Europe’s largest companies consume a lot of electricity. But, could they be getting all their power from renewable energy sources? There’s a startup who believes that's the future.
What’s happening:
- Copenhagen based energy technology startup Reel has raised €5M in a new seed round
- The round was led by Transition with participation from UVC Partners, The Footprint Firm and others
The big idea:
- Reel is aiming to change how large companies do their power purchase agreements by accelerating their transition to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar
- Reel is able to quickly analyze the power consumption of any company through their data platform and determine exactly how much electricity they need
- Once Reel has identified the collective power consumption required, they are able to contract a developer to build out small solar or wind farms in order to directly supply the company with carbon free electricity
- Reel then guarantees fixed pricing for that electricity over multiple years in order to provide a transparent and reliable solution to integrating renewable energy
Why it matters:
- Electricity is the largest source of carbon emissions that exists and finding sustainable ways to adopt renewable energy sources could unlock enormous benefit for the climate
- Many large companies are looking to find ways to reduce their carbon emissions but have not found a way to secure reliable renewable energy
By the numbers:
- Approximately only 1% of large companies have a supply of low carbon electricity
- Carbon emissions are expected to increase by 2x within the decade without new climate technology and innovation
Going deeper:
- Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) was an early investor in Seattle based renewable energy company LevelTen who has built a technology platform that enables large companies to adopt renewable energy sources by quickly comparing various power purchase agreements from solar energy and wind farms
- Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has entered into multiple power purchase agreements with renewable energy companies, including their notable partnership with leading Seoul based solar company QCells
