Clean power company YLEM Energy is launching a peer-to-peer platform, as it branches out from its core business of managing onsite power generation for industrial customers. All on-site generation projects will be fully funded and managed by YLEM.
The firm says its new blockchain-enabled YLEM Energy Exchange will help businesses maximise revenues from power made on commercial roofs, by transferring onsite generation between sites, and leaving YLEM to sell excess power onto the National Grid at times of maximum value.
Ian Gadsby, a thirty-year veteran of the energy industry, heads YLEM. The name is used by physicists for the substance from which the universe’s first elements were formed, a primordial pure gas made only of electrons.
His Salford-based firm installs and manages solar PV on scores of commercial roofs across the UK.
The new YLEM Energy Xchange is designed to maximise revenues and cost-cutting from businesses’ roof and ground space. It opens up bill-cutting potential for clients, the firm says, managing the complexities of multi-site generation, and securing income when sites produce more electricity than an enterprise needs.
Excess power generated can be transferred between sites owned by a company, enabling the enterprise to maximise its consumption of renewables, and avoiding certain grid charges.
Alternatively, if the business is unable to use the extra power generated elsewhere, YLEM Energy will purchase the excess energy. This can further reduce the price businesses pay for their power, allowing them to enjoy even bigger savings on their energy bills.
A typical large warehouse with a 19,000 square meter roof has the potential, YLEM says, to make 2.9 MWh of clean energy every year. In a low demand sector like warehousing, that can be ten times the immediate onsite demand. So the potential income from trading a site’s excess power is being wasted.
Producing that amount of energy and enabling YLEM Energy to manage the excess would reduce onsite delivered energy bills to zero and save 310 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, according to the firm.
Gadsby said: “With electricity bills rising by over 66% in the twelve months to February 2023 and the drive to meet Net Zero, many businesses have been looking at ways to tackle both issues with one solution.”
“YLEM Energy Xchange allows businesses to tackle these issues head on. By generating clean, affordable energy on site, businesses can take control of their energy supply and know they are reducing their carbon footprint in the process.”
He added: “Alongside lower cost energy prices, YLEM Energy Xchange also reduces businesses reliance on the National Grid, reducing the high grid charges that would normally be levied by a traditional energy supplier.”
Using its blockchain technology the platform provides a full audit of trail of where, when and how the energy was produced, and when it was used, giving businesses full transparency about the renewable energy they are producing and using.
YLEM Energy says it is already in talks with 30 UK-based businesses about YLEM Energy, commanding a total generation potential of around 89MWp. More details here.
Correction: Our earlier report wrongly claimed YLEM’s exchange is bitcoin-enabled. We’re happy to correct that to ‘blockchain-enabled’.
