At SOLshare we came up with a way for people turn their excess solar electricity into money with zero hassle. On top of that, they can purchase more power on the go whenever they want. The flipside being they get to invest in more power generation and trade it off for a handsome return with minimal risk. This led us to install the world's first cyber-physical peer-to-peer (P2P) solar sharing grids, and this of all places in remote areas of Bangladesh. The innovation driver here was the acute energy poverty problem at the base of the pyramid.
Leveraging a base of over 4.5 million solar home systems (SHS) in Bangladesh, SOLshare, representing the AirBnB of the energy access world, has been developing the principle on how solar energy can be traded with the help of IoT devices. Rural villagers are turned into prosumers sharing their (excess) power. This modular infrastructural approach allows grids to grow dynamically while ownership of, and the assets themselves are distributed. We believe that the solar smart peer to peer (P2P) grids we are building in Bangladesh will be the future for utilities globally. For this, the World Economic Forum announced us as a part of their 2018 cohort of the most innovative start-ups in the world.SOLshare is convinced that its development of P2P solar trading grids is a key puzzle piece in the future energy world fueled by the 4 D’s: Decarbonisation, Decentralisation, Democratisation, and Digitisation.
SOLshare is working to create resilient energy infrastructures that can cope with extreme changes in climate conditions as found in Bangladesh. The organization currently has 17 operational micro-grids within 8 districts in the north, south and eastern regions of Bangladesh, and has already started first installations in Assam (India). Within these there are 1,750 beneficiaries using SOLboxes. Small businesses with SHS have become prosumers and producers where they sell solar power at an affordable rate allowing other small businesses to have power for some time after sun down increasing the economic returns of both parties.
SOLshare is the first organization of its kind. The rationale behind the SOLshare’s work was to create a bottom up change. The formation of microgrids has the potential to create real infrastructural change to the energy sector of Bangladesh while at the same time providing affordable energy to those without energy access. This innovative business model can ultimately create a larger uptake of renewables within Bangladesh and be applied globally to positively impact the future of energy. We believe that our work speaks for itself as several organizations have come forward on their own to work with us and invest in our work. Part of SOLshare's work has been to create an innovative and sustainable business model which can be applied anywhere in the world.SOLshare strongly believes that P2P grids represent the future of utilities globally, and the time of top down planned energy generation at locations where energy is not needed is a phenomenon of the past.
SOLshare’s microgrids have the potential to ultimately feed energy back when connected to the national grid, taking Bangladesh towards its goal of becoming energy independent. The technology has potential global applications and SOLshare will very soon be expanding to other countries in the South Asian as well as Sub Saharan African continent. Promoting clean energy technology for a sustainable future is our target for which SOLshare has won numerous awards.
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