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By Andy BoroughsAndy Boroughs is a pioneer in everysense of the word, relocating to theregion from London and settingup a niche business to pursue hispassion for renewable energy. Thoseearly steps – taken long beforemost had even heard of renewableenergy – have now been rewardedwith a successful business and,equally importantly, a widespreadknowledge of the sector.This leading expertise has led toinvitations to speak and share hispassion with many in education,charity and industry.SHADES OF GREENWhy your vote shouldgive you powerWhen you consider the value ofdemocracy to our society, energysupply is not one of the first thingsthat comes to mind. We tend to associatedemocracy with our system of politics(however well you think that is workingthese days . . .) and perhaps with freedomof the press and an independent judiciary.All of that is true and it’s very important.Democratising energy supply, though,could be just as important. We can’t livewithout power in this day and age, and wehave limited choices in where we get thatpower and how much we pay for it.The generation and distributionprocesses used to be nationalised, so youcould say we all had a stake in how it wasrun through the political process. Now it’smarket-driven and, argue as much as youlike about supply and demand controllingthat market, it’s hard to look at the energysector and not come to the conclusionthat it’s dysfunctional in many ways –and mainly against the interests of theindividual consumer.What is exciting now is thedevelopment of technologies that couldallow us to resume control of our ownenergy generation (and perhaps evensharing) destiny. Renewable solutions canbe built at the hyper-local scale. Biomassboiler installations, small hydro schemes,wind and solar power are all affordableand scaleable. Thanks to a new push byparish and town councils, they could alsopossibly be within easier reach soon.As things stand, parish and towncouncils are not legally allowed to sellelectricity. This is a quirk, because theycan sell other services (burial plots, villagehall hire, etc) and their larger counterparts,local authorities, can sell renewableelectricity following a law change in 2010.Whether through design or oversight,smaller councils were not includedin this so, now, through their umbrellaorganisations, parish councils are pressingfor this to be corrected. If that happens,the possibilities are quite exciting.As an organising body withexperience of statutory situations andwith a professional clerk to keep threadstogether, parish councils are well placedto enable small-scale generation projects.My own company, Organic Energy,supplies ready-made energy boxescontaining connected wood-pellet boilerswhich would drop easily behind many avillage hall or cricket pavilion and, withtheir choices of cladding, would neverhave to look out of place. Think of thoseroof spaces on the same buildings I’ve justmentioned which could be sporting solarpanels and exporting power back to thegrid, with proceeds going straight into theimmediate community.OutdatedOf course mention of ‘the grid’ raisesanother issue. Currently it’s illegal to directlysupply power to individual customers – ithas to go through the national network –but in these times that too seems outdatedand should be addressed.If that happens we’re all free to putour efforts into supporting schemes thatwould make us independent of the big,international power generators anddistributors. That’s renewable power, atpredictable costs we set, with a directbenefit for our immediate surroundingsand without the threat of price hikesbecause of conflict somewhere thousandsof miles away.That sounds like real choice to me –and freedom to choose is the heart ofdemocracy.MARK WAUGHKeep up or drop deadIf the internet has taught us one thing,it is that the world can change at abewildering pace. One disruptivetechnology after another has come alongin the last decade and caught no end ofpeople by surprise, including those whoseresponsibility it was not to get blindsided.Technologywon’t wait foryou . . . so beprepared toadapt nowEntire industries have been ravaged. Just ask the music mogulsand the newspaper barons. Even the mobile-phone companies,who should have been at the forefront of this disruption, failedto get their act together before the likes of PayPal, Skype andFacebook came along and basically made them little more thanthe dumb pipe that delivers the services of the hot newcomers.Many of these happenings are, from the perspective of theconsumer, often for the better. Incumbents can be slow, lazyand costly, whereas fleet-of-foot fresh arrivals are desperate toinnovate and often enter the market with a “freemium” modelthat has something for everyone.What you don’t want to be is the one caught napping – andyou don’t have to be a multinational for that to happen to you.The place to be is where your customers want you to be. In otherwords, the old way of doing things – whereby you tell customershow it is and they accept it – won’t stand for much longer.FrustrateIf I want to stand in your shop and checkyour inventory using an app or a mobilefriendlywebsite it’s going to frustrate meno end if I can’t. That’s pretty obviousnow, though many businesses are still along way off delivering successfully on thatfront.What’s next though? Well, how moneyis actually taken off people is almostcertainly going to change before youreyes and it’s going to happen in a matterof months now.It’s bad enough to put up a sign saying“cash only” and not have gone to thetrouble of ensuring you have propermerchant services, but woe betide youif by some point in 2015 you can’t takepayment by mobile.The banks themselves are a primeexample of a behemoth industry that hasnot kept up with what people want, butthey are being pushed in that directionnow, by demand, by competition and, insome cases, by legislation. Money is going to move ever moreeasily. It’s a bit clunky, but already you can tap your card and, insome instances, your phone to make a transaction.We’re not really talking about that now though. We’re talkingabout you giving your mobile number in a shop and seeing thetransaction come up on your handset to approve. You cantransfer even small amounts in an instant to friends and familyalready, so we’re all going to expect that from businesses wedeal with in very short order.A few examples have reared their heads for me in recent daysalone which struck me forcibly. As a consumer with increasingchoice and reach, I’m going to interact with product and serviceproviders who do things the way that suit me – whether they area coffee shop, a car-tyre centre or a lawyer.This is business on the ‘quick and the dead’ principle now. Be thequick.www.vistasupport.com50 51