The Competitive Landscape — How the Green Power Exchange Plans to Succeed in the Face of Established ICO Power Companies
The Green Power Exchange has developed an elegant solution to power purchase, trading, and asset development based on the teams’ extensive knowledge of the renewable power industry.
There is a Large Price Delta Between What Consumers Pay and what Producers Receive
Renewable power cost has declined markedly in the past 5 years, notably PV solar electricity production. The falling cost is driven primarily by a declining component cost, higher solar panel density and output, and more efficient technology, such as single or dual-axis tracker technology now widely used in solar projects, increasing irradiation yield and maximizing the plant output. In parallel, conventional energy types, such as natural gas and oil, have intensive early-capital requirements for development, and require significant transmission system upgrades, such as high interconnection costs and the necessity to connect to high-voltage (as opposed to distribution level) lines alongside costly operations and maintenance requirements for their lifetime. Most importantly, however, they significant input costs. The sun and wind come at no charge. This has allowed for solar Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to drop to as low as $0.03–0.05 per kWh ($30–50 per MWh) in many parts of North American and Europe, while consumers pay in the range of $0.05 to $0.25 per kWh ($50–250 per MWh).
The cost savings are not being transmitted to consumers, instead being absorbed by the utilities that are currently buying and marking up the power. direct PPAs are possible in many market frameworks, but they are difficult to negotiate and rigid in their implementation, blocking many individual consumers from potential cost savings.
Blockchain Based Power trading has been Proven to Work
The Brooklyn Microgrid project has already aptly demonstrated that energy trading can be accomplished using a blockchain as the underlying tech. the project aims to allow individuals to sell excess kWh produced from their rooftop arrays to their neighbors for a discount. Thus far the method seems highly effective at allowing prosumers to maximize the production capacity of their installations.
Other Methods don’t Match the Larger Market Sentiment
The ability to sell excess generated power certainly has utility in todays marketplace, however most individuals would rather just pay their power bill and not have to actively manage every kWh they consume. The ability to enter an auction and buy cheap power is simply not possible with the microgrid method, and only works when consumers are incredibly active with their power management.
GPX is Well Positioned to Meet Market Needs
We understand we are not the first, nor the last, to attempt to solve a trillion-dollar problem. However, we feel very strongly about our market position and the regions we have initially focused on, and the first-mover advantage we believe we will enjoy. While other companies focus on excess kilowatt hour sales between individuals, we have developed a solution that gets more industrial and commercial green power built. While countries with smaller power consumption profiles may be easier to access, particularly when local relationships exist, we prefer to focus on the major ones. In our experience, we find large power markets more transparent and innovation solution implementation less relationship-based as compared to smaller markets. We also believe that the dominant technologies and platforms in the major markets tend to get adopted in smaller markets, not the other way around. Additionally, we already have access to significant assets, operations and an elaborate network in North America and Western Europe. 62 projects spanning 9 states and 7 countries, in various states of development, representing 660 MW of power capacity have committed to posting their entire production capacity on our platform. Finally, we know and understand a good portion of the stakeholders, political dynamics, and structures, which play an important role in the energy business. All of these factors will contribute to a much faster and more comprehensive roll-out of the GPX platform and ensure continued success for the technology.
