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13 ISSUE 02 FEB/2019 LOIC HARES Chief executive and founder, Resilience Energy e latest entrepreneur to emerge in this market is Loic Hares, the founder of Resilience Energy. e firm aims to become the "Uber of the electricity industry" by giving customers the hardware, software and contracts they need to produce, store and sell renewable energy, and an app to monitor the system's performance. "Resilience aims to be the largest decentralised renewable energy generator – and cut the electricity bills of homeowners by up to 80 per cent," says Hares. Hares has already won the support of Virgin Start Up – which has agreed to provide Resilience with a loan – and has formed partnerships with BRE, where the system is being demonstrated, Plug-in Solar, GB-Sol, Powervault and aggregator Kiwi Power. Hares is seeking to sell his system through housing providers and constructors, energy suppliers, and electric vehicle and charge point manufacturers. e Resilience system will cost between £7,750 and £13,500, will have an eight-year payback and will return in the region of £6,000 over the system's lifetime, according to Hares, who has previously worked for big six suppliers and smaller energy retailers. Hares says: "Currently we have access to the firm frequency response market through our aggregator Kiwi Power and to the new generation tariffs announced by the government, which will be coming in to play soon. "We will be looking to add the ability to sell on the balancing market in the coming months. What is important to Resilience Energy is to maximise the savings to the customer. We've designed our platform to ensure that customer savings are prioritised – the value of the electricity generated by the customer will always be higher than the price at which it is sold back to the grid. is also ensures that our customers use the clean energy they generate, rather than it being sold back to the grid for a low price. "Grid services and selling power on the cashout market will be bonuses to the customer, not the driving force behind the solution. We pass on all income from the generation tariff and grid services to the customer. We just charge a £10 a month subscription cost for managing the system." JAMES JOHNSTON Chief executive and co-founder, Piclo Piclo is "essentially a match-making service for providers of flexibility", according to its co-founder James Johnston. e firm has developed a platform for flexibility trading, where owners and operators of batteries and renewable energy generation will be matched with requirements from distribution network operators (DNOs) who have congestion and constraints on their network that they would otherwise have to pay to reinforce, Johnston says. e six DNOs have signed up to its government- funded trial, along with more than 100 aggregator firms, suppliers and electric vehicle (EV) charging operators. is will be completed at the end of February 2019, after which the firm is hoping to provide its services on a commercial basis. e firm's website, picloflex.com, publicises all the locations where DNOs have flagged up that they need flexibility services. e types of assets that are being added to the platform range from residential battery systems and EV charging units, to industrial factories and mini power plants, and "everything in between", Johnston says. "We're completely agnostic in terms of technology that's added," he says. Piclo supports prosumers indirectly, by allowing the operators of their equipment to obtain a better price for the energy they generate. "For example, some energy suppliers can provide a battery as part of their offering, which then means they can give the consumer a lower tariff in return for controlling their battery. eir role is to get as much out of these assets for their customer as possible," he says. "Our strategy is very much to look at the low-hanging fruit for the industry towards the local market prosumer model. For us it's to provide the functionality to help the DNOs manage congestion by procuring services from providers who have technology such as batteries. is isn't the vision of the future energy market, but it's a first step," he says. e platform can help solve the problem of grid constraints that is blocking the connection of new distributed energy sources, but over time could support the concept of a local marketplace, he says. "It's very much a journey and not something that's going to happen overnight," he adds. e UK is leading the world in much of the technology development surrounding the prosumer model, Johnston believes. " e rest of the world is watching the UK and thinking that they need to do this too," he says. // e value of the electricity generated by the customer will always be higher than the price at which it is sold back to the grid // // Some energy suppliers can provide a battery as part of their offering, which then means they can give the consumer a lower tariff in return for controlling their battery // Solar panels installed Green energy generated flows to the battery Battery installed Storing electricity for use as required and sending to the grid App access enabled App monitors and controls the system, maximising homeowner savings E N E R G Y T E C H N O L O G Y E N T R E P R E N E U R S E N E R G Y T E C H N O L O G Y E N T R E P R E N E U R S