Could the power company start selling electricity the same way Amazon sells e-books? Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, thinks they could.

Katie Fehrenbacher, writing for www.earth2tech.com, explains:

It sounds like the idea would be to sell an energy efficient device (like a smart fridge) via a utility and then sell discounted services or even electricity bundled into that device. The idea conjures up images of the utility as part retailer, part energy management provider, and at the end of the day owning the relationship with the customer.

As Fehrenbacher points out, such a change would be a long time coming, and faces many challenges beyond the regulation changes that would be needed. Many utilities may even decide selling low-energy appliances is not in their best interest. Still, it seems an interesting inversion of the typical appliance/building system business model.