Commercial Solar Windows – ClearVue Technologies

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Australian building material developer ClearVue Technologies have had some good news this week – with their commercial solar windows passing the Australian Standard AS 2047, thus preparing them to market the products across Australia.

Commercial Solar Windows

We’ve written about the ClearVue integrated clear glass solar panel before – they’ve had a successful IPO, have updated their technology a couple times, and seem to be ready to really get started selling commercial solar windows to Australia and the overseas market.

Clearvue’s BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic) offering the implementation of solar technology into frame-independent Insulated Glass Units which will house the ClearVue integrated clear glass solar panel. Using industry standard frames means their tech will be easy to offer to commercial buildings Australia-wide.

SmallCaps are reporting that ClearVue is separately undertaking AS 4284 certification-testing on its glass curtain wall product with results expected in August. In Europe, ClearVue has also started the process to receive CE Mark certification and allow its products to be sold in the EU. The results are expected to be received in August as well. Lastly, in America, ClearVue intends to commence US certification in the “next quarter” (Q4 2018).

Executive chairman Victor Rosenberg spoke about the accreditation and ClearVue’s plans for the future:

“The accreditation by the AWA of the ClearVue window product to AS 2047 represents a giant leap forward for the company. With this step, we have now moved from being a research company into a commercial operation and are now able to commercialise our product in the Australian market. We are on track with the business plan outlined in our Prospectus and look forward to being able to announce to the market similar certifications and accreditations shortly,” said Mr Rosenberg.

Green Power Solar Blockchain ICO

Posted on June 5, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Green Power Exchange (GPX) is a startup which is hoping to create a global platform for peer-to-peer renewable energy trading – with the goal of making renewable energy trading simple and convenient – resulting in a lower price because the energy is being sent directly from producer to consumer, cutting out the usual middlemen.

Green Power Exchange

GPX’s solution is to eliminate intermediaries and launch a simple, easy to use peer-to-peer platform to buy and sell renewable energy. The local distributor will still need to be paid for line rental, but apart from that this eschews the traditional energy supply chain which consists of 1) Generation, 2) Transmission, 3) Distribution and 4) Retail. Obviously all steps in the supply chain result in a higher cost per kilowatt so it’s great to see some options where someone can buy directly from the producer.

Crypto Reporting have done some research about Green Power Exchange, how it works, and how much you could save – offering up the example of a producer usually receiving $0.06 USD / kWh from a wholesaler or retailer while the end user is still paying around $0.20 USD / kWh. This is over 300% more than the producer receives – and as the energy goes from transmission to distribution to retail everybody adds on a clip. Not very efficient, and since the producer and end buyer are artificially separated like this, it’s difficult for them to meet and reach an agreement on a price. Enter GPX!

With direct trading, a cost per kWh could be $.1 USD which benefits both parties (the customer would still have to pay line rental to the local distributor which would be around $0.02). In this case the producer receives $.1 USD instead of $0.06 and the customer pays $0.12 instead of $0.20 per kWh.

For GPX to work, you’ll need a smart meter which will be checked and then energy distributed through smart purchase power agreements posted on the blockchain. Given that PPAs will have to differ depending on the jurisdiction, Green Power have set up standard templates for everywhere the platform operates. There’s also the option to upload your own PPA which will then be vetted by the team to ensure it conforms with their standards.

Christian Wentzel - Co-founder, Head of Energy - Green Power Exchange — Christian Wentzel – Co-founder, Head of Energy – Green Power Exchange (source: gpx.energy)

The Pre-ICO for Accredited Investors starts in 98 days as of 05.06.2018, so now’s a great time to start researching the company if it looks interesting to you.

Are you thinking about investing in Green Power Exchange? Have you got any thoughts on this sort of model for the electricity market? Please let us know in the comments!

WePower ICO – Fintech solution for green energy.

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Disclaimer: As of the date of publishing nobody at Saving with Solar currently has any investment in WePower but we are planning on joining the ICO.

At Saving with Solar we are extremely interested in the blockchain and how it can help solve issues for those generating solar power. Previously we’ve taken a look at Power Ledger (POWR) and today we’ll look at the upcoming ICO for WePower, which is a “blockchain-based green energy trading platform”.

WePower ICO

The project allows producers of renewable energy to raise capital by issuing ERC20 energy tokens, which represent energy they commit to produce and deliver. They have support from state power regulators in Lithiuania and electric power companies and will target Europe – Spain, Italy, Germany, Estonia, and others. Numerous solar power plants which produce over 1000MW have joined the project: Conquista Solar, Civitas Project and Novocorex.

Development of the project is divided into three stages:

WePower Breeze – market entrance – “challenging the way how energy investments and purchase are done today by creating the necessary technological layer for the change to happen’.
WePower Storm – growing the services and usability, and using smart contracts to aggregate and manage flows of renewable energy.
WePower Hurricane – the final step – a completely new decentralized energy utility.

ICO Start: 1 Feb 2018

ICO End: 15 Feb 2018

Hard cap: $35,000,000

Soft Cap: $5,000,000

Token: WPR, ERC20 standard

ICO Price: 1 ETH = 4000 WPR

Minimum investment: $200

Bonuses: 15% discount for early investors: before reaching the soft cap ($5 million) 4600 WPR will be deposited for 1 ETH.

Accepted currencies: ETH

If you’re interested in investing, click here to read the whitepaper they’re prepared ahead of the ICO. Although we believe in this project we in no way recommend investing in anything like this without doing your due diligence first. One negative, for example, is that there are already a number of projects in the sphere offering fintech solutions for green energy (e.g. Power Ledger). Another is that it hinges entirely on the progress of renewable energy. Obviously we’re bullish on that situation, to say the least, but many countries have a strong oil lobby and prices of oil have decreased recently. And, who knows, maybe a perpetual motion machine is just around the corner.

Kaspar Kaarlep, the CTO of WePower, has a video below where he discusses their vision for energy transformation in Europe and across the world:

ICORating have assigned a “Positive” rating to the project and recommend it for both short and long term investors – saying the WPR tokens can be “considered both as investments for long-term portfolios, and for the purpose of speculative earnings on the expectations of a successful platform launch and demand for tokens from the initial customers for tokenized energy”.

WePower ICO Whitepaper Rating — ICOrating.com gives WePower the
highest rate (source: WePower Newsletter)

View an introduction to the system by watching this video!

View a platform demo below:

If you have any questions, comments, or insight into this project we’d love to hear about it – please sound off in the comments and we can start a conversation about this exciting new technology.

New Energy Solar raising funds for IPO.

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Mike — No Comments ↓

American based sustainable investment fund New Energy Solar is hoping to raise up to $300m as they prepare to float on the ASX. Applications for the Retail Offer are expected to open this Friday – their prospectus and product disclosure statement was lodged with ASIC last Thursday and anyone looking to invest in the company should start doing their due diligence!

About New Energy Solar

New Energy Solar, established in 2015 and run by John Martin, is an unlisted investment fund that invests in large-scale, cashflow-positive solar power stations. According to the Australian Financial Review, they then sign fixed-price and escalating PPA (purchase power agreements) with customers which are generally for 13-15 years. After the PPA terms expire the plants can re-contract with their customers or sign a new contract with someone else.

The company website notes that they have already generated 189,000MWh of electricity in Q1 and Q2 of 2017 – this represents 105,000 tonnes of displaced CO2 emissions – equivalent to pulling 50,000 cars off the road and powering 44,500 homes.

New Energy Solar currently has four solar power stations on their books and they hope to use funds raised by the ASX IPO to buy more plants in the United States and also expand into buying solar plants in Australia.

Their current projects include:

North Carolina 43MW Project
North Carolina 47MW Project
Stanford 67.4MW Project
TID 67.4MW Project

A media release said that they are also in binding contracts to purchase 14 more American solar plants, with a total output of 130MW. This will bring New Energy Solar’s total holdings to “a diversified 345MW portfolio of large scale solar power plants underpinned by highly creditworthy off-takers and a weighted average PPA term of 16.4 years”.

John Martin, New Energy Solar CEO was quoted as saying “These high-quality projects and the proposed PPAs with creditworthy off-takers greatly increase our scale as an investor in solar and also enhance the diversity of our portfolio.”

The exact timing of the New Energy Solar IPO is as yet unknown and will depend on how successful it is in the opening stages – we’ll update this article with some progress as soon as we hear any more. It’s exciting to see more private solar investment in Australia and we’ll follow New Energy closely over the coming weeks and months.

Click here to view their website about the IPO and download the offer document.

New Energy Solar ASX IPO (source: newenergysolar.com.au)

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Commercial Solar Windows – ClearVue Technologies