An Australian cleantech company behind technology that connects multiple flats to a single rooftop solar system has secured £4m investment to grow its presence in the UK.
E.ON UK has signed a strategic agreement to invest in Allume Energy, a scale-up business established in Melbourne, Australian, in 2015.
Allume’s SolShare technology is said to enable solar energy from a single rooftop solar system to be shared fairly across multiple homes in the same building. The technology is said to be the first in the world able to do this.
E.ON’s strategic investment is intended to help Allume grow its presence in the UK, while contributing to E.ON’s aim to deliver the transition to clean energy.
Chris Norbury, chief executive of E.ON UK, said: “Our investment in Allume is another important step towards making the transition to clean energy more inclusive. More than a fifth of British homes – five million – are low and medium rise apartment buildings with rooftop space for solar panels, but no way of directly benefiting until now.
“And with about one in six people currently living in social housing we see an enormous opportunity to help people to lower their energy bills and reduce their carbon emissions, making solar more useful and affordable for the many, not the few.”
Historically, apartment residents have not been able to access the energy generated by the solar panels on their buildings. Allume’s technology overcomes this problem by enabling the fair sharing of solar energy from a single rooftop solar PV system. SolShare delivers each resident’s solar allocation when they’re using energy, allowing households to benefit from lower bills.
Local power
SolShare delivers the energy directly to each household within the building, ensuring all residents get a fair share by a predetermined allocation. This is done ‘behind the meter’ – where energy is generated and consumed in the same place – meaning residents maintain their choice of energy provider and no external changes are needed by suppliers or network providers.
In many large apartment complexes, solar energy powers just the common areas while tenants still foot their full electricity bill. SolShare’s algorithm is said to ensure solar energy consumption is maximised on site before any energy is fed back to the grid.
Cameron Knox, Allume’s chief executive, said: “People living in flats experience the highest fuel poverty rates in the UK, yet have historically been locked out of rooftop solar due to technical and ownership considerations. SolShare enables them to access free, clean energy from the sun.
“Working with E.ON UK offers a transformational opportunity for Allume to scale our existing offerings and create new models across Europe, where 300 million people live in low and medium rise apartment buildings.”
A shared rooftop solar system can deliver between a 30% and 60% reduction in energy bills, a smaller carbon footprint, and give people greater control over their energy use, Allume claims.
To date, the company has installed its SolShare system on over 6,000 homes worldwide, generating and sharing over 14 gigawatt-hours of green electricity to between connected homes.
More than half of Allume UK’s projects buildings are with social housing providers, as SolShare is regarded as one of the most cost-efficient methods of retrofitting ageing building stock and upgrading energy efficiency standards.
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