Amber Electric co-founder and co-chief executive officer Chris Thompson tells SmartCompany joining the group of businesses in supporting the strike was an “easy decision.” “It heavily aligns to what Amber is all about,” he says. “It was a 30-second decision.”

Australian tech companies Atlassian and Amber Electric are encouraging its workforce to take part in global climate strikes this month that will be held to coincide with the United Nations climate summit. Twenty companies, including Future Super and KeepCup are part of the alliance, which has called itself Not Business as Usual.

Emerging business models in energy retail are designed to help consumers save money, and in some scenarios even earn money from the devices in their homes – flipping the traditional electricity retail model on its head. The industry is approaching a tipping point. In deregulated markets like Australia utility companies are operating in a highly regulated market, facing increased competition from new challengers and empowered consumers who can switch providers easily online.

How can we make sure everyday consumers benefit from the radical changes that are taking place in our electricity grid? That was the fundamental question we started with when we founded Amber Electric. Increasing renewable penetration is coincident with increased intra-day volatility in market prices, and increased volumes of distributed energy assets is enabling customers to participate more in the market.

In the rapid shift to renewables on Australia’s grid, there has been a good deal of focus on what can be done in the wholesale electricity market to harness the power of demand response. That is, what can be done by rule makers and market operators to allow big energy users to to reduce their load when spot market prices go sky high, and be compensated for the service. But what about at the retail level?