Slovenia — a trendsetter in the sustainable digital transformation
Renewable energy in Slovenia provided 32.6% of the electricity generation in 2019 [1]. Most of the renewable energy is produced by hydropower. Only around 2% of the electricity generation is achieved by solar energy and the wind energy sector is almost nonexistent. Recently, Slovenia is experiencing a solar power boom enabled through decreasing prices of PV components, facilitating government policies and reduction of administrative barriers. An increase of 233% of installed PV systems compared to the previous year could be registered in 2019 [2].
The Slovenian government is eager to combine its advances in sustainable policies with digitalization and to take on a role as a pioneer in this sector. Therefore, they announced their ambition under the slogan:
“Slovenia, a green reference country in a digital Europe.”
The government aims to build systemic solutions at the national level in cooperation with innovative entrepreneurs and environmental specialists. The Slovenian government uses its opportunity as a small country with a population of only two million people to promote progressive steps towards a digital and green future which would be more difficult to trial in larger countries. It hopes to provide good practice examples that can be implemented in other countries in the future as well [3].
In Slovenian’s supportive environment for new and innovative business models, SunContract launched the world’s first energy trading platform that is available for public use in 2018. The startup’s vision is to enable its customers ‘to interact directly with one another, without a need for intermediaries, allowing them to become more sustainable and energy self-sufficient.’ SunContract wants to turn electricity into a commodity that people can easily sell and buy from different sources of their choosing.
SunContract offers appealing contracts to both consumers and producers which offer a pre-determined contract price for electricity and the option to participate in the P2P energy trading platform.
The contract price for consumers acts as a price ceiling. The customers will never have to pay more than this electricity price during their contract period. However, they have the option to accept offers by participating electricity producers on the platform that are lower than the contract price to reduce their electricity bills.
The contract selling price for producers acts as a minimum tariff. The producers are guaranteed to sell their surplus electricity for the pre-determined electricity price, but they have also the option to post offers higher than their contract price on the platform and sell their electricity to buyers directly to increase their profits. All transactions between customers are verified and executed by blockchain technology to remove intermediaries and ensure transparency in a cost-saving manner.
The customers can either act on the P2P energy trading themselves or they can activate a ‘Management service’ which will allow professional traders to make P2P deals on behalf of them. The ‘Management service’ can be used for free, but the trader and the producer/consumer split any achieved profit/saving as arranged beforehand. No fee has to be paid if the trader fails to achieve an advantage for the customer [4].
Additionally, customers can directly enter personal agreements with people they know, like friends, family, or neighbors. Producers, for example, could give their friends a discount or neighbors could support a local renewable energy project by buying its electricity for a price that they seem appropriate.
As for now, the platform already has more than 5,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Slovenia who have signed contracts worth over 2 million US dollars. Though, SunContract’s ambition does not stop at Slovenia’s border. Quite the contrary, the aspiring startup’s vision is to create a ‘Global Energy sharing & trading Marketplace’.
At the moment, SunContract is concentrating on Europe since the conditions of the liberalized energy markets in many European countries are favorable for their business model but they are also already looking for cooperation with Asian countries according to their CEO and co-founder Gregor Novak [5].
References:
[3] https://readie.eu/opinion/slovenia-a-green-reference-country-in-digital-europe/index.html
[4] https://medium.com/suncontract/dev-update-new-electricity-management-portal-7048656e0ecb
