I Our Business Strategy
Enova’s strategy is to become a retailer that supports and enables decentralised and distributed renewable energy solutions for communities across Australia while assisting them to reduce carbon emissions. We will achieve this by replicating the business model we are successfully deploying in the Northern Rivers region to reach like-minded communities and individuals across the National Electricity Market where our license applies, and by collaborating with an ecosystem of community, government and business partners who share our vision.
Traditionally the electricity market looks like this: polluting coal fired power stations generate energy which is transmitted long distances across poles and wires that lead to homes and businesses.
Australia’s Old and Broken Energy Model
Because of the distances and wasteful old-fashioned technologies involved, Australia has very high greenhouse emissions and the model is expensive. Storms and heat waves have been shutting down our coal-fired generators making the model break during critical times of need.
This old, broken model is not affordable[1], not sustainable[2] and not reliable[3].
There’s great news: a new model dawns which puts people at the heart of our clean energy future. Because the cost of renewable energy has been declining at the same time as community support for renewables has been rising, a new model is now available that turns the old polluting arrangements upside down, and places consumers in control of energy supply and demand.
Enova’s New Community- & Consumer-Led Energy Model
Enova’s people are not just interested in our stake in the renewables revolution: this is why we are pioneering a transition in Australia’s energy model with a key community component.
We believe that by reclaiming control of energy generation and retail, communities can build social capital, ensure an equitable renewables transition, and forge a pathway towards a cleaner environment for all. We are losing confidence in the ability of our democracy to deliver these outcomes, so we want to take control of our destiny through social enterprise.
Customer growth and partnership plans
Enova is poised to scale into more communities, firmly setting our gaze on bringing our Northern Rivers start-up model into profitability and spreading our impact more widely. Enova’s Directors and staff are taking strategic steps to customer growth by building partnerships which require additional capital investment.
The growth rate shown below assumes 2,000 new customers will result from the investors in this crowdfunding offer. The proceeds of this CSF capital raising will be invested in marketing, sales and working capital to support this plan as outlined in Section 3.2 of the Offer Document.
Enova Community Energy Customer Projections
Directors believe Enova’s customer growth plans are realistic because our entry into the Sydney market opens the Enova model to dynamic networks of like-minded customers who are also shareholders. Here are some of our champions.
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Partnerships
Because the retail market is changing rapidly and dramatically, it is vital that Enova position itself to participate in digital developments and be able to support and extend decentralised electricity service.
Enova is developing two strategic partnership clusters to stake our claim to a dynamic new energy retail market.
- Partnerships to empower Enova “Prosumers”: The future of sustainable energy provision lies in building the capacity for “prosumers” – those who both produce and consume energy - to play a key role in distributed systems. This means we need software that enables the transfer of energy between those who produce more than they need and those who lack it. A range of partnership agreements are in place. We aim to prototype solutions in different pilot projects (e.g. embedded residential network, virtual power plant).
- Partnership to facilitate embedded microgrids: A microgrid is a small network of electricity users (homes, small businesses, schools) with a local source of supply that is usually attached to a centralised national grid but may be able to function independently. Enova is in discussions with an embedded microgrid developer focusing on new and existing residential complexes, such as retirement villages. It plans a rapid roll-out in Southern Queensland. One or more prosumer technologies (above) would be deployed.
[1] “Energy prices are high because consumers are paying for useless, profit-boosting infrastructure”, The Conversation, 24 Oct 2017. See article here.
[2] “Australia ranks among the very low-performing countries in three of the CCPI’s categories–GHG emissions, energy use and climate policy–and among the low performers regarding renewable energy, which results in position 57 in the overall tableau”,Climate Change Performance Index 2018. Download report here.