“Green electricity”: Online marketplace in Eastern Germany

04.02.2019 - Elblox and the enviaM Group, a leading regional energy services provider in Eastern Germany, have signed a cooperation agreement for the use of the green electricity trading platform Elblox. The online marketplace was developed by Axpo for trading environmentally-friendly power from regional renewable energy sources and will be available in Eastern Germany in the second half of 2019. Consumers can put together their own individual renewable power mix digitally via the Elblox platform, which is based on block chain technology. Regional operators of solar, wind, hydropower and biomass plants have the opportunity to sell their produced electricity directly to local end customers via this online marketplace.

As of 2021, subsidies for numerous renewable energy plants will expire in Germany. As a result, private and commercial producers, as well as project development companies will be forced to find buyers for the electricity produced in their plants in order to ensure long-term revenues when subsidies are discontinued.

The regional online marketplace for green electricity trading in Eastern Germany will be established by enviaM in collaboration with the Axpo spin-off Elblox and the implementation partner Conenergy. It will bring renewable energy power producers and consumers together for their mutual benefit. Consumers can select their power producer online with just a mouse click, providing them with clear proof of origin.

Such local sources can be, for example, the solar plant on the roof of a neighbour's barn or a wind turbine launched through a citizens' initiative. The producers and consumers do not have to be enviaM customers.

Dr Andreas Auerbach, Director of Sales at enviaM, explains the reasons for the cooperation: “We expect a great deal from our collaboration with Elblox. The online marketplace is equally interesting for both regional power producers and consumers. They can connect easily and carry out business transactions without any detours. With this platform, we are supporting regional trading with renewable energies and advancing the energy turnaround in Eastern Germany.”

Huge potential for additional business

As the largest producer of renewable energies in Switzerland and a leading European power trader and marketer of renewable energies, Axpo has put a strong focus on the digitalisation of its products and services. Elblox plays a decisive role here since the platform has the potential to become a leading provider of online marketplaces for personalised energy in Europe.

Yves Schönenberger, Elblox founder and CEO, comments: “After the successful initial roll-out of the platform in 2017, followed by the founding of the spin-off Elblox under Axpo's New Energies division, and the continuous development of our product in 2018, this cooperation with enviaM is the next major milestone for Elblox. It was always our intention to develop the product and our offering to cover larger geographical areas. We have been successful here with the conclusion of an agreement with enviaM.” The enviaM Group has over 1.3 million customers. About 2.3 million people live in the company's core supply area, which covers parts of Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

More functions, more information, more networking

In implementing the enviaM project, Elblox will use the latest version of the platform which now offers significantly more functions. New features include additional interfaces, a much higher degree of automation and the detailed display of the so-called producer, consumer and prosumer journey. Invoicing for the delivered power takes place on the platform. The customer account can map several cases simultaneously, for example information on household power consumption, charging time for electric vehicles or individual solar plant production volumes. The platform records all the data on production, consumption and contractual relationships between platform participants. The block chain ensures that information on production and marketing is documented for each plant. This makes it possible to clearly assign every produced kWh to a consumer – guaranteeing the certificate of origin, and giving green electricity a face.