Courtesy of Yahoo! Finance, a look at several new startups are about to revolutionize the sharing economy :
The Airbnb of energy, the Uber of zero-carbon transportation, the VRBO of blockchain electricity-sharing… a collection of new startups are about to revolutionize the sharing economy – and smart money is starting to pay attention.
The sharing economy has become an unstoppable force–and the collaborative, peer-to-peer economy has grown from a curious fad into the trend-to-beat-all-trends over the past decade.
Popularized by ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft; home-rental companies like Airbnb and HomeAway; and crowdfunding apps like Kickstarter and Fundablem, this economy has transformed into one of the fastest-growing business trends in history.
McKinsey now estimates that 162 million people or 20-30% of the workforce in the U.S. and Europe alone are providers on sharing platforms.
The latest startups making huge waves and threatening to disrupt sharing as we know it include a Slovak outfit that is fashioning itself as the Airbnb of clean energy …
A Canadian startup that meets the widespread demand for a green ride-sharing solution by giving consumers a choice of vehicle and by contributing to planting a tree for every ride ..
And an Australian peer-to-peer energy trading platform that is storming the renewable energy halls of Silicon Valley.
All three combine the best of IT with the biggest of trends: sharing and environmentally responsible investing.
Meet the three startups rewriting all the rules:
…#1 Fuergy
Slovak startup Fuergy plans to turn household renewable energy-sharing into a reality.
One of the latest is a Slovakian startup that is now fashioning itself as the Airbnb of clean energy, with a mission to turn household renewable energy sharing into a reality.
Using the Fuergy platform, home users who generate surplus solar or wind power can sell it directly to other members in their community instead of the usual model of feeding it to the grid.
This way, the consumer bypasses high processing fees thus allowing them to earn more from their renewables. Meanwhile, the buyers are able to purchase the shared energy at cheaper rates than buying it from the main grid–a classic win-win for both the seller and the buyer.
Obviously, sharing something as unpredictable as solar and wind power can be a really tough call and nothing like sharing an Airbnb. After all, the system should be able to accurately predict power generation and user consumption at any given time of the day so as to only buy what’s necessary or sell what is surplus to requirements.
This is where Fuergy’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform comes into the equation.
Fuergy optimizes energy consumption by using its ability to connect with IoT (Internet of Things) devices, including a diverse range of home appliances including heat pumps and washing machines.
By connecting to the IoT, Fuergy is also able to schedule energy consumption to times when energy is cheaper, or even store it in the form of heat or cold. By using a weather forecasting system and consumer habits analysis, the system is able to, for example, adjust heating settings so that no energy is wasted for heating an empty house at the beginning of a sunny day. Based on these inputs and parameters, the AI system is also able to evaluate the amount of energy it can sell or purchase to ensure a trouble-free operation of the delivery point.
As Branislav Safarik, COO at Fuergy, has told Observer:
“Green energy is highly weather-dependent, and therefore, it is very hard to predict how much energy they will produce throughout the day. So, first of all, we need to get the renewables under control. This can be done with the help of batteries or other kinds of energy storage. We can store the green energy and use it when needed. This must be done at the level of energy supplier.”
The open, distributed and dynamic energy model that Fuergy is building will probably be an easy sell because of one key attraction: significantly lower energy costs.
Fuergy’s pilot project for businesses has already realized 50% lower energy costs. …
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….Power Ledger is based out of Australia and functions as a peer-to-peer energy-trading platform and the first ever carbon credit project of its kind.
Imagine, as a household, being able to monetize your renewable energy investment while simultaneously providing your community with cheaper energy via the blockchain–all thanks to an innovative peer-to-peer platform.
The bigger this gets, the more likely it will be to disrupt the energy sector by helping to make renewable energy more affordable and attractive.
It’s been making waves around the world, and now it will be hitting up California in partnership with Silicon Valley Power and the Clean Energy Block Chain Network.
That partnership will create a digital record of Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) transactions. For anyone not familiar with carbon credits–it’s a complicated and cumbersome process that was just waiting for someone to come along with a better way of tracking renewable energy use and offsets–and hopefully, a better algorithm, which is exactly what Power Ledger offers.
Power Ledger tracks energy production, storage and use with full-on transparency, and Silicon Valley is by no means its first carbon credit rodeo.
They’ve also been busy in Japan, in partnership with the Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) for a renewable energy sharing project, and back in Australia, they’ve been working on micro-grid projects, hitting up Southeast Asia and New Zealand inbetween. They also just won a contract with an Italian energy giant that sets the stage for what’s to come next …
So whether it’s Uber–only better, or energy we can buy, sell and lease like an Airbnb, or a novel AI-inspired way to make carbon credits actually makes sense … These startups have one thing in common: They watched all the sharing giants on their foundation-laying spending sprees, and then they focused on what was missing. What comes next? These are the innovations driving the disruption….”
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