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UK’s first P2P renewable energy trading platform launches

Renewables trading platform Piclo has launched this week with Cornwall’s Eden Project botanical gardens as one of its first customers.

The UK’s first peer-to-peer energy platform is a collaboration between cleantech innovator Open Utility and renewable supplier Good Energy, designed to create a marketplace for generators and buyers of renewables.

Hydro, solar and wind generation sites from across England, Scotland, Wales have already signed up, including a number of National Trust properties.

Piclo, which is launching as a six-month trial, takes in price and preference information and then matches demand with supply every half an hour of the day.

To ensure that the marketplace balances out, Good Energy will buy up any surplus energy generated and provide top-ups from its own network when supply is short.

“The sharing economy and peer-to-peer business models are disrupting every sector,” James Johnston, Open Utility CEO and Bethnal Green Ventures alumnus, told Tech City News.
“Mixed with the rapid rise of renewables and decentralisation of energy generation – the energy sector is on the edge of transformation. The incumbent ‘big six’ energy companies in the UK currently don’t get it – the future of energy will not be about middleman utilities – it will be about placing consumers at the heart of the process.”
Check out the piece Johnston penned for Tech City News in June about London’s potential as a cleantech hub.