google, Honeywell, Apple, Comcast and Time Warner. And then there are companies like Vivint, a security firm in Utah that has a robust home automation business and may move ahead with an initial public offering of stock for its fast-growing solar installation division.
According to Strategy Analytics, a research and consulting firm, spending on smart home systems and services will reach $18 billion in the United States this year and more than double to $39 billion in five years, with security companies like Vivint and ADT — which currently have more than 800,000 residential customers each — driving that growth.
“I don’t see the energy companies driving mass adoption, and the reasons are that they are very tied to their traditional business models and some are heavily regulated,” said Bill Ablondi, who directs the smart home strategies advisory service. Rather, he said, with few exceptions, it would be companies like Comcast and AT&T that had an “ongoing relationship with a wide swath of customers” that would be better able to use those relationships to offer new services.
Still, Mr. Crane suggested that NRG was just beginning to build its energy services business. For example, he said that NRG could expand Goal Zero’s technology to other applications — even in places as unlikely as a ski gondola.
Ocean Yuan, the president and founder of Grape Solar, a company based in Oregon that markets stationary and portable equipment, said the deal could help demystify solar energy for consumers by giving them products that relate to their everyday lives.
“Goal Zero really have done a great job in terms of consumer-friendly solar with portable chargers,” he said. But he cautioned that the company, which uses Chinese-made panels, could face higher costs as the Commerce Department reconsiders steep duties on Chinese solar products.