Utility-in-a- box software platform connecting local electricity producers and consumers to foster Collaborative Energy Ecosystems

Project Information

COLLABORATRICITY

Grant agreement ID: 775445

DOI

10.3030/775445

Project closed

EC signature date 15 May 2017

Start date 1 May 2017

End date 31 August 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

LUMENAZA GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COLLABORATRICITY (Utility-in-a- box software platform connecting local electricity producers and consumers to foster Collaborative Energy Ecosystems)

Reporting period: 2017-05-01 to 2017-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Traditional centralized systems present important drawbacks: 1) network costs represent 27% of end-consumer’s energy bill and have a great impact on the environment and, 2) the 7% of the energy is lost through transmission. Microgeneration sort out the problem, however, the current system forces small producers to sell through the national grid and only can be affordable through Government’s subsidies (FIT). Collaboratricity, a software marketplace platform that connects small local producers with consumers in the same region, sorts out the problem delivering benefits and sustainability to all players. In this context, Lumenaza´s objective is to create 60 communities of green energy producers across Europe by 2022 and, firstly, to assess the opportunity and the following steps to be done.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

A Feasibility Study focused on the identification of target market countries and technical challenges was prepared, confirming the feasibility of Collaboratricity. From the technical viewpoint, our software needs to be adapted as communication between electricity grid and users works under different protocols in each country. Regulatory environment in Europe and key technical barriers were reviewed and a Freedom to Operate analysis was performed, confirming FTO in Europe. In order to define our regional penetration strategy electricity market structure (production-consumption indicators, commercial environment) was reviewed, leading to the definition of our target countries. Besides, a realistic business case was built and the cost and revenue structure defined. Based on the cash-flow analysis, indicators such as breakeven, payback and ROI for different scenarios were estimated. Taking into account the outcome of the Feasibility Study, we decide to go ahead with Collaboratricity project. And, as a first step, applying to SME Instrument phase 2.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Collaboratricity brings together local producers and consumers of electricity as it allows: 1) to buy electricity from very small production plants, 2) to sell electricity to end users and 3) to manage balancing groups and to present production data in real time to the market participants. Thus, through a cutting edge utility-in-a-box-solution, we enable all sets of community and peer-to-peer approaches in the energy market as no other solution does.
Only for Germany, in 2022, we expect to reach almost 40MM€ revenues with a net margin of 15%. By this year, we will work with 60 utilities with around 200,000 customers.

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