Why flexibility and integration are defining the next decade in residential energy

As we approach the end of 2025, the direction of travel for residential energy is coming sharply into focus.

LCP Delta’s latest report, The Road Ahead: Residential Energy Value Pools (October 2025), delivers a clear message for all parties involved with shaping the energy transition: the residential energy market is vast, rapidly evolving, and full of opportunity but the rules for where and how value is created are changing fast.

Across Europe, more than €350 billion in annual revenues now flow through residential energy markets, but profits are shifting dramatically. Traditional energy retail continues to dominate in size, yet its margins are shrinking under regulatory pressure and intense competition. Meanwhile, new value pools within services, financing, and flexibility are emerging as the true growth engines of the coming decade.

Where is value moving?

As homes electrify, consumers are becoming producers, storers, and optimisers of energy. Rooftop solar, EV charging, battery storage, and heat pumps are transforming the customer relationship into a dynamic energy ecosystem.

According to LCP Delta, while traditional retail accounts for the lion’s share of today’s revenues, the fastest growth is happening in flexibility, the ability to shift or shape energy consumption to benefit both customers and the grid. Though still a small market, less than €1 billion today, flexibility is on track to expand exponentially as connected home assets proliferate.

This shift is more than technological; it’s structural. As the report notes, “the battle is now to secure customers and share value in a sustainable way.” In other words, scale, trust, and platform capability will determine the winners.

Image: LCP Delta; The Road Ahead: Residential Energy Value Pools (October 2025)

Integration is the new advantage

One of the report’s strongest findings is that integration across value pools delivers the most resilient and profitable business models. Companies that combine multiple elements such as retail, installation, finance, and flexibility, outperform those focused on a single stream.

These integrated players can ride out volatility in one area by leveraging stability in another, while offering seamless, customer-centric solutions. Integration enhances lifetime value, reduces cost-to-serve, and builds long-term loyalty.

At Joulen, this principle is core to our value proposition. We have developed the technology that enables our partners across energy retail, installers and OEMs to connect, orchestrate, and optimise across the full residential energy ecosystem. From data insight to asset control and market trading, we provide the connective layer, driven by our AI platform PARIS. We aim to create aggregated, intelligent, value-generating systems that benefit our partners and end users alike.

The rise of the “Picks and Shovels” providers

LCP Delta also highlights a major trend that mirrors Joulen’s core business in that the rise of software-as-a-service enablers that power the energy transition are key players albeit behind the scenes.

These “picks and shovels” SaaS providers offering flexibility trading, compliance management, and operational automation benefit from recurring, less volatile revenue models while enabling others to deliver customer-facing propositions.

This reflects where Joulen operates as a partner enabler. Our technology equips energy supply, retail and renewable providers with an out-of-the-box, white label solution that will deliver speed and scale for new customer propositions. Our message is simple; buy don’t build. We have the complete toolkit and a market-ready solution that will unlock new revenue opportunities and underpin long-term business growth for our partners – and we’re thrilled to be recognised in LCP Delta’s report as a successful player in the flexibility space.

Image: LCP Delta, The Road Ahead: Residential Energy Value Pools (October 2025)

The intelligence layer for the energy transition

In many ways, The Road Ahead underscores the need for an intelligence layer across residential energy systems. Hardware, retail and flexibility each generate immense value but that value can only be realised when these components are connected, optimised, and responsive.

And that is a key space that Joulen occupies.

We bring together the critical elements identified in LCP Delta’s analysis:

• Integration across value pools, enabling new business models and cross-selling opportunities.
• Flexibility at scale, turning distributed assets into grid resources.
• SaaS enablement, providing a market ready, white label solution
• Customer-centric intelligence, ensuring every decision enhances both value and experience.

The future of residential energy is not just electrified, it’s orchestrated. And that orchestration will define who captures the next wave of growth.

Image: LCP Delta, The Road Ahead: Residential Energy Value Pools (October 2025)

Looking ahead

LCP Delta’s research confirms what innovators across the sector already feel, the residential energy transition is entering its most dynamic decade yet.

The winners will be those who can bridge the gap between hardware and intelligence, between customer experience and system value.

At Joulen, we’re building the technology to make that possible empowering energy providers and renewable partners and innovators to transform data into decisions, assets into opportunities, and homes into active participants in the clean energy future. Find out more about our PARIS platform or get in touch with our team to explore the possibilities for your business.

View and download the full report from LCP Delta