From my experience (I work in this industry) the biggest driver is definitely billing, but not quite what you picked out. What providers really want is to move

From my experience (I work in this industry) the biggest driver is definitely billing, but not quite what you picked out. What providers really want is to move to tiered and time-of-use pricing across the entire grid. Most utilities already do this with the various commercial tariffs, but that only accounts for about 40% of the total grid. All of us, in the near future, will be paying rates that vary by how much we use AND (more critically) WHEN we use it. It's not really something to fear, for a lot of people this is going to mean lower utility bills in general. For the folks running swimming pools and the like, things are probably going to get a bit more expensive. This is a great place for startups, btw. There are a lot of interesting opportunities around helping people make sense of the changing landscape surrounding utility billing.