Alan Chang says Fuse Energy's full-stack model lets it switch off its own solar sites when power prices go negative, earning money twice.
Chang says Fuse finished its first solar site with about 30 percent less capital expenditure per megawatt peak than the market can build.
Chang says Fuse has already more than doubled the 50,000 customers and roughly 90m in annual recurring revenue it previously published, mostly from residential accounts.
Fuse Energy bets full integration makes energy cheaper and customers happier
Fuse Energy is betting that energy needs to be run as one integrated business, from building power plants to selling electricity to households. Chang argues that energy and AI are the defining problems of the next 25 years, and AI demand pushes prices up. Owning both generation and retail lets Fuse capture value others lose, such as during negative-price weekends, and cut build costs. He pairs that with a consumer-company discipline of fast shipping and heavy customer focus learned at Revolut.
Takeaways
Full integration is the structural fix for energy. Chang sees energy as a fragmented value chain with inefficiency at every step. Fuse spans generation, electrical chemicals and retail, aiming to be a modern energy major, because owning the whole chain is the only way to remove those inefficiencies.
Owning generation and retail lets Fuse earn twice. When weekend wind and solar output meets low demand, prices go negative. Most solar operators keep running or lose revenue. Fuse remotely switches off its own site, and its retail customers keep consuming, so it earns on both sides.
In-house building cut solar capex by about 30 percent. A typical plant involves a developer, a buyer such as a fund or energy company, and an EPC contractor, each adding cost and constraints. Fuse does all of it itself, and its first solar site cost about 30 percent less per megawatt peak.
Fuse claims large margin and customer savings advantages. Two years after launch, Chang says Fuse has eight times better margins than competitors, and the average customer typically saves 200 pounds a year or more. Earlier published figures of 50,000 customers and about 90m ARR have more than doubled.
Fuse is hiring engineers to build anything. Many project engineers came from SpaceX, Tesla and Boeing. Chang wants a build anything team that starts with solar and eventually builds nuclear. Fuse hires wherever engineers are, mainly in Europe and the US, with time zones as the main constraint.
Consumer focus comes first, with business customers later. Customers are mostly residential because business acquisition costs far more, and a consumer brand should lower those costs later. Chang says he has done little marketing so far and focused on product and scalability.
Revolut shaped Fuse's customer-obsessed, fast operating style. Chang reads every negative review and complaint, and Fuse ships over 10 product releases a day. It claims to be the only energy company with round-the-clock support every day of the year, and makes same-day or next-day job offers.
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