Onwards and upwards!

By most accounts 2022 was a big year, if not a tumultuous one, for the energy transition.

According to the IEA, the world will have added more than 300 gigawatts of renewable capacity, representing an estimated 10% growth over newly installed renewable capacity in 2021. Weighing in at 8400 TWh, electricity generated by renewables is now equivalent to roughly 30% of electricity demand.

While these appear to be large numbers, the needle isn’t moving fast enough. Hard work, intense collaboration, and a deep sense of urgency are still required to abate emissions from our current annual rate of 50 gigatons (CO2e) to zero over the next two and a half decades. Despite all our progress, the conversion of fossil fuels into energy still represents the greatest driver of and contributor to climate change.

At Cleanwatts, 2022 was a year in which we brought to fruition our novel approach to launching and managing Renewable Energy Communities (RECs). We proved the viability and impact of our model at scale. In the process, we activated unprecedented demand for our locally sourced clean energy solution, more than doubled our team, and expanded our reach beyond Portugal into Italy, the US, Japan, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

We’re proud of having undertaken this expansion in partnership with Verdane, who we welcomed into our capital structure in June 2022. Closing our A round with Verdane was a deeply consequential win for Cleanwatts. Thanks to Verdane’s invaluable support, guidance, and encouragement, we’ve amplified and accelerated our customer engagement, while significantly upgrading how we operate as a company.

Looking ahead, we remain unwavering in our commitment to democratize access to clean energy. Local communities around the world are actively seeking support to play their part in the energy transition. I’m convinced that we have the right technologies, mindset, and value proposition to answer this call.

Decentralised networks: a defining characteristic of the transition

It’s no surprise that RECs rose to prominence in 2022. War, structural inefficiencies and macroeconomic forces caused energy prices to more than double for many, leaving more than 125 million people across Europe affected by energy poverty. The attraction for local communities to reclaim some level of control over their energy needs is understandable.

Yet despite palpable demand for RECs, important financial, regulatory, and technical barriers still stand in the way of local efforts. At Cleanwatts, we’ve made it our mission to simplify the transition by enabling communities to install clean energy capacity and other transition related assets at zero upfront cost, powered by Cleanwatts™ OS. We’ve created a pathway for any community to become a REC and for individual community members to:

·      Reduce their cost of energy;

·      Mitigate volatility in their energy prices;

·      Increase their level of energy security; and

·      Accelerate their rate of decarbonization

The market’s response to our offer has been nothing short of remarkable. Last year, we signed contracts to form more than 100 RECs across Portugal and we’re kicking off the year with a backlog of over 40MWp in aggregated solar capacity on top of our existing installed base. By the end of this year, we expect to dwarf these numbers, expanding our reach into Spain, Italy, and other countries across Europe, while establishing our presence in the US through the launch of microgrids.

Delivering the transition where it matters most

Reflecting on where we are today versus a few years ago, it’s uplifting to finally see legislators around the world paving the way for an accelerated transition on the demand side of the energy equation. In Europe, we’re encouraged by the growing list of Member States preparing to fully transpose the Renewable Energy Directive into national law.

We believe the acceptance of REPowerEU will also trigger a decisive move towards standardising and streamlining the administrative process of establishing RECs. In this regard, we will continue to engage regulators and policymakers across the region, sharing with them recommendations from our experience in building and managing communities as well as relevant data from our many international research projects.

In the meantime, citizens, enterprises, and municipalities are expressing a growing interest in either launching or joining an energy community and while infrastructure funds are eager to finance this piece of the transition, we've seen that neither party is equipped to address the many operational issues that arise in this space. Cleanwatts is uniquely positioned to bridge this gap thanks in part to our unique Operating System.

Cleanwatts™ OS digitally connects the dots between energy efficiency in behind the meter settings for each discrete community member, and energy optimisation in front of the meter environments at every level of a local community: from the management of generation and storage of locally sourced clean energy to shared consumption, trading, and aggregation of local energy loads for flexibility services, and wing-to-wing transaction management.

How we operate matters

As we embark on our biggest year yet, our ability to scale will come to nothing without strong values and good governance. In this respect, we invested a great deal of time in building a framework for growth and in defining a fresh set of values to keep everyone in the company both effective and aligned. How we deliver will be measured against: Integrity; Accountability; Responsiveness; Empathy; Initiative; and Resilience.

On a broader footing, we must also examine how our operations align with our wider goals. To this end, we'll be publishing our first annual Sustainability Report in 2023. I’m energised about holding myself and the rest of the organisation to account through this report and our core values in our exchanges with customers, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders.

In closing and reflecting on the scale and complexity of the energy transition, I recognise that the world probably needs an armada of enterprises like ours. By extending our services to more countries across the globe, building bridges between communities and infrastructure funds, championing energy reform and learning by doing, I'm convinced that we'll simplify, amplify, and accelerate the transition where it matters most. In this respect, I’m humbled to be here, with this team, in this company, confronting the challenges that lie ahead.

Best wishes to you all for a happy, healthy, and fulfilling 2023… onwards and upwards!